Like a Bad Rash....

....I'm back. And you can partially thank Brett Favre's coming out of his latest retirement for me coming out of mine. Also tack on the fact that I am 12 days from having a newborn keeping me up at all hours of the night and, well, I'm going to have to do something at 2am on a Tuesday night. Its obviously been a while since I still have the Rudy 2008 banner up there, if I can figure out how I got it there I'll figure out how to take it down.

You may have heard that in a transaction that flew under the radar the Jets picked up exactly what the team needs: a 39 year old quarterback whose good year last season somehow erased the three consecutive awful seasons he posted before last year. Adam Schein of SNY and myself are apparently the only two people in the tri-state area who hate this move. For me, it all started on the last game of the season a few years ago when he gave Mark Gastineau's sack record to Michael Strahan in a move that showed an incredible lack of dignity and integrity. Nobody seemed to want Gastineau to hold that record because life after football for old #99 hasn't exactly been overflowing with dignity and integrity in his own right. Sham boxing matches, drug arrests, meeting the Dogg and myself at the Jets draft party, and while watching your ex-wife slut it up on national tv must be horrible, watching her do it with your daughter must be excruciating. But what Favre did was the equivalent of one of Big Mac's buddies pitching underhand to him on the way to 62 homeruns.

Of course, since Teflon Brett was involved, it gets laughed off by the media because he is "just a simple country boy" who is "a gunslinger" and is always "having so much fun out there". I don't buy this carefully crafted bullshit image for a second. This guy is a shameless self promoter on a level not seen outside of professional wrestling. He drags a few national media members (I'm looking at you Peter King and Chris Mortenson) by the short hairs because a Favre story means ratings. The local beat writers in Green Bay are thrilled that he is gone because he would never even consider speaking to them. This persona he has created gives him creative license to throw ridiculous interceptions that would get any other qb skewered by the media. But if #4 does it he is "like a kid in the sandlot". (And on a side note, a reference to kids playing in a sandlot doesn't register with anyone under the age of 60. I don't even know what a sandlot is).

Speaking of bad interceptions, check out this little nugget. Everyone remembers the absurd pick he threw in the 4th and 26 game against the Eagles in the playoffs in 2004. Apparently the good ol' boy didn't like the play call that came in from the sideline so he decided to just heave it up there. To prove a point. This is not the only time he has done this. This speaks volumes about his selfish nature. What will happen when Brian Schottenheimer, who is younger than the Almighty One, sends in a play that Brett doesn't like?

Some people will say "hey, the Jets are going to suck this year, they might as well do this". Wrong. Not about the Jets sucking, yes, I agree they will suck. But that means you spend this year seeing what Clemens can do. The limited time he was under center last year was not a large enough sample to see what you have there, especially the way he was running for his life back there. There is also the little issue of the fact that over 10% of our payroll will go to Favre. You're telling me that money couldn't have been spent more effectively?

Will Brett the Jet increase ratings? Yes. Will it get more people talking about the Jets? Already has. Are these things I give a flying fuck about? No. With or without Brett the absolute best case scenario for the Jets is to squeak into the playoffs as a six seed in an AFC that is loaded with great teams. And then he quits again because in case you haven't heard we weren't exactly number one on his list. This is better than developing for the future how exactly? I know the Jets are second class citizens in this town but have things sunk so low that all we can hope for is 9-7 and the tiebreakers to fall our way en route to a first round exit? Embarassing. But then again, getting Brett will make it easier for most people to stomach the personal seat licensing fees that are about to be announced......hmmm, do you think maybe THAT had $omething to do with it?!?!