This should probably be something we come to expect — it’s Super Bowl week, so people are digging up Brett Favre and asking him all kinds of stupid questions.
When you think about it, you realize this has become an annual occurrence.
So here’s Yahoo! treading over that old, tired story about how Favre didn’t think it was his job to tutor Aaron Rodgers back when the Green Bay Packers drafted him.
“I think as a starter my job is hard enough to win ball games and be a leader,” Favre said. “You’re not a babysitter. And I’m not, by no means talking about Aaron, but he’s the starter now. So the next quarterback comes in, whether he is a first-round pick or third-round pick or free agent, but they like him. Nowhere does it say that you have to take that guy under your wing and teach him the ropes. You don’t have to do anything but win ball games for whoever it is you are the starting quarterback for. Ultimately, that’s what keeps you around or doesn’t.”
That’s a solid point by Brett, but it was never really viewed in that way before. The problem for Brett is Brett. He’s viewed as selfish because, frankly, he is selfish. This stance toward Rodgers just reinforced that idea in peoples’ minds.
So while Brett is right — his concern should be about winning games — he should have had more tact when he first addressed this question.
“I’m sure I can teach him a thing or two.”
That would have been a tactful response. And then Brett could have gone off and done absolutely nothing to teach Rodgers anything at all and we never would have known. But Brett Favre does not know what tact is, as we’ve witnessed so many times.
Naturally, this is the basis for the Brett Favre doesn’t like Aaron Rodgers narrative, which has also grown tiresome.
Brett, of course, insists he has no problem with Aaron.
“Aaron and I, we don’t talk all the time but I don’t talk all the time with family members,” Favre said. “It has nothing to do with him being the starting quarterback of Green Bay in spite of what people may think.
“I got no hard feelings. Why would I have hard feelings for Aaron Rodgers and why would he have hard feelings for me?”
Good question. These were just two dudes caught up in an uncomfortable situation created by their employer. They have never been, as far as we know, arch enemies.
It’s just that one of them handled that uncomfortable situation better than the other one did. Much better, as you surely know.
And so the one that didn’t handle it well gets to be the villain. He may not like that, but that’s the narrative that he created and will, at least in some part, forever be saddled with.