This blog is about Brett Favre and the comments I made a couple of days ago with my buddies Steak Shapiro and Andrew Salzman who own 790 The Zone, which is a sports talk show here in Atlanta. And we were talking candidly about Brett Favre and him going to Minnesota. And I had an opinion. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t this America? Can’t we have opinions? And my opinion was that Brett Favre is wrong. I said he’s been a great player. He played for 17 or 18 years for the Packers, who rescued him from Atlanta. He played one year in Atlanta and Atlanta dumped him for his behavior here. And Atlanta maybe made the right decision for them then, but it was a bad decision going forward, and Green Bay gave Brett Favre a stable organization – players, coaches and support for 17 years. They gave him the opportunity and the chance to win every year.

He tells them a year ago that he’s going to retire, and they go down to Mississippi to talk to him, and again he says “I’m going to retire.” So they start preparing their team for the next year, and preparing their quarterback, Aaron Rogers, and they get all their plans in place, and just before training camp he tells them, “I think I want to play.” But what he really wants to do is manipulate the situation and go play for Green Bay’s arch rival, my team, the Minnesota Vikings. How can you do that? And of course, Green Bay stayed the course, and gave him the chance to come and compete. He said he didn’t want to do that, so he went to the New York Jets. That didn’t work out too well! Nobody in New York is sorry Brett Favre isn’t coming back! The players, the coaches, the fans – they don’t care! And now Minnesota goes and commits to two young quarterbacks, and all of a sudden Brett Favre comes and says, “I might want to play again.” We are now almost in the beginning of June! Training camp starts very quickly. The off season team work out sessions and bonding sessions are all done, and he hasn’t been there.

See, it’s about TEAM in football. It’s not about Brett Favre or Fran Tarkenton or John Elway. It’s about TEAM. Teams win – individuals lose. And so I express the opinion that Brett Favre is wrong, and I believe that right now. I think it is wrong for the Vikings and I think it is wrong for Green Bay. I think it is just wrong. But I kind of want him to go because if he goes there to Minnesota I believe he will burn every bridge he has in Green Bay. The disloyalty! Can you imagine Ray Nitschke would have retired then gone to play for the Minnesota Vikings? Don’t we feel strongly about our teams?

But why is this such a firestorm? Because the world loves Brett Favre. I love Brett Favre! We love his play. But do we have to agree with everything that he does or that I do or say? Why hasn’t any other sportscaster or sports writer been candid? Don’t you think that they have this opinion also?

While I am doing this blog right now, Fox Sports.com is running a poll – is Favre right or is Tarkenton right? At last count there were 28,000 votes and 74% agreed with me! Only 26% thought I was wrong. Now that doesn’t change the world. That’s not going to solve the financial crisis. That’s not going to stop nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran and Pakistan! It’s SPORTS! Aren’t we supposed to have opinions? Where have the sportscasters and sports writers been? Why can’t they have an opinion? Does everybody just agree with everything Brett Favre does? It’s ridiculous!

Some of the comments that have come into our office are interesting. One person said I am a grumpy old man. Let me tell you about this grumpy old man – I am 69 years old. I employ people. We took no TARP funds, we are paying our taxes, we’ve got six businesses here, and we have started up two new businesses in the last six months. We are adding to the economy. I am working everyday of my life. I’m not out there making money off of being Fran Tarkenton and I’m not making money off of doing radio interviews. I did that for free for my buddies Steak and Andrew. I run businesses, I employ people, I pay taxes, I ADD to the economy in a downtime, and some guy is calling me a grumpy old man. I’m not down at The Villages in Orlando playing croquet. I’m not out on the golf courses all day long playing golf. I am here in my office working everyday or working from wherever I am. I’m a grumpy old man? Is it bad to be 69? I like being 69, and I’m not a grumpy 69. I’m a happy, positive 69, but guess what? I have a brain and I have an opinion, and this is America. God bless America that they give me the freedom to have an opinion.

Does that make me a grumpy old man? Maybe so, but I am me, and I will continue to give my opinions. Come back to our blog and we’ll have more for you.