Reason #1,019 why I love The Onion…

BRISTOL, CT—In what is being called the biggest gaffe in the sports network’s 30-year history, ESPN totally forgot to cover last week’s Brett Favre vs. Green Bay Packers storyline.

Favre’s legendary career with the Packers, which spanned 16 seasons, three MVP awards, and one Super Bowl title, was not mentioned even once during pregame coverage of the Monday night Packers-Vikings matchup or during the game itself. Records indicated that it wasn’t until Wednesday—more than 48 hours after Favre led Minnesota to a dramatic 30-23 victory—that producers began to feel that they may have overlooked one of sports’ most obvious storylines.

“I was looking at a newspaper, and it said, ‘Favre Sacks Former Team,’ and at that point I realized we really missed one,” ESPN president George Bodenheimer told reporters. “I just want to apologize to our viewers. Had the Favre-Packers connection dawned on us sooner, fans could have enjoyed the same quality sports journalism they have come to expect from ESPN: driving storylines into the ground and exploiting every one of their subplots to the point of nausea.”

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Simmons’s latest column is dedicated to the age-old question: which month is better for sports/time-wasting — April or October?

On the Russian billionaire’s purchase of the New Jersey Nets…

You know the NBA is in at least a little trouble financially when it allows a Russian billionaire to buy a team. Five or six years ago, how fast do you think David Stern squashes the idea when someone says to him, “So, I guess the best way to describe him is that he’s like a Russian Mark Cuban”? Two seconds? One second?

Which raises the question: Did Stern just open the door to all foreign billionaires, or was this a one-time thing? I’d argue that the NBA was soooooooooo desperate to fix this Nets situation and salvage the Brooklyn complex that it didn’t care where the money came from. This was a one-time exception. We need a cash buyer. Period. I think a Saudi oil sheik would have been approved as an owner. I think Tom Cruise would have been approved. I think everyone short of a Pablo Escobar-type buyer would have been approved. It’s the NBA and it’s faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan-tastic … ( … -ally in need of some cash).

On CAR Steve Smith versus NYG Steve Smith…

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I’m setting the over/under on the number of sacks Vikings’ defensive end Jared Allen will have on Aaron Rodgers tonight at 2.5.

Any takers?

Allen is due for a monster night as Green Bay left tackle Chad Clifton is expected to miss his second game tonight following an ankle injury he suffered in a Week 2 loss to the Bengals.

The Packers’ offensive line has resembled a revolving door this season, allowing 12 sacks in the first three games. In their loss to Cincinnati, Green Bay made defensive end Antwan Odom look like a cross between Reggie White and Kevin Greene as he brought down Rodgers five times.

Rodgers is a fine quarterback, but his offensive line is going to get him killed if they don’t start protecting him. Considering Ryan Grant won’t find much running room against the Williams Wall tonight, it would be in Green Bay’s best interest to max-protect Rodgers the entire night. The Giants use a similar method on a weekly basis with Eli Manning and he seems to do just fine.

The Packers need to help Daryn Colledge out, because he’ll see the brunt of the work against Allen. Lining up a tight end to Allen’s side would make sense, although Green Bay might also need to set up a military-based obstacle course in between him and Rodgers just to be safe.

I’m taking the over tonight. I think Allen will eventually take this game over, especially if the Packers can’t get Grant going early. It could be a very long night for Rodgers.

The moment Brett Favre has been waiting for since Ted Thompson crapped in his cereal over 12 months ago is vastly approaching.

The Vikings host the Packers tonight at the Metrodome and Brett will no doubt be fired up to try to stick it to Thompson, as he so amply put it when the GM traded him to the Jets last year. (The fact that Favre put Thompson in a bad position with his fickle changing of the mind is still lost on Brett, but that’s a story for another time.)

The question becomes, will Brett beat Thompson’s Packers tonight?

Like most weeks, the Vikings will try to establish the run with Adrian Peterson in hopes of opening things up in the passing game. The Packers have a solid secondary, so Brad Childress would be foolish to take the ball out of Peterson’s hands early in the game and start forcing the action with Favre in the passing game. It would behoove Childress not to get wrapped up in the Favre-vs-Green Bay death match and just keep things simple with AP.

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Back in 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. As a long time Green Bay fan (starting with Packers teams that featured Lynn Dickey, Paul Ott Carruth, Eddie Lee Ivery and a host of other players with ridiculous-sounding games), I have firsthand experience with these five stages as I’ve dealt with Brett Favre and his annual retirement dance.

In the summer of 2008, when the news leaked that Favre was interested in unretiring, I argued that the Packers should bring him back. He was coming off a stellar season and I firmly believed that he gave Green Bay the best chance to win. At this point, I couldn’t comprehend that the Packers would choose to move on without Favre and this denial quickly turned to anger as I saw just how entrenched management was in that decision.

But I wasn’t aware of a crucial fact: Favre flirted with coming back earlier in the spring and then changed his mind when head coach Mike McCarthy and general manager Ted Thompson were prepared to fly to Mississippi to discuss it. At that point, I totally understood why the Packers said ‘enough is enough’ and made the decision to cut the cord once and for all. And I understand why Favre was upset that the organization didn’t welcome him back with open arms. After all, he is one of the most iconic players ever to play in the NFL and has to have an ego to match. I figured that if he couldn’t come back and play for the Packers, then he’d make the wise decision and hang ’em up, once and for all. This is the third stage of grief — bargaining.

Unfortunately, Favre’s anger towards the Packers quickly turned to spite as he tried to maneuver his way into either Chicago or Minnesota, the Packers’ two biggest rivals. It was obvious what was going on at the time — that Favre wanted to stick it to the Packers, specifically Ted Thompson, who made the final call (and was the one who drafted his successor) — and Favre confirmed this in a interview conducted a few months later. At this point, depression sunk in. I couldn’t believe that Brett Favre — my all-time favorite player and the guy that I would schedule my Sundays around — would risk the goodwill of the Packer faithful just to get revenge on those whom he believed wronged him. This spiteful behavior was just sad.

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