The end of our Favre fixation

I was never that jazzed about Brett Favre becoming a Viking. For starters, I wasn’t convinced the nearly 40-year-old ex-Packer was THE missing piece – the guy who could take the Vikings to the Super Bowl and help them win it. So there was that.

But this was more than just about Favre's onfield abilities. I also wasn’t looking forward to pinning our playoff and Super Bowl hopes on perhaps the most famous player to have played for the Vikings biggest rival. If the Vikings are going to thrive, I'd prefer we did it with home grown guys. Maybe I would have got over that fact. But Favre playing for the Vikes had the potential to make cheering for the team a stale experience in 2009.

But now that Brad Childress has closed the door on bringing in Favre even as Favre continues to waffle on retiring, I don't have to consider that anymore. It feels good.

Since the Jets released Favre in April and rumours started surfacing that he might make another comeback, he's dominated any talk about the Vikings even though he wasn’t even a member of the team. Every question, every concern, every hope raised about the team has somehow been related back to Favre. Like how much more effective would Adrian Peterson be with Brett Favre as his quarterback? How much would the passing game improve with Favre throwing the ball? Would Favre’s ability to read defences and get rid of the ball quickly help the offensive line? Would his risk-taking and tendency to throw interceptions put the defence in too many bad situations? And on and on it went.

But Favre won't be playing with the Vikings after all and now we can start focusing on Viking issues and Viking players rather than on a one year hired gun who also used to play for our biggest rival. We can start wondering what kind of impact Percy Harvin will have on the Vikings in 2009. We can focus on whether Phil Loadholt can win the right tackle job. We can debate whom should be the Vikes starting quarterback – Sage Rosenfels or Tarvaris Jackson. We can forget about Favre. That’s why Tuesday, July 28th was a good day for Viking fans.