He's hung out the gone drinkin' sign, sir ...

Note to our users: Sager is travelling to the Ontario University Athletics' sports information directors' meeting, so posting might be light(er than usual) today.

Meantime, read Stephen Brunt's take on Jim Balsillie losing the court fight for the Phoenix Coyotes and wonder whether the NHL can get a Popemobile for Gary Bettman to use when he next visits Canada ... ponder how in the hell a labour union can support Quebecor's bid for the Montreal Canadiens when that company has locked out its employees at Montreal's biggest French-language paper ... cheer for Canada's junior men's basketball team, coached by Greg Francis of Toronto, winning a tournament in France last weekend even though Canadian hoops hostshots Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph were playing for the U.S. side (which everyone seems cool with) ... last but not least, you heard right, Brett Favre used the term "we" when talking about his potential role in the Minnesota Vikings: "They do have a great running back, a great running game. If I go there, there are no guarantees. We all know that. I went through that last year with New York. I think every player should think that he is a difference-maker. I think you have to believe that. But in that situation, understanding what is expected of you, knowing your team, knowing that as long as we can run the ball and complete passes when needed, we should be pretty good." May God have mercy on us all.

Brett Favre: Creating the Cliff Clavin rule

Brett Favre is scheduled to be a guest on the premiere of "Joe Buck Live" tonight. Thank god satire was already dead.

When an good old-fashioned newsman breaks out the "yes comma," usually it means you better take heed, brother:

"Yes, this is it: If Favre is willing to sign a contract with an option that will determine his pay based on how he performs and how much he plays, the Wilf family will go all out to add Favre to the team. The contract will not be guaranteed. It could have some good incentive clauses that will pay Favre well if he can perform like he did in 2007, when he led the Packers to a 13-3 record ..." — Sid Hartman

Who knows, really. Speaking personally, friends have asked, "How can you be a Minnesota Vikings fan and not care if whether or not they get Brett Favre?" The response, after first pointing out that saying whether or not is a redundancy (yes comma, it is a dick move to correct someone's grammar, but it's an easily corrected mistake), is to say there's a higher power involved. Besides, the Vikings all-world defensive end Jared Allen told KFAN in Minneapolis, "The thing is I honestly don't care" about Favre. Please keep in mind this is someone who plays for the damn team.

The higher power could be called the Cliff Clavin Rule (here's an explanation), which is as follows: If only three people know the answer to something and none of them have ever been in your kitchen, it's a good idea drink a glass of shut-the-hell-up.

There are exceptions for those who can lend some particular background to the story or comedy you can lend, like Sports Pickle did when it put out a satirical piece that the Vikings had set a deadline for current quarterbacks Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels to stop sucking. It all comes back to trying to be among the first people to find out something instead of the millionth and third to chew over the latest speculation about whether the Biceps Tendon Heard 'Round The World will be healed enough for Ol' Brett to be able to air it out when Percy Harvin is open deep after leaving some poor cornerback spinning like a top.

The other principle, which has some application to the Jim Balsillie/Phoenix Coyotes story, comes from the essay Neal Pollack wrote for Slate (dude, I know) several years ago, The Cult Of The General Manager: "Excuse me for wanting baseball highlights."

The Balsillie story is more newsworthy than any given game in one of the four big ball-and-stick leagues, which is more than can be said about Favre. However, it is best left to the people who can do the mental stickhandling through a labyrinth of legalese. From the sad-but-true files, sports stories which do not involve people doing something sweat-intensive sooner rather than later get dry up faster. However, Pollack conceded, "As deathly dull as a general manager's machinations may be, there's obviously an audience for it." The rub is that sports fans are conditioned for action, damnit.

Now did you see what the Chicago Bears linebacker, Lance Briggs, said about ol' Brett: "We know he's going to throw us a few (interceptions). He's thrown me a few, but I've also dropped several that I should have caught. We'd love to see Favre go there to play. We'd welcome it."

That is big talk from a guy whose team gave up 75 points in two games vs. the Vikings last season. That post is worth clicking through just for the pic of Lance Briggs the Chicago Sun-Times used. Either it was taken at the Pro Bowl in Hawai'i, or Lance Briggs emcees weddings and proms while wearing his jersey (since his face is hidden under a helmet and facemask, how would people know it's really him).

