"So what do you think about the whole Brett Favre thing?"

People who have asked me this question in the last two weeks:

--My co-workers
--My ex-co-workers
--My pastor's wife
--My father-in-law
--My uncle-in-law
--My dog-in-law

The last time I was being asked the same question by so many people, I was a senior in high school and was telling everyone that "Wheaton is a Christian liberal arts school in the suburbs of Chicago ... no, it's not affiliated with a specific denomination ... yeah, my dad went there, and I really thought it was the best Christian education I could get."

So, since you're probably asking right now, "So what DO you think about the whole Brett Favre thing," here's my short answer:

Brett Favre needs to find a hobby. Or leave the country. Or, better yet, take up around-the-world hot-air ballooning. There's a hobby that would take him out of the country for a long, long time.

The point is, unretiring was a bad idea. Strike that--unretiring now was a bad idea. Had Favre unretired back this spring when the Packers hadn't planned its entire offseason strategy around someone else, that would've been fine. (Actually, he almost did that, and the Packers told him they'd take him back, but then he re-retired at the last minute.)

But no, he decided to un-retire less than a month before training camp, and he decided to do it in the most drama queeny fashion imaginable. Here's why the Packers aren't taking him back as starter, and I totally understand it.

Basically, the standards for Favre had been in a different universe from the rest of the team, and Favre was asking for more of the same. So the Pack's front office decided whether their ultimate loyalty was to Favre or to the rest of the team. And at some point, Packers fans have to make the same choice. It's easy to pick the face of the franchise for the past 16 years. But it makes a lot more sense to choose the franchise itself.