The Packers Win

Unless you’ve been living in a hole for a few weeks (or you’re just not a football fan, which is probably the less likely of these two possibilities), you’ve heard quite a bit about the Brett Favre and Green Bay Packers saga which finally ended today with Favre being introduced as the new QB for the New York Jets.

The Hashmarks blog on ESPN has a pretty good write-up about how it all went down. At the end of the day though, know this: The Green Bay Packers ended up with a helluva deal out of an extremely difficult situation.

Last week a friend asked me what I thought the Packers should do and I honestly had no idea. They were basically in a rarely-seen lose-lose-lose situation. They could tell Favre to shut up and go away (PR disaster). They could tell Favre to come back (and look like desperate blowhards willing to bend at the waist for him). Or they could move Favre to another team (with the Vikings the most serious suitors at that point, that would have been truly disastrous).

Instead, here’s what they ended up with:

• They moved Favre to an AFC team (meaning they probably will never have to stare at him on the other sideline)
• They got (most likely) a 2nd or 3rd round pick
• The situation ended with Favre actually looking like kind of the bad guy
• They received closure of the most clear kind

And lest you think they didn’t get enough, let me remind you that in the NFL draft picks are king. If you can get a 2nd or 3rd round pick for an aging QB who missed most of your training camp and who was prone to suddenly throwing absurd interceptions at the most inopportune times, you probably do it. Hell, if Brett had never retired and you got an offer for a 2nd round pick? You at least listen, right?

So if I’m Packers front-office management tonight? I’m high-fiving my buddies and going out on a celebration binge. It sounds awful, but they basically pulled an 8 out of a situation where any person in his right mind would have been happy with a 3.