If You Ever Want The Kid Glove Treatment

Go to FOX News. Aww, yeah. Did anyone else watch that broadcast last night? Was anyone else slightly pained? Did anyone else think, "Man, I like Favre a lot better when he just doesn't talk so much"?

Two interesting reports on Favre's "interview" from Mike Lucas at the Cap Times, which is just plain funny, and a more detailed one from Don Walker at the Journal Sentinel, who got the full transcript of the interview, which was not broadcast entirely last night. One thing the Walker piece reveals, when it lays out Favre's comments from last night's and tonight's broadcast, is that Favre has totally tried to influence Thompson's decisions as GM and is at least somewhat irritated that Thompson hasn't paid much attention to what Favre wants. Two specific things that were mentioned were Favre lobbying for Moss a year ago, and Thompson declining to interview Mariucci for the head coaching job. Well, in response to the latter, McCarthy's done pretty well so far and Mariucci is still a broadcaster. And as for the former, Moss has talked about how Green Bay said he'd have to behave properly, and how that offended him and made him not want to go there. With Moss's lengthy record of misfeasance, I can't blame the team for preemptively laying down the law, and thus have little to no problem with the team's decision there.

It's a little disconcerting to me that Favre has tried to influence some of the team's big decisions, and it's got to have been sort of irritating for Thompson, but at the same time it's understandable. He's the best single player in the history of the franchise. His career is winding down. He wants to win now. He trusts his own ability to judge someone's talent or coaching ability. It all makes sense. But what doesn't make sense is his inability to realize that he was wrong, or that Thompson's decision was, if not totally right, then at least arguably right. McCarthy has been an excellent coach so far. James Jones (who was taken with the pick that the Packers probably would have had to give up for Moss) had a great rookie season, especially for a wide receiver. Moss would likely have resigned with another team this offseason, and I don't see how his addition would not have solved the team's pass defense problem, which was their undoing against the Giants and would have been their undoing against the Pats.

On another note, it's cool that Greta Van Susteren is a high profile media talking head, and is from Appleton and is a UW grad. It's great to see UW grads go on to reach prominence in their professions, as many of them do. But man, she has oddly proportioned features. I wonder how she got on television? Maybe it was the "everyone else on TV is too blandly good-looking. Let's be different!"