Brett Favre Go Away!

Some say a blog can get in trouble for going off the normal path of the kind of posts that are typically on the blog.

This post is about sports, which isn't normally found on here, but I do think there is some spirituality in all of this as well.

If you don't follow sports, it's okay, I think it will still make sense. Brett Favre is a retired quarterback who used to be in Green Bay for a long time. His last years in Green Bay a young new guy showed up - Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers has always publicly been nothing but class. Favre, for about the last three years of his career in Green Bay, would wait until the last minute before the season started to announce his return for another year - and every year Rodgers, the guy waiting in the wings, would be a class act about and not complain about the prima donna act that the older guy would display every year.

Today Rodgers is considered the best quarterback in the NFL and continues to be a class act publicly, and has handled his success really well. Last year, despite tons of injuries, he led the Packers to a Superbowl win.

So what does Brett Favre do a few days ago? Now that he can't play anymore and doesn't have the spotlight on him anymore, Favre goes on a radio show in Atlanta and puts on the greatest display of backhanded complementing I've ever seen. Here are Favre's comments:

On ESPN 790 Favre said he wasn't surprised Rodgers won a Super Bowl, saying "the biggest surprise to me would be that he didn't do it sooner" and that Rodgers "just kind of fell into a good situation."

He's got tremendous talent, he's very bright and he got a chance to kind of sit and watch and he saw successful teams do it right, (translation: watching me play was what helped him)

and so he just kind of fell into a good situation. (translation: he got lucky. My response: No Brett, you got lucky landing with the 2009 Vikings when you had every play maker under the sun...but you threw an interception in the fourth quarter in crunch time. Everyone was hurt on last year's Packers team and Rodgers still won a Superbowl)

And on top of that, he's a good player. (translation: he's not great. My response: he's the best quarterback in the NFL)

I don't think anyone would question now the talent around him is even better than when I was there. So I really was surprised it took him so long. (translation: it is his fault they didn't win earlier. My response: Brett, you had tremendous talent in Green Bay also. Rodgers had a banged up team and he got it done.)

Really, the early part of last season, it hadn't quite clicked yet and I didn't know if it would. I just figured at some point, when they hit their stride, they're going to be hard to beat. And that's what happened." (translation: "I'm a genius!")

Rodgers response to the whole incident: "It takes 53 guys to win a championship and we had the right recipe last year and we're trying to do the same thing this season." - Now that is what real class looks and talks like.

The reason I include all of this on here is that stuff like this happens a lot in conversations, even among "churchy folk" and I think we need to be mindful of it when we do it because it always has, at its core, anger, and if we don't acknowledge anger, it will poison us. I wonder if Favre knew he was angry or not, but regardless, it happens too much and we need to monitor it. It also pops up a lot on the internet and in our electronic conversation, so we pray that we may guard and monitor our tongues as St. Paul encourages us.