EA Sports Will Not Change The Madden 09 Cover

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Brett Favre Already Has Plans For New York City

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Brett Favre Doesn't Want To Be A Distraction

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In Brief: Stay Away, Brett

Yesterday the Los Angeles Times reported that Brett Favre's agent has been in contact with teams not named the Green Bay Packers to see if they'd be interested in the recently retired quarterback. Both Favre and his agent deny the story, but really, would you be shocked if Favre came out of retirement? A part of me is hoping he does because you know it would cause half the population of Green Bay to kill themselves, while the rest just rock in a chair muttering "Why, Brett? Why?" for the rest of their lives.

Just as long as he doesn't sign with the Bears. I'm not sure my brain would know how to cope with that.

Brett Favre's Retirement Press Conference

It's an incredibly slow news day, in what's been an incredibly slow news week, in what's been an incredibly slow news month.

So why not watch Brett Favre cry?

Did you hear he's retiring? That's awesome.

Favre Retired.....For Serious This Time

After three years of "Will he or won't he," he finally has. Brett Favre announced this morning that he's finally hanging his cleats up, and he's retiring.

"I know I can still play, but it's like I told my wife, I'm just tired mentally. I'm just tired," Favre told ESPN's Chris Mortensen in a voice mail messasge.

"If I felt like coming back -- and Deanna [Favre, his wife] and I talked about this -- the only way for me to be successful would be to win a Super Bowl. To go to the Super Bowl and lose, would almost be worse than anything else. Anything less than a Super Bowl win would be unsuccessful," Favre said in the message.

"I know it shouldn't feel unsuccessful, but the only way to come back and make that be the right decision would be to come back and win a Super Bowl and honestly the odds of that, they're tough. Those are big shoes for me to fill, and I guess it was a challenge I wasn't up for. "

This comes as a bit of a surprise to most people because after struggling for the last three seasons, Favre was reborn in 2007, and the Packers got to the NFC Championship before Brett lost his glass slipper and killed the Packers chances to get to the Super Bowl. Still, most people thought that the success Favre had this season assured he'd be back in 2008.

I'm not that surprised because I thought the only reason Favre came back for one last season was so he could break all Dan Marino's records, which he did. I don't think Brett thought for a second that the Packers were going to be as good as they were.

Of course, I don't care why he came back last season, or why he's not coming back next season, the only thing I care about is that he's gone. This is easily the best thing to happen to the Bears this season, because now they have a chance at winning the division.

Think about it, Rex Grossman is now the most "decorated" quarterback in the NFC North.

I'll let that one sink in for a second.

So while Packers fans everywhere contemplate suicide this morning, I'm rejoicing. The man that has tortured me for 17 years can't hurt me anymore.

What's odd about this whole thing though, is that I'm going to miss him. I hated the man when he was on a football field playing against the Bears, but that still doesn't change the fact he was the best quarterback I've ever seen play the game.

Still, I don't think it'll take me that long to get over it. See? I'm over it already.

Good riddance you bastard!

Surprised and Disappointed

Okay, so now that I got my concern for Tom Coughlin out of the way, I guess I can move on to actually talking about the games yesterday.

Honestly, I don't really have that much to say about the AFC Championship game. The game played out exactly how I thought it would play out, with the only surprise being LaDainian Tomlinson only getting two carries. Obviously, the lack of Tomlinson didn't help San Diego's cause, but I doubt he would have made much of a difference had he played.

The Patriots have been the best team in football all season, and they weren't going to lose yesterday. I mean, Tom Brady played more like Rex Grossman yesterday, and the Patriots still won. It's not fair.

And now, the only team standing in the way of the Patriots pursuit of an undefeated season is the same team that tried to stop them from having an undefeated regular season: the New York Giants.

I was shocked that the Giants beat the Packers. Shocked. I really didn't feel as though the Giants would keep it close. I know they'd won their last nine road games, and I know that they were playing better the last three weeks than they had been all year, but I still didn't think they had a shot.

