Well, we now kind of have a timetable for the inevitable. Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy says the organization will retire Brett Favre’s number before 2016.
Favre will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2016 and he’ll surely make it on the first ballot. Murphy addressed the issue in response to a fan question in the monthly column he writes on Packers.com.
“I am often asked questions about Brett Favre, and specifically whether we will retire his number,” Murphy wrote. “We do want to bring Brett back into the fold, and plan on retiring his number. He deserves to have his number retired for what he accomplished, and meant to the Packers, during his time here. I thought Aaron Rodgers and Brett jointly presenting the Comeback Player of the Year Award at the NFL Honors program was a great first step. It is really just a question of timing in terms of retiring his jersey. The timing has to be right for both Brett and the organization. Brett will be a first ballot Hall of Famer in 2016, and we would like to retire his number prior to his induction.”
So, now you can speculate on exactly when this number retirement will happen. Our guess is it might happen as soon as next season. Then again, maybe not — Murphy seems to understand that a lot of people are still pissed that Favre played for those turds in Minnesota.
“I know that many of our fans were upset that Brett played for the Vikings,” Murphy wrote. “As time goes by, though, I think wounds are healed and people focus more on the great things he did for the team during his 16 years here. As the recent signings by Greg Jennings and Desmond Bishop show, many players in the league go on to play for rivals later in their careers.”
Not quite in the fashion that Favre did though, right? But hey, time… wounds… blah, blah, blah.