Anyway, the Clavin rule: Now you know.



(P.S. Nice to see Posted Sports rip off the same line of thinking, except their response is to take a Favratorium, which is both derivative and self-aggrandizing. That's the Canadian media for you!

Damn Vikings: Gunslinger who won't go away

In the words of Déjà Voodoo, "I wanna miss you, but you never go away."

Favregeddon — thank you, Daily Norseman — seems l like it might could soon be on like the former republic of Azerbaijan. It's the ultimate fan dilemma. Vikings fans want a Super Bowl appearance in the worst way. Getting there with Brett Favre as the quarterback would be about the worst way, assuming a 40-year-old passer whose arm couldn't make it through last season is the answer to their intractable quarterback problem. Isn't it really kind of a give-up play, akin to calling a draw play on third-and-long, as Vikes coach Brad Childress is sometimes wont to do?

A not uncommon reaction among Vikings blogs is that most would give up quite a bit to not have to weigh in on the topic at all. The notion of the former Green Bay Packer in purple is that touchy a subject. In all honesty, speaking as a Vikings fan, it seemed best to be open-minded about this since early last August, even though Green goddamn Bay was never going to let Favre go to the Vikings as long as they could exercise control over where he played.

The kicker from a football standpoint is that the Vikings have done the least of any NFC North to address their quarterback situation (sorry for sounding like a NFL commentator), but it's not even clear how much Favre would help. He flat-out reeked over the final month of last season with the New York Jets. The ESPN.com report (and keep in mind the four-letter likes to make a lot out of very little sometimes) notes, "Favre has not been working out and declined to have surgery to repair the torn biceps tendon that plagued him the final month of last season."

The cynical response is the quarterback doesn't need that strong an arm in Childress' notoriously staid offence. How much of a gun does the QB need to dump it off to Adrian Peterson or Chester Taylor on a screen pass every time it's third down and 10?

That's for someone else to answer. It's best, on this end, to focus on whether you can cross the Rubicon, in the parlance of our time, on a player you have pure, flat-out loathed for the better part of two decades. If he can still play, fine, but if he's going to be the me-first Favre that sank the Packers and the New York Jets, no thanks. The odds of it being any other Favre are not good.

(It might be too early to take a sheepish victory lap for once opining, "Vikings fans are resigned to the deep-down suspicion that No. 4 is going to torment us until the end of time." That sentence was never written with the idea of Favre throwing touchdown passes to Vikings players instead of interceptions, which he has been known to do once in a while.)

Related:
Source, Favre, Vikes to discuss playing (ESPN.com)

Brett's cheap trick; No. 4 Minnesota is Favre from reality

That Wrangler-wearing gunslinger will never go away. It's time for what Daily Norseman calls Brett Favre's "annual 'Pay Attention to Me!' festival.

"... It's not beyond belief that he has provided the Jets the answer they wanted in hopes of getting a return favor (his release) in a few months.

"That would create an opportunity for him to land with the Vikings. This is what Favre wanted last summer but there was no way the Packers were going to let Favre wind up in the NFC North. However, if Favre wants an opportunity to spend a season in Minnesota the Jets almost certainly aren’t going to care." — Access Vikings

Toss in the fact that the Vikings are trying to drum up public funding for a new stadium and a new quarterback probably helps with selling hope, whether it's soon-to-be-40 Favre or 27-year-old Matt Cassel from the New England Patriots (dare to dream). Any Vikings fan worth his Gary Anderson voodoo doll (all together: "Damn!") is supposed to hate Favre, especially since in his dotage, he's fallen into the inevitable trap of yelling, "Hey, it's me again."

It happened with Joe Montana and Dan Marino during the 1990s. It probably went on in the 1970s with Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas. Who knows if Favre is finished as a player. He struggled badly in the last four games of the season with the New York Jets. He turns 40 on Oct. 10 (yes, I have memorized the bastard's birthday). He also ends to throw passes into coverage, since that's how you have fun on the football field.

