Vanity Fair

Hope is the thing with feathers.
-Emily Dickinson

Under how many labels can one entry fall? L'Affaire de Favre has become something so outlandishly bizarre that I am left oddly mute. Brett Favre will actually be paid to retire, stay retired, and be part of the Packers "product," working from home in Mississippi. All the while he has played the Bucs and the Jets, perhaps to raise the dollar value of what the Pack will pay him to stay retired. He will quarterback for no one now, which was what he said he would do - or not do - earlier this spring. But now we know that these earlier plans probably included this mime show of interest in front of the gullible press. I suppose the notorious paucity of post-retirement for most players in the NFL has driven him to this extraordinary shadow play. Even I, for brief periods of time, had some ridiculous notion that he would wear our green, finding that by doing so, I too was only covered in more feathers. Look on yourself, Jets fans. There are probably a few on you, too.