Re-retiring

Brett Favre will reportedly tell the Jets he plans to retire (click post title for ESPN story). First of all, talk to me in September. If he's still retired when the season starts, then I'll believe it.

Favre is probably the only Chicago rival I've ever come to like a little bit. Every blue and orange bone in my body hated him for years as he continuously picked apart the Bears, year after year, making ridiculous throws that should be reserved for the backyard; refusing to ever provide hope to his division rivals by missing at least one--just one!!--freakin' game; admitting to an addiction to painkillers; winning a Super Bowl; and defining the Bears chief rival for 16 years.

But he played with so much damn heart and joy, and the Bears actually enjoyed some success in the early-mid part of this decade despite him, that I had to admit: I kind of liked watching him play. He is an NFL icon, and every time I watched him jump up and down after each and every touchdown pass as if it were his first, I just couldn't stay mad at him.

But then he discussed retirement every single year, a la Roger Clemens, and then finally retired, and then tried to pressure the Packers into letting him come back, even though the organization had already tried to move on. Early in his career, given all his success, his unbridled joy often came off to a Packer-hater like me as egotistical, and his decision to un-retire just months after retiring smacked of the same thing.

It was his realness that made me like him for a while. He seemed to genuinely love every moment on the field. When he kept feigning retirement, and then un-retired, he seemed fake and calculated. Today he said he's going to retire: it better be for real.