As a Vikes diehard, it is best to document how one would feel about seeing Favre in the beloved Purple. If he's still got it, fine, but there are better, younger, less loathsome passers available. That said, it's build a season-ticket campaign around Sage Rosenfels.

(Incidentally, one builder this week is revealing plans for a reconstructed Metrodome. It fits in with the one hope that the Vikings could play at the University of Minnesota's new football stadium for a couple seasons while the Dome is modernized.)

Related:
Minnesota on Favre's mind? (Access Vikings)

Get that man a "Mrs. Tebow" T-shirt...

One of the beauties of being a sports geek in Canada: No ESPN. It taints our collective unconscious enough already since it does influences TSN, but you can avoid directly dealing with candidates for sainthood such as Skip Bayless, who actually claimed that Florida Gators QB Tim Tebow "is the next Favre."

Granted, Bayless had more basis for that claim than he did when he tried to out Troy Aikman several years ago. It's a blog rule to avoid two-paragraph posts, but this is worth it for Stephen A. Smith's reaction. Screamin' A might not recover:

"Sixty thousand plus yards that Brett Favre has passed for. He's going to the Hall of Fame and Tim Tebow, who hasn't played one single, one single football down in the NFL, is going to be the next Brett Favre."

(Clip via NESWSports.com).

Brett Favre draws the line at 117 unreturned phone calls

Can you imagine Packers GM Ted Thompson getting this voice mail? "Maybe I didn't really know you. Maybe you were just a mirage. Maybe the world is full of food and football and spectacle and we're all just hurling towards an apocalypse, in which case it's not your fault. I'm been thinking about all these things and... you're probably standing there monitoring. And one more thing -- about the letter. Nuke it. Flame it. Destroy it. It hurts me to know it's out there. Later."

(This post was up before word of the Favrian fax spread throughout the world.)

Brett Favre in The Desirable Sports Scandal

Maybe people are becoming drunk with the excess of this whole ordeal. Sports Illustrated writer Steve Aschburner initially perplexed me when he wrote an article today about the jealousy other leagues - most notably the NBA - must be feeling towards the NFL at the moment. Aschburner states his claim at the start:

It is, quite possibly, the most overwrought, snarky, hand-wringing, interminable, nitpicked and some would say nitwitted story in the history of professional sports.

And yet, deep down inside, you get the feeling that the NBA and the other leagues envy the NFL for its Brett Favre saga, at least a little bit.

Beyond the unnecessary over inflation of an already over inflated story (biggest news story in the history of all professional sports? REALLY...?), what initially confused me was how this was different than any other sport in any other offseason; since, you know, EVERY SPORT has its drama that captures the sporting world's attention for more than a moment every year! But that's not the point of this scandal, not to me anyways; it's the lack of a deeper, more serious issue present that makes this scandal so desirable.

Personally speaking I feel the reason that should draw the envy of other Leagues and Associations is, plain and simple, the lack of any insidious extracurriculars involved with this story. The NFL has got to love that recent stories of a very negative nature which caught the attention and even the ire of people of all walks of life right across the nation (if not the world) have been replaced by a player who loves to dance and a superstar with a strong desire to return to the field of play claiming the headlines. Aschburner briefly points out why a story like this is great (wish he had expanded more upon this however, rather than focus on the return from retirement angle he chose):

An offseason news story that dominates the media...A topic crammed with all sorts of emotions and intrigue, yet ultimately about the game and its X's and O's...Involving a transcendent, cinch-Hall of Fame player, one of the best ever at his sport's glamour position, in what arguably is the league's most passionate and insular market

I'll take this purely sports related event over performance enhancing drug scandals, match-fixing fiascos, politics crossing over into the realm of the sports or athletes paraded off to court and/or prison for their misdeeds both on and off the field of play. A messy break-up on a sports level: a player who wants to come back and play for his team, while the team can't allow him to do so since they are trying to move on and just won't allow themselves to take him back...it's almost a love story! (well, a love and lost story is likely the more appropriate description).

As hard as it will be to ever see Favre suit up in anything but a Packers jersey no animals were harmed or mistreated and Brett will not be called in front of Congress anytime soon: I consider this an overall improvement, and hopefully future scandals take notice.