Goodell is right to lean on Packers
Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2008 1:18 PM
The Brett Favre morass is an embarrassment for Green Bay and Favre and the kind of publicity the NFL doesn’t think it needs. And for those reasons, you have to congratulate commissioner Roger Goodell for leaning on the team to move their un-retiring quarterback to another team and end the madness.
Personally, I don’t see Green Bay’s problem as being one for the league. While it’s messy, it’s also generating a ton of publicity every day. And the first rule of public relations is it doesn’t matter what’s being said about you as long as they spell your name right. The only bad publicity is no publicity.
For any fan outside of Green Bay, l’affaire Favre is wonderful theater. For haters of the green and gold, it’s probably also delightfully entertaining. It’s also clean fun. It’s not about drugs or exotic dancers. It’s about a legendary player who wants to come out of retirement for a team that doesn’t want him around anymore.
While I’m perfectly happy to let the melodrama play itself out, I fully understand why Goodell wants it to go away. No sport more carefully guards its image and attempts to stage manage everything and everybody. To Goodell, the stalemate between team and quarterback reflects poorly on the league.
There is precedent for a commissioner giving a team advice that borders on an order. Way back in 1979, Pete Rozelle told the Mara family to hire a competent general manager to end years of losing in New York. Rozelle even suggested a candidate – George Young. The Giants took the hint, hired Young, and built a Super Bowl champion.
I’ve often wished that commissioners would do that more often. Somebody, for instance, should tell Al Davis to stop trying to run the Raiders. The Bidwill family should be ordered to either build a winning team in Arizona or sell the Cardinals. They’ve had something like 50 years to win something. That should be time enough.
I don’t expect either of those scenarios to come to pass any time soon. But it is a good sign that Goodell is willing to get his hands dirty and do what he can to help solve embarrassing situations. It may be bad for writers and broadcasters to get this settled, but it’s good for Goodell’s vision of what the NFL ought to be.
He’s also right. Green Bay has to get Favre out of town as soon as possible. The controversy can’t be doing Aaron Rodgers any good, and it’s a huge distraction for the entire team as it heads to camp. The last thing the Packers need to see when they put on the pads is Favre showing up, as he’s threatened to do.
The team also doesn’t need to get sucked up into possible tampering charges involving the Vikings. Goodell will doubtless be heard on that issue, too.
The Packers understandably want something in return for Favre, but I’d be very tempted to simply give him his outright release. There’s danger in that. He could show up in Chicago or another division rival, which the Packers don’t want to happen. But to trade him, they have to get his approval, and this could stretch on for weeks. This may be one of those cases where you swallow hard, cut your losses and tear up his contract.
He’s got to go, and the sooner the better. Goodell understands that. It remains to be seen if the Packers do.
