Sackcloth And Ashes

This must be how Michael felt after he told Tom Hagen to make sure Fredo never betrayed the family again.

How Travis felt when had to go behind the woodshed.

The way a doctor feels when he has to amputate a gangrenous limb.

The way a parent feels when filing for divorce because it’s going to hurt the kids less to have mom and dad split apart than it is to see their parents screaming at each other all the time.

It makes you feel sick inside just to think about it. You know it had to be done, but it leaves you feeling wrong and awful and guilty and sad.

But I still feel honor-bound to report on it. Because it’s reality, and I’m just going to have to reconcile myself to what’s happened and find a way to move on.

My prediction came true. Mostly. I got the trade call right, I got the trade to the AFC and even the Eastern Division right. But I didn’t predict the team exactly right. Brett Favre is now a New York Jet. He will still wear a green number four.* But it won’t be the same. It’s also not yet been made clear what the Jets gave Green Bay in return for Favre’s contract. I hope it was good.

If I wanted to be bitter, I would ask my Jets fan friends what they were thinking by trading for a nearly thirty-nine year old quarterback with one hundred interceptions in the past five years. But I know better than that — he’s also had one hundred and eighteen touchdowns in those same past five years, and he still throws a football hard enough to shatter blocks of ice.

At least he won’t play against Green Bay. This year. Unless, that is, they play against one another in the Super Bowl. I could dig it if that happened.

But I’ll never, never, never hear the end of this from my friend the fantasy football commissioner. He’s a huge Jets fan. Unless, perversely, Favre washes out there. Chad Pennington gets the short end of the stick on this one, as I see it — the Jets went with Kellen Clemens for the second half of the season even though Pennington was playing better ball IMHO. Well, it won’t be much of a contest for starter between Clemens and Favre.

Training camps are getting near their end right now. The preseason has already started. Favre is going to need to do some catching up to get into the Jets’ system.

The Aaron Rodgers era has begun for real. For better or for worse. Like all his fans, I’ll wish him the best in his new situation and thank him for all the great memories. I’ll sigh wistfully when I think about how it might have been different than this. But it’s time to move on and say go number twelve. As for Brett and his future, just remember that he’ll have this to deal with (and there’s about one million boxes that need to be reprinted because of this transaction):

Oh, and to all you so-called Green Bay fans catcalling Rodgers — knock it off. He’s the quarterback now. No, he’s not Brett. But that’s not his fault no one can be Brett but Brett, and let’s face it, Brett was not loyal to the team over the past couple of weeks. It’s time to get used to the way things are going to be. Hopefully, they’ll be pretty good still. Look at it this way — San Francisco lost Joe Montana, but they got Steve Young in his place. That worked out okay for them. And yes, I realize Aaron Rodgers will likely not work out to be Steve Young. But hope for it, damnit! Give the kid some support.

* A visit to the Jets’ website proved horrifically slow and bothersome. Maybe it’s a lot of traffic with fans looking for news or to order their jerseys. Or maybe it’s the fact that they have about five hundred megs of high-definition video that auto-downloads on every page of their site.