Bryan Burwell

For months now, I’ve been looking at the Brett Favre saga and tried to understand why it has come to this. And now I get it. This is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.

This shotgun divorce between the Green Bay Packers and their living legend has finally reached the point of sheer insanity as Favre has once again been told by the franchise whose championship legacy he helped redefine, basically to get lost.

“Well I think insanity is a bit strong,” said Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. “But it is unusual.”

No, insanity works just fine, and absurdity will do in a pinch. How else can you describe this failed media strategy by the Packers brass to cover its own football malpractice with a clumsy smear campaign against Favre? After weeks and months of stumbling and bumbling, on Tuesday afternoon, the Packers threw McCarthy out into the public light and allowed him to be the stooge who tried to execute this dumber than dumb plan.

The plan is to paint Favre as some emotionally confused and tortured soul who doesn’t know what he wants. The plan was to characterize Favre as the bad guy, even though we all know management pushed him into making a rushed decision on retiring in the first place. And when months later, he predictably had a change of heart, management unsuccessfully tried to send him away last week with a transparent $25 million bribe/golden parachute.

Yet when Favre wouldn’t take the money, he sure didn’t look or sound conflicted when he did. Favre repeated the same theme: He wants to play. When I saw him practicing with all those high school kids all summer long, that didn’t look like a guy who didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. It reminded me that for everyone who has ever played sports, our ability to compete runs out long before our desire does.

Someone always tells us when to go. But there are precious few lucky ones who get to leave on their own terms. Favre still has the desire and the ability and he doesn’t want anyone to tell him he can’t still play. So if the Packers don’t want him, he can’t understand why they won’t let him go play somewhere else.

Favre joins Vikings AP file   Video: Vikings are ‘the perfect fit,’ Favre says   Video: ‘I didn’t want to say ‘What if’ ’ Curran: Win-win for Favre and Vikings Celizic: Worst flip-flopper in sports history Newsweek: Let's give Favre a break Live vote: How will Vikings do with Favre Live vote: Does this hurt Favre's legacy? Packers not shocked by Favre's move   Slide show: Tracking QBs who couldn't quit Timeline of Favre's career  |    Slide show Fantasy impact: Favre not a huge get Vote: Top star in Minnesota sports history?

But team president Mark Murphy, general manager Ted Thompson and McCarthy want to have it both ways. They don’t want him, but they don’t want anyone else to have him. So they just kept procrastinating, and Favre forced their hands by filing his reinstatement papers, hopping a plane to Green Bay for training camp and essentially telling the team “play me or trade me.”

Yet for all this “he said-he said” silliness, we can condense this story into one easy sentence:

There is no good explanation for why anyone with half a brain would want to run one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history out of town.

But that’s exactly what McCarthy and the other two stooges, Thompson and Murphy, have done. They have told Favre — who last year after 16 years in the NFL, even at the age of 38 was arguably one of the two or three best quarterbacks in the game — that his services were no longer needed or wanted.

When Favre called and said he’d changed his mind about his retirement, and wanted to play again, the correct answer should have been, “Do you want me to drive, or should I send a plane for you?"