Brett Favre: ‘Ow! My Elbow!’ Day #2

Added on Oct 16, 2010 by Jason Kearney in

NFL

Brett Favre is hilarious and not in a good way. He’ll say that he ‘doesn’t want to be a distraction’ and then do everything he can to make himself one. He’ll act like an injury is ‘no big deal’ and then prattle on incessantly about it. He’ll act like he’s the quintessential team player, but if he suffers even the most insignificant of setbacks it becomes a ‘crisis’. Part of this isn’t Favre’s fault–the mainstream sports media has always fawned over him as if he were a gridiron incarnation of Winston Churchill and ESPN still does despite everything. Most of it is Favre’s doing–some have suggested that his elbow has all of a sudden become a major concern as a diversionary tactic from his other on-going issues (eg: his penchant for text messaging pictures of himself wearing Crocs with his penis flapping in the breeze). That requires too much self awareness–Favre really does think every bump and bruise is the most important thing in the world.

So today Vikings’ coach Brad Childress was stirring the pot about Favre’s elbow as well and making it sound like ‘The Gunslinger’ was Willis Reed. Mostly it was follow up on the same themes Favre himself laid out in his ‘Ow! My Elbow Day #1′ comments. When asked about Favre’s status, he ripped off several non sequiturs and coaching cliches:

“It will be right up ’til then. You never know coming back. Of course he took a few more turns today. I can’t look into a crystal ball and see how he wakes up tomorrow. He could wake up with the gout tomorrow morning.”

Somehow he missed ‘gotta take em one game at a time’. Childress said that Favre looked ‘OK’ in practice but then suggested otherwise with this nuanced observation on his throwing motion:

“Everybody is a little different. I’ve seen the ball this week come out of his hand backwards. Whether that’s squeezing it or whether the ball is wet, a lot of different things can happen. You are just worried about command and control of it. Velocity won’t be an issue unless he’s changing his motion. When you are changing your motion, other things have a chance to go foul.”

SportsBetting World handicapping specialist Jack Thurman has confirmed what I already suspected–that most ‘wise guys’ expect Favre to go this weekend regardless of what he and Childress might say. He’s listed as ‘probable’ on the latest NFL injury report. Jack also commented that in his opinion Favre and Childress are using his elbow injury as ‘plausible deniability’ should the season continue to go badly for Minnesota.