There was just no way that Eli Manning, who has been horrible in cold weather throughout his career, was going to be able to out duel the great Brett Favre. Not in his storybook comeback season!

But instead the great Favre morphed back into the Favre we saw the last few seasons, making bad decisions and worse throws. Favre had no excuse either.

Sure, his offensive line did a horrible job of giving Ryan Grant and the Packers run game any room to operate, which forced Green Bay to completely ditch it's running game (one of many mistakes Green Bay made yesterday), but they did a fantastic job in pass protection. The Giants lead the entire free world in sacks, yet they never got to Favre once yesterday.

Eli Manning, on the other hand, looked like a quarterback that had been there a hundred times before. Moving his team down the field time after time for scores during the second half. If Lawrence Tynes was as good at kicking 37-yard field goals as he is kicking 47-yard field goals, this game never would have even gone into overtime.

I don't want to take away from what Eli has done this postseason, because he really has played great, but I can't help but be disappointed by the Giants victory. I wasn't really rooting for the Packers yesterday, and if you're a real Bears fan you weren't either, but I preferred that they won. I wanted the Super Bowl to feature Tom Brady and Brett Favre. The two quarterbacks who sucked yesterday.

Not to mention that I caught a lot of crap from Packers fans after the Bears lost in the Super Bowl last season, so I wouldn't have minded returning the favor this season after Green Bay lost to New England.

Instead we're stuck with the same old story we're always stuck with. New York vs. Boston.


Fantastic.

I'm surprised the collective boner of everybody at ESPN didn't block the sunrise this morning.

Foul Balls

Trade Ben Gordon - This is just something I've been thinking the last few days while watching the Bulls. Trade Ben Gordon, and do it soon. I have nothing against Ben, and in fact I'm very grateful for all those points he's scored these last few years, but I think it's time for him to move on.

I mean, I'd rather trade Kirk Hinrich, but I don't think he'll be anywhere near as easy to trade, nor will he bring back as much in return. I just think that the Bulls will be better off with Thabo Sefolosha playing the 2-guard right now. Thabo has played terrific basketball the last few weeks, and I'd like to see him as much on the court as possible.

So the Bulls should trade Gordon now because he can be used in a package to get somebody like Pau Gasol (there's that name again) and Ben won't be back next season anyway. So you may as well get something for him now, instead of nothing for him later.

What's the worst that can happen? We miss the playoffs?

Lou Piniella Doesn't Want Brian Roberts - I've understood why the Cubs are interested in Brian Roberts this winter, they would like a real lead-off hitter, and moving Alfonso Soriano down to the three-spot would be beneficial to the offense, but I've been against the trade all along. Mostly because I'm just a real big Mark DeRosa fan.

Thankfully, Lou Piniella feels the same way as I do. At the Cubs convention over the weekend, Piniella said he doesn't expect the team to complete the deal for Roberts, and that would be fine with him.

"I don't think we're going to do anything, to be honest with you," Piniella said before Friday's opening ceremonies. "And I think if we do [acquire someone] it'll be in the outfield. I'm very comfortable with our club the way it is."

"[A trade for a right-handed centerfielder to platoon with Felix Pie] probably a possibility, as opposed to the other things that you all have been hearing about," he said, adding again he's "perfectly content with [Mark] DeRosa at second base."

Hopefully Jim Hendry got the message.

Retire or No Retire?

We just want to let all of you know, that we won't be partaking in any of the Brett Favre retirement talk during the NFL offseason. When he makes his decision, then we'll probably put a link in our Hang Ten that day, but that's it.

At this point, we don't even care anymore. In fact, we're not sure that anybody outside of Green Bay gives a crap.

We did however find this amusing video from the guys at NBX (via With Leather) that basically describes what could possibly be the only way Fav-ruh can be coerced into a decision.

So Brett, Retire? Or No Retire?