Favre plans to retire!

[The Shadow]

Trent Dillfer on ESPN just now, commenting on Brett Favre, said he may not be the best QB to have played the game, but in his opinion, he was the greatest football player to have played.
I thought that was nice.

That's what people in the know think as well, but those who are arm chair quarterbacks (and bad ones at that) seem to disagree (CPK, etc).

With that said, football got a little less fun today. I know half of you are all blind haters, but Brett Favre is the best thing to happen to the Packers ever. He saved them from mediocrity, brought them annual success, etc. We've already witnessed how a championship caliber team can fall apart without a strong quarterback. Hopefully we find out next Brett Favre within the next couple of years.

I wish him well and respect the hell out of him. He is a truly special football player who should have been allowed to go out with the Packers on his own terms.

Did I miss something here? I thought he retired from the Packers in a tearful ceremony, and publicly thanked by the entire organization for his contributions.
Exactly what 'terms' was he denied??

[PaCkFan_n_MD]

So.....


What if Rodgers goes down for the year in week 7 and were 5-2???


(Que Jeopardy music)

Call up Brett.

[KYPack]

Packers Statement.

It's cool, we're not making any money off the words herein:

Congratulations to Brett on a remarkable career. The Packers organization wishes him and his family well. Brett always will hold a special place in Green Bay Packers history, and we remain committed to retiring his number at an appropriate time in the future.

It won't happen as long as TT is around.

BLF has it out for that boy.

[sheepshead]

So.....


What if Rodgers goes down for the year in week 7 and were 5-2???


(Que Jeopardy music)

Call up Brett.

I say Brett stays in shape till Halloween or so.

[PaCkFan_n_MD]

So.....


What if Rodgers goes down for the year in week 7 and were 5-2???


(Que Jeopardy music)

Call up Brett.

I say Brett stays in shape till Halloween or so.

I'm not going to lie, that would be so exciting.

edit: Not that I don't like Rodgers, I still think he's a great player.

[Patler]

So none of Favre's pro-rated signing bonus would be saddled to the Jets if they release him? If he's not retired, his bonus is guaranteed. I guess that would be in the realm of $1.5mil x2 for the last 2 years of the deal. If I remember correctly, that gets pushed forward to next season if its after August something?

Edit: Bonus was $10mil for 10 years. So max he could cost the Jets this season on a release would be $2mil if I'm not mistaken. Anyone have a page with their actual cap # right now?

A couple points.

On very long contracts, the signing bonus can not be prorated over the entire life of the contract. When Favre signed his last one, I believe the limit was 6 years.

During the life of a contract, certain interim bonuses are sometimes "guaranteed" before they come due. This allows the team to prorate that bonus into the future, whereas if it had stayed as it was it would count entirely against the year in which it was paid. I believe this happened with Favre once in the last half of his contract, maybe a couple times, but not for extremely large amounts.

By 2007, Favre's cap # was almost entirely salary. In 2007 only $800,000. was classed as a pro-rated signing bonus, $11 million as salary. In years previous to 2007 it was much higher. This was by design so that if Favre retired anytime in the latter half of his contract, the cap hit against the Packers was minimal.

Even if a player has prorated signing bonus remaining, it does not pass to the team that trades for him. The team who paid him that bonus has to count it against their cap. The Packers counted the balance of $1.4 million for Favre against their 2008 cap (which I assume was for bonuses "guaranteed" at some point in the middle years of his contract). The acquiring team is responsible only for bonuses due in the future, not ones paid in the past.

The report at the time of the trade was that Favre had tweaked some details of his contract with the Jets. I don't know the details, or if anything affected salary/bonus structure.

[Harlan Huckleby]

"Its all about how I feel physically.

That could change with arthoscopic surgery."


- Brett Favre 2-11-2009, 5:15 CST

[Brando19]

Anyone have a link to the teleconference?

[Tyrone Bigguns]

So.....


What if Rodgers goes down for the year in week 7 and were 5-2???


(Que Jeopardy music)

Call up Brett.

I say Brett stays in shape till Halloween or so.

Stays in shape? To stay in shape you have to be in shape. Maybe you missed that gut he had all season long.

[texaspackerbacker]

So none of Favre's pro-rated signing bonus would be saddled to the Jets if they release him? If he's not retired, his bonus is guaranteed. I guess that would be in the realm of $1.5mil x2 for the last 2 years of the deal. If I remember correctly, that gets pushed forward to next season if its after August something?

Edit: Bonus was $10mil for 10 years. So max he could cost the Jets this season on a release would be $2mil if I'm not mistaken. Anyone have a page with their actual cap # right now?

A couple points.

On very long contracts, the signing bonus can not be prorated over the entire life of the contract. When Favre signed his last one, I believe the limit was 6 years.

