Brian is laughing at me. I am switching between the Redskins vs. Jets game and the Olympics on TV, and have the Packers vs. 49ers game on Sirius radio, NFL.com, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Packers blog.
With a few extra minutes on the way to La Guardia today, I stopped at Ess-a-Bagel to pick up bagels. Mmmmmm"Brett has had a long and storied career in Green Bay, and the Packers owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for everything he accomplished on the field and for the impact he made in the state. It is with some sadness that we make this announcement, but also with the desire for certainty that will allow us to move the team and organization forward in the most positive way possible.
"We respect Brett's decision that he could no longer remain here as a Packer. But there were certain things we were not willing to do because they were not in the best interest of the team. We were not going to release him nor trade him to a team within the division. When Brett ultimately decided that he still wanted to play football, but not in Green Bay, we told him that we would work to find the best solution for all parties involved. We wish Brett and his family well.
"We appreciate the tremendous passion shown by our fans. We, like them, always will see Brett Favre as a Green Bay Packer and our respect for him never will change. Moving forward, we are dedicated to delivering a successful 2008 season for all Packers fans."
Sixteen years after Brett Favre came to the Packers, he is returning for a seventeenth season. He has had a great career with our organization and although we built this year around the assumption that Brett meant what he said about retiring, Brett is coming back. We will welcome him back and turn this situation to our advantage.
Frankly, Brett's change of mind put us in a very difficult spot. We now will revise many actions and assumptions about our long-term future, all predicated on Brett's decision last March to retire. As a result of his decision, we invested considerably in a new and different future without Brett and we were obviously moving in that direction. That's why this wasn't easy. Having crossed the Rubicon once when Brett decided to retire, it's very difficult to reorient our plans and cross it again in the opposite direction - but we'll put this to our advantage.
Brett will be in camp tomorrow. Although there has been uncertainty regarding Brett's return, Ted Thompson and Coach McCarthy had previously discussed this and have had a plan in place. Coach McCarthy will talk to the team and the quarterbacks about the plan moving forward, and after he has done that we will share it publicly.
No matter what, I look forward to another successful season for the Packers and our fans. This has been a tough situation, but the Packers will make the most of it.
Charged with the vital task of continuing to be sure that new enshrinees are the finest the game has produced is the Pro Football Hall of Fame's 44-person Board of Selectors (see list below).
The Board consists of one media representative from each pro football city with two from New York, inasmuch as that city has two teams in the National Football League. A 33rd member is a representative of the Pro Football Writers of America and there are 11 at-large delegates.
With the exception of the PFWA representative who is appointed for a two-year term, all appointments are of the open-end variety and can be terminated only by retirement or resignation, as long as the member continues to attend meetings regularly.
The Board of Selectors meets annually at the time of the Super Bowl to elect new members. There is no set number for any class of enshrinees but, the Board's current ground rules do stipulate that between four and seven new members will be selected each year. The 1973 and 1976 classes of three were the smallest ever named.
Every candidate is carefully scrutinized and must receive at least 80 percent approval of the Board at the annual meeting before he can be elected. A scale of negative votes for elimination that will vary depending on the number of Selectors in attendance is used.
When the Selectors meet in Arizona next February to name the Class of 2008, they will have before them a roster of 17 final candidates, along with detailed biographies on each. To assure that older players will be considered along with the younger breed, the Seniors Committee - made up of nine veteran members of the overall Selection Committee - have named two nominees from the pre-1983 era to be included on the final list.
The other finalists will be the survivors from a preliminary list of candidates that the Board will have screened by mail ballot. That original list will have been in part provided by the fans themselves.A slight modification to the bylaws in August 2006 resulted in an increase to 17 finalists based on 15 modern-era candidates and two senior nominees being named. In the past, the finalists numbered 15 that included 13 modern-era candidates and the two senior nominees.
Any fan may nominate any qualified person who has been connected with pro football in any capacity simply by writing to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The only restriction is that a player and coach must have last played or coached at least five seasons before he can be considered. For example, a candidate for the 2008 class must have concluded his career not later than the 2002 season.
There is no mandatory retirement period for a contributor. Every nomination received will be processed and forwarded to the Board of Selectors.
It is important to emphasize that the Hall of Fame itself has no say whatsoever as to who is or is not elected to membership. The only function of the staff is to process the nominations as they arrive and to coordinate the annual meeting.From Pro Football Hall of Fame http://www.profootballhof.com/
Brett Favre deserves better. This is not conduct worthy of a franchise like Green Bay, certainly not on a weekend when players who have given so much to the game are being honored. Given Favre’s tenure and stature, the Packers should have had a what-happens-if-he-changes-his-mind contingency plan that would accommodate his return.
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Favre has insisted all along that this is not about money, but about a mixture of honor and glory and the love of the game.
You can’t fault Favre if he takes the money, but hopefully he will tell Thompson and Murphy to keep their millions. He wants to play football.
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If you don't want Favre, if you think he's washed up and ready to be bronzed, then why would you care if he winds up with the Vikings or Bears? If you don't want Favre, why would you care who he plays for in the limited time he has left?
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