Brett Favre is . . .

I bet you're dripping with anticipation, all four of you that read this thing. You must be thinking, "Slick hates everything, I bet he's really going to tear Brett Favre a new one." Well like Family Guy does with Meg episodes I feel I should forewarn you that this will be my first positive post. Here it is, Brett Favre is my new favorite athlete. Of all time. OF ALL TIME.

I realize that there are a lot of Favre haters out there. I used to be one until about 20 minutes ago. When he was on the Packers there wasn't a single player in the league not on the Patriots that I enjoyed rooting against more. I remember screaming like a little girl when a pre-dogfighting Michael Vick beat Favre in Lambeau in the playoffs. When he was on the Jets, I hated him even more. Why? Because fuck you Jets that's why. Is there any fanbase more annoying than Jets fans? If there is I don't want to know about them. But anyway, I absolutely hated Brett Favre. When he retired, I was pumped. When he unretired, I was pissed. So you can imagine how last summer went. I was sick of Brett Favre. I was sick of hearing his name. I was sick of the Favre watch at the bottom of the ESPN bottom line. (Brief tangent: how much does live Sportscenter suck? I don't need Merril Hoge playing with a touchscreen, just show me some goddamn highlights. But on a lighter note, Hannah Storm looks really, REALLY good for 47 years old. That shit is bananas, ba na na na nanas . . .) I didn't need to know everything Brett Favre was doing. Either play football or don't. Stop pissing me off. But I'm glad he came back.

We live in a world where we're constantly let down by the people we look up to, especially athletes. Tiger Woods fucked more chicks than Charlie Sheen. Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame speech made him look like a spiteful asshole. Kobe probably raped that girl in Colorado. Ronaldo was involved in a male prostitution bust. You can't even make something like that up. That's disappointment international style. Even the golden boy Tom Brady had a kid out of wedlock. I'm not a parent but I see all the parents at my little brother's games that expect their kids to be the next superstar. And I understand why. Sports are something we've all grown up with. It's something that we're familiar with. It's something that's so easily accessible to us which is why it's so easy to look up to sports figures as role models, and it's why it's so crushing to us when they let us down. My step-mom used to LOVE Tiger Woods. She doesn't even want his name mentioned in her house anymore. That's why I have a new man-crush on Brett Favre.

You can hate Brett Favre because the media won't stop talking about him. You can hate Brett Favre because Peter King wants to give him a hojo and the best blow-j ever. Hell, even I hate him because he plays backyard football in jeans. But if Brett Favre came to my dorm room and tossed me a pair of Wranglers, I'd be out there in a second. You don't have to like him, but it's hard for to me imagine that you don't respect him. In what could be his last game ever, Favre took more shots than that "Shots shots shots shots shots shots" song. There were at least 5 times when we were watching that Chris, Matt and I thought that there was no way he was getting up. The could have run an entire season's worth of "Jacked Up" just from that game alone. Even so, he was about 12 bad calls away from leading the Vikings to the Superbowl. "Oh yeah but he threw two interceptions and cost his team a game-winning field goal." Go back and look at his first interception, looks like a clear "Brady Rule Roughing the Passer" to me. Go back and watch some of those hits and ask yourself how many other quarterbacks, no less a 40 year old one, could have gotten up from that. Go back and ask yourself whether the Vikings had any chance of coming that close without Favre. So yeah, I don't blame you if you hate Brett Favre but in a world where we're constantly being let down, it's nice to know that there's at least one athlete that won't . . . well, unless you want to win the NFC Championship.

-Slick