This Is How Sports Reporters Should Write….With A Brett Favre Ending
I read just enough of the sports pages to allow me to carry conversation if at a gathering topics turn to basketball or football. With just a little information I can ‘glockenspiel’ with the best of them when the talk turns away from my comfortable zones. So when I spend a few minutes each day with the sports pages it must be witty and well-written in order to get me to the end of a story. And many times when I finish such an article I always go back to the byline to see who had the ability to get me to the other end. Most often these days when it happens I see the writer is Jason Gay.
Today after his article about Urban Meyer, he then continued with a tidbit on Brett Favre. I post a bit of each portion……
But then Mr. Meyer woke up Sunday and realized he couldn’t fully walk away. His resignation was reclassified as something mushier: a “leave of absence.” He will focus on his well-being and his family and, when he feels the urge, he will return to coach. Maybe he’ll return to coach in 2011. Maybe it will be 2010. Maybe he will travel back in time and coach the 1920 Decatur Staleys.
Gator fans are surely ecstatic, but we’re not sure how this is all supposed to work. Obviously we support someone who has health issues wanting to be healthier, especially if a taxing job was contributing to the problem. There’s also nothing wrong with suddenly changing your mind—you should see us torment a Taco Bell drive-thru intercom. But on the other hand, would you want to be offensive coordinator Steve Addazio, Mr. Meyer’s interim successor? Talk about a hot seat.
And then this about the crying quarter-back.
Mr. Favre’s Vikings fairytale began to crumble last week after cameras caught his sassy shoutfest with Mr. Childress during a 26-7 loss to the Carolina Panthers. Apparently, the head coach wanted his battered quarterback to consider sitting down, and Mr. Favre reacted like he’d been unfairly jettisoned from Project Runway. We can’t decide if this is a real controversy or totally overbaked.
Coaches fight all the time with players, and Mr. Favre is famously sensitive for someone known as a grizzled field general. (We would have paid cash money to hear what they were saying privately in the front offices of the Green Bay Packers and the New York Jets, the teams he has departed.)
What is true is that the Vikings, once looking like a Super Bowl contender, are showing signs of losing their way. At times they appear to forget they boast one of the game’s best running backs, Adrian Peterson. There were several moments last week when we saw Minnesota break its huddle and Mr. Peterson sit down in the backfield and open up a worn copy of that bestselling business book, “Working With You Is Killing Me.”
