What if Minnesota is just the latest stop on Favre’s ‘Revenge on the World’ Tour?

Favre was for retirement before he was against it

It’s worth remembering one more time that Brett Favre was for retirement before he was against it.

So even if you believe the guy is genuinely conflicted, as opposed to selfish, you’ve got to admit: It’s quite a coincidence that Favre has managed to retire twice in 11 months without missing a single game.

What’s really shocking is not that he’s back, or that the Vikings front office broke nearly every rule in the book about team-building to make it happen. Or that closing in on 40, Favre is willing to risk getting hurt or turning his legacy into a permanent punchline.

It’s not even having to endure another of those phony-baloney, tear-filled farewells that he’s turned into a rite of spring.

No. It’s that Minnesota might just be the latest stop in Favre’s “Revenge on the World” tour, starring a cranky, increasingly creaky, QB who doesn’t know what to do with himself so he sets out to avenge every slight going back to Pop Warner days.

Favre’s legacy is just that — his — to do with as he pleases. He fashioned it with hard work and burnished it with a Super Bowl title, three MVP awards and just about every major NFL career passing mark worth owning. He’s earned every paycheck he cashed.

A few short years ago, the consensus was that Favre would go down in history as one of the best QBs ever, and likely the grittiest. Then the retirement drama began in Green Bay and everything changed. The more attention Favre got, the less believable every one of his answers became. And here’s a convenient way to gauge where his reputation stands now:

If one of your pals was halfway out the door of a bar late at night and suddenly announced, “I’m pulling a Favre,” everybody in the joint would know immediately what he meant — that he was stepping back in for last call.

This decision says just as much about the Vikings as it does about Favre. Even an opportunist needs an opportunity.

Whatever the real sentiment in the locker room was all along about Favre joining the team, both coach Brad Childress and owner Zygi Wilf had no problem pretending they were over him. Both said so as recently as the first day of training camp.

So what changed?

The guess here is nothing, that the fuss made about Favre’s torn rotator cuff was just another happy coincidence — not to mention a convenient excuse — that spared him a pounding in training camp. And if Childress was the least bit unhappy about the way Favre jerked around the franchise, and left him twisting in the wind these past few months, he had a funny way of showing it.

Childress scooped up Favre at the airport and dropped him on the doorstep of the Vikings practice facility, smiling wider than he has since spring. The two share a long, professional friendship, which was one reason both were willing to put up with all the hubbub that preceded the deal. They ran the same offense together in Green Bay for years — Favre likes to say he could run it in his sleep. And there’s always the possibility the marriage will wind up being more convenient than the courtship was chaotic.

But I doubt it. The Vikings have maybe the best running back in the league in Adrian Peterson and last season’s No. 1 defense against the run. Those things argue for a quarterback who manages the game carefully and turns the ball over almost never.

Favre wasn’t that quarterback in his 20s or even 30s. He has yet to meet a defensive alignment he believes he can’t squeeze a spiral through. Old dogs don’t learn new tricks in their 40s, they simply perform the ones they know with declining skills. Favre was intercepted nine times in his final five games with the New York Jets. He isn’t the most-intercepted QB in league history by accident.

The Vikings are already filling orders for his No. 4 jersey in purple, but short of a Super Bowl appearance or a Favre-fueled run deep into the playoffs, it’s hard to see how this thing ends well. Or even that it ends at all.

“This is not about revenge or anything like that, believe me,” Favre said at his first news conference in Minnesota.

“You can’t take away the 16 years I had in Green Bay. It was unbelievable. It was great and that will be forever cherished by me and the guys I played with. And you know, they’ve moved on. I’ve moved on. I think it’s great for football.”

Here’s hoping he’s right, since he’s the only one it’s been good for so far.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org