Tom E. Curran • E-mail

MINNEAPOLIS - There’s a whiff of c’est la vie in the air in Minnesota on this Wednesday. Followed also by just a hint of “still, you never know.”

Less than 24 hours after Brett Favre got off the proverbial can and told the Vikings to go on without him, Minnesotans weren’t exactly reeling from the news.

Lunchtime patrons we spoke to at Hubert’s Sports Bar & Grill across from the Metrodome were moving on quickly.

“I didn’t think it would work out anyway,” said Richard Burns, 60, a lifelong resident of Minneapolis. “I think it was the wrong fit. It’s more about him than it was the team. I know he’s a real competitor, but I think of the Jets last year, and I think he’s just damaged, and I don’t think he can do it over a 16-game schedule. I also didn’t see how the coaching staff could have prepared for the season with a guy giving his 'yes' or 'no' about playing quarterback on the 31st of July.”

A few feet away, 29-year-old electrical contractor Chris Gappa — a resident of Mankato, where the Vikings training camp begins Friday — said somewhat apologetically, “I actually wasn’t all that tore up about it. I don’t want to get beat down, but you don’t set the league record for interceptions…I’m not saying we have the best situation in the league, and I know he’s better than what we have, but still...”

That Favre was (is?) a flawed player but was preferable to either of Minny's other options — Sage Rosenfels or Tarvaris Jackson — is the prevailing opinion right now.

“He wasn’t the answer, but he’s better than what we have,” said Gappa. “Of course, I’m still not convinced he’s not just trying to avoid coming in to camp. I’ve heard that — that he doesn’t want to practice.”

A group of men in hospital scrubs on lunch from nearby Hennepin County Medical Center said that even having Favre for a season would have gotten the team out of what he called the “Tarvaris Jackson Era.” But Brian Becker, 34, also added that Minnesota’s made life even more complicated for itself with its pursuit of the Packers great.

“Then we could have moved on from that, and he could have retired after next year. But they’ve made more problems for themselves now that he’s not coming. What do they say now? ‘OK guys, we guess you’re good ENOUGH…?' I think it’s been a bad move all around, and now they have to soothe egos and find out which one they want to be the quarterback.”

“It’s been a misstep by the administration of the Vikings, I don’t think there’s any question, the way they allowed it to be strung out,” said Craig Bourgeault, 55, another Minneapolis resident. “Quarterback is supposed to be the inspirational leader of the team, and now they’ve got, I assume, two guys who are kind of miffed given the message they were sent that they’re not the guy."

With the Wisconsin border just 30 minutes away, we crossed the St. Croix River and pulled into a Buffalo Wild Wings in Hudson, Wis.

There, tending bar in front of a wall adorned with a framed Favre Packers jersey, 29-year-old Kati Schenz had her finger on the pulse of the whole situation.

“I’m relieved,” said Schenz, a Packers fan who was actually born in the border town of Stillwater, Minn. “I’m a Brett Favre fan as well as a Packers fan, and it would have stung to have to cheer for him to do well and cheer for the Vikings so this clears that up.”

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Schenz said that she’s not sharing in the delicious schadenfreude many Packers fans are feeling after seeing the Vikings strung along the way Packers fans have been in the past. “I’m in general a football fan. I don’t have a spiteful hatred toward the Vikings or other teams. In a way, I feel kind of badly for the Vikings the way they put themselves out there hoping it would work out and it didn’t.”

Schenz was tending bar when the news broke on Tuesday. “In the last 24 hours, it’s been all anyone’s talked about. It was pretty clear when the news came out that Vikings fans were hoping for the best but expecting the worst.”

The way Schenz sees it, not having Favre might not be the worst thing for Vikings fans.

“I give Tarvaris Jackson a lot more credit than he’s given,” she confided. “He actually had a quarterback rating 15 points higher than Favre last year (she’s right – 95.4 to 81) and granted, he played half the games, but he’s still very inexperienced and he’s developing. With time, he will be a successful quarterback. He needs the benefit of the doubt.”

Meanwhile, the college town of Mankato about 80 miles from Minneapolis was dealing with the buzzkill.

Local merchants were expecting a boom time during camp if Favre wheeled into town. And while it will still be busy, area hotels are receiving Favre-related room cancellations.

“Most everyone is going to come one way or the other,” said Mark Meyer, general manager of Mankato’s Fairfield Inn. “We did get some room cancellations, no question, but the result of him not coming is not going to be catastrophic.”

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