TO ARMS, GOOD PEOPLE... TO ARMS

by Tracer Bullet, Staff Writer

For years, Brett Favre and his legion of media ball-washers have held football fandom hostage as he dithered about retiring.

So, the grizzled old interception-slinger finally, FINALLY, hangs it up and we go through all the obsequious coverage of his admittedly Hall of Fame career.
We got the issue of Sports Illustrated dedicated strictly to him. We
got Peter King standing in the rain under Favre's window playing "In Your Eyes" from a boom box. And we moved on. (Most of us, anyway -- Favre will be on the cover of Madden '08. Every time you throw an interception, Madden will blame the receiver.)

And, whaddaya know? The world didn't end. King began polishing a new erratic quarterback's man-peaches in Tony Romo.

But Favre won't go away. Enablers like Steve Mariucci keep asking, "You comin' back, Brett? Are ya? Are ya, huh?" And Favre keeps leaving the possibility open. He wants to be Cincinnatus, a noble general who desires nothing more than to tend his farm, but keeps getting called back to save Rome from invasion and unrest.

Well, dammit, enough is e-frigging-nough. If retirement isn't enough to spare the world from more mindless slavering over a quarterback with the unfortunate habit of throwing ill-considered passes to defenders, then by God, we will drive him away with fire.

Gather your torches and pitchforks, villagers! Gather garlic and silver bullets and and crucifixes that we may drive the monster back into his hole! And if we will not stay there, let us drive a stake through his heart and rid ourselves of him once and for all!

Or we'll at least smack Peter King with a shovel, which will have much the same effect and is a good idea in general.