Yep, that inevitable moment finally came last week; you told the world you were walking away from professional football. I guess many of us knew your retirement day would eventually arrive, but the reality of you not suiting up next season has yet to sink in. Without you, Brett, the game of football becomes just a little bit different--and NOT in a better way. All I can do now is send along my gratitude for 17 wonderful years, Mr. Favre; hear me out for just a bit. Thanks for becoming synonymous with that ONE franchise over the years, Brett; oh yeah, you threw five passes in a Falcons uniform when you were a struggling rookie, but once you arrived in Green Bay, you immersed yourself in the Packer tradition, won a Super Bowl, and went NOWHERE else. Your devotion to one team happily reminds me of another athlete named Brett--George of the Royals--another guy who truly understood the meaning of the term "loyalty." «FULL STORY»

It is very hard to detach yourself, emotionally, from a team when they mean so much to you. I try to approach each week with some degree of evenhandedness but what happened at around 10 pm eastern time on Sunday, February 3 will be etched in my memory forever. Just after Christmas in January of 1997 my family lost everything it owned in a house fire – left without the simplest of necessities the community reached out and donated winter coats, among other things. The only jacket that fit me was an old, pretty tattered Giants winter jacket. Pretty indifferent about football to that point, but after receiving that jacket I made a conscious decision to make the Giants “My Team” from that day on. And it’s been pretty tough sledding since.

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