Brett Favre: ‘Ow! My Elbow!’

Added on Oct 14, 2010 by Jason Kearney in

NFL

Some things you can see coming a mile away and particularly when you’re dealing with an egotistical diva like Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback Brett Favre. Many observers predicted that ‘The Gunslinger’ would quickly lose interest should the Minnesota Vikings not position themselves as a Superbowl contender and that may be happening before our eyes.

Of course he’s not coming out and saying that, but he sure looks to be laying the groundwork for an early end to the season. Favre has been complaining about tendinitis in his elbow for the past couple of weeks and is suggesting that he might be forced to the bench. This would, of course, end his NFL record for consecutive starts which currently stands at 289 games. Here’s what ‘The Gunslinger’ had to say:

“I don’t want to play just to play. It’s kind of a funny injury. It could flare up and get worse.”

Favre’s elbow isn’t his only problem at the moment–he’s currently under investigation by the NFL concerning allegations that, among other things, he sent Jenn Sterger some pictures of himself wearing Crocs with his penis flapping in the breeze. While I’m not sure whether the Crocs or Farve’s crank is the bigger affront to general decency, the NFL is more concerned with the latter. Favre did allude to the situation when asked how ‘Penis-gate’ ranked compared to the other periods of adversity he’s faced throughout his career:

“I don’t rank them. I’m thrilled to be here and have an opportunity to lead this team to the Super Bowl. … There’s still a lot of football left. I feel very confident in a lot of ways. You go through different things in your life. Football is a very tough sport, mentally and physically. Last year was great. Almost too great. But I woke up this morning and was very eager to get over here. Moreso than last year at this time, to get this back on track. I feel confident that [the team] will right itself in the end.”

Here’s how this will play out, at least in my view–if the Vikings win this weekend and get back in the playoff hunt, Favre’s elbow will magically heal itself and he’ll keep playing. On the other hand, if the Vikes continue to struggle the elbow will keep getting worse. About the time Minnesota is eliminated from playoff contention Favre will require ‘season ending surgery’.

There are a couple of conspiracy theories afoot–the first is that Favre has concocted or at the very least played up his elbow problems to divert attention from the ongoing Jenn Sterger story. I don’t buy this in the least for one simple reason–Favre is such a strange dude that he likely doesn’t care whether what is being said about him is good or bad as long as he’s the center of attention. Besides, the media isn’t going to drop a good sleazy story like ‘Penis-gate’ that easily. The crazy thing is that Favre’s teammates are reacting to a PR crisis caused by him being a sleazy horndog as if he was going through chemotherapy. Check out this verbal tongue bath from Minnesota kicker Ryan Longwell:

“I think he’s really handling it well. I really do. The guy is so resilient and has his priorities straight, and I think in the midst of a tough, tough situation, across the board, I think he’s handled it really well.”

“I respect the guy so much, and I’ve seen him go through a lot over the 14 years we’ve been together. And certainly we realize he stuck out his neck for us when we went down there and we certainly are not going to turn now at this point.”

Here’s an even better conspiracy theory someone suggested to me today. It makes sense if you consider it with the proper degree of paranoia and it goes like this: Favre has essentially worked out a ‘plea deal’ with the NFL over this situation. He’s agreed to a two game ‘suspension’ but only if he’s able to serve it under the radar. Favre ‘sits out’ the term of his suspension with an ‘injured elbow’ after which the NFL announces that they’ve ‘concluded their investigation’ and have ‘dealt with Favre internally’.

It’s basically a football version of the conspiracy theory that Michael Jordan ‘retired to play baseball’ in some sort of deal with the NBA over allegations of gambling. There’s only a couple of things wrong with the logic in Favre’s case–first of all, the media is too omnipresent in our constantly wired world and generally skeptical now so it wouldn’t work. Assuming for the moment that Jordan’s ‘retirement’ conspiracy theory is valid it would have been a lot easier in 1993 to pull the wool over the media’s eyes than it is now. More significantly, I’m not sure that Favre thinks he did anything wrong–everything he says and that his teammate says gives the impression that he’s a ‘victim’ of some sort. That’s not the mentality of a guy who’s going to work out a deal admitting he did something bad. My theory that he’s laying the groundwork to lam it back to Mississippi early should the Vikings drop from contention makes more sense given what we know about Favre’s personality.