After taking a couple of days to digest the start of Favrepaloza 2010, I decided it was time to rant a bit about this week's media handling of the situation. Reporting is much different now than it was 20 years ago. Long before social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, journalists would actually spend time gathering facts on a particular story before a single finger touched a keyboard or pen (yes, people actually used to write things out first). Now someone hears a possible rumor, tweets about it like it's gospel, and before you know it, within a matter of minutes, it's spread across every media outlet in the nation.
That's exactly what happened this week when StarTribune's Judd Zulgad issued this Tweet: "Brett Favre began telling Vikings officials last night he will NOT return for a 20th season."
By the end of the hour, ESPN jumped all over this and began running non-stop Favre coverage to include Favre's top ten plays and moments and his legendary career. Why and how does this happen? Have we not all learned that when Brett's involved, it's best to wait things out and get clarification. The entire time this was going on, I didn't believe a single word of it. It's one thing if Favre had called a press conference and stated that he's done (to which we still can't believe what he says), but this was all based off some unknown players supposedly stating that Favre had texted them.
The entire debacle was uncalled for and could have easily been avoided had today's journalists done their homework first, like they were once expected to do. Favre took a lot of heat and criticism on this one and for a change, he didn't do anything wrong. That's not to say that he's off the hook however. He could have easily made a phone call to his buddy at ESPN Ed Werder and made a statement to be aired that he never said he's done playing.
As for the reports now coming out that this was a move in order for Favre to get more money from the Vikings, I don't buy that one bit. It's never been about the money for Favre and he's already poised to make 13 Million this season.
Instead, I believe it's all about covering up the fact that he's once again, not in Mankato. His latest statement is that if his ankle can handle it, he's playing. Much like the timing of his shoulder last year, this provides a built in excuse for not showing up to camp and the possible unfortunate event that he does not produce the great numbers of last season.
In the end, we should not care and take note that this was all expected to begin with. Sure Packer fans laughed and warned us all about his team hijacking ways, but in the end, who was one game (play) away from the Super Bowl last year? The Favre led Vikings, not the Packers.