During the life of a contract, certain interim bonuses are sometimes "guaranteed" before they come due. This allows the team to prorate that bonus into the future, whereas if it had stayed as it was it would count entirely against the year in which it was paid. I believe this happened with Favre once in the last half of his contract, maybe a couple times, but not for extremely large amounts.

By 2007, Favre's cap # was almost entirely salary. In 2007 only $800,000. was classed as a pro-rated signing bonus, $11 million as salary. In years previous to 2007 it was much higher. This was by design so that if Favre retired anytime in the latter half of his contract, the cap hit against the Packers was minimal.

Even if a player has prorated signing bonus remaining, it does not pass to the team that trades for him. The team who paid him that bonus has to count it against their cap. The Packers counted the balance of $1.4 million for Favre against their 2008 cap (which I assume was for bonuses "guaranteed" at some point in the middle years of his contract). The acquiring team is responsible only for bonuses due in the future, not ones paid in the past.

The report at the time of the trade was that Favre had tweaked some details of his contract with the Jets. I don't know the details, or if anything affected salary/bonus structure.

This is a small but very significant blessing that we can credit Thompson and possibly Sherman before him for. A lot of big contract QBs leave teams in "cap hell" when they retire--Aikman and Young, for example.

[Guiness]

[snip]

Even if a player has prorated signing bonus remaining, it does not pass to the team that trades for him. The team who paid him that bonus has to count it against their cap. The Packers counted the balance of $1.4 million for Favre against their 2008 cap (which I assume was for bonuses "guaranteed" at some point in the middle years of his contract). The acquiring team is responsible only for bonuses due in the future, not ones paid in the past.

I always wondered about this, and if there was a way around it if the teams wanted it..

Let's build a scenario - a hypothetical one if you like

Team A signs a player to a 4yr $8mil contract with a $4mil bonus. Two years in, they decide he's expendable, and have a willing trade partner in Team B. Problem is, $2mil of the pro-rated bonus would get accelerated into Team A's cap, and they can't afford it.

Is there a way for the teams to work around this? Let's assume the Team B thinks he's worth it, and would be willing to pay the remaining part of the bonus. Could they fork over $2million to Team A as part of the trade? Seems like it happens in soccer all the time, but I think that's more between leagues.

[packers11]

The NY Daily News reports Brett Favre has already submitted his retirement papers to the NFL, making his decision official.

Favre never filed the paperwork after retiring from the Packers last March, so it appears he's dead serious this time. It also means Favre's $13M salary is off the books, bringing the Jets roughly $10M under the salary cap. Feb. 11 - 5:35 pm et

Source: New York Daily News

[vince]

Many Packer fans remain miffed at the disrespect Brett Favre showed our great franchise, the fans, and other innocents like Aaron Rodgers last offseason and even through the season. In the end, this all amounts to a messy divorce and hurt feelings and immature behavior run amok.

Nevertheless, this is clearly a time to make a sincere attempt to move on and past the mess that was. The man was indisputably one of the greatest football players of all time and we had the pleasure of enjoying that play for all those years.

I'd say he's done for good this time. He has convinced himself that he can't play like he wants to, and that is the mental key to him moving on for good.

Here's a nice article about Favre from Matt Bowen, former Packer and National Football Post writer.

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/2009/02/remembering-brett/

Remembering Brett
Everyone knew this day was coming. You could see it in his eyes during the final weeks of this past season and in the tired arm on a trip to Seattle. It was time to go, but that doesn’t mean Brett Favre won’t be missed.

It’s no secret to National Football Post readers that I’m a loyal Favre supporter — almost to a fault — but I have my own reasons. I grew up, and still live, in Chicago, and I can tell you that Brett is as big a name in the sports culture of this town as Walter, Michael and Ditka. I grew up cheering against him but always found myself rooting for him — just as the fans around me did in the cold seats of Solider Field.


Now, I can’t say that Favre and I are close. I was just a teammate — one of hundreds he played with during his career — for two quick seasons in Green Bay. I don’t have his cell phone number or even his e-mail address. I was just another player, a co-worker — a guy who wanted to be a part of something big, like Favre did. When I walked into the locker room for the first time at Lambeau, I was a 24 year-old kid — and I was star struck. Forget the fact I would soon be wearing a helmet that equaled the tradition of a Yankees’ ball cap, or the fact I would walk down the same concrete steps at the old Lambeau Field that Paul Horning did.

I was playing football with Brett Favre.

Let me say that again — I was playing football with Brett Favre — because it still sounds cool as a 32-year-old father of two. You want to talk about every kid’s dream growing up in my era? That was it, and I was living it — and I still do. Any place I go, when NFL football is brought up, it’s never about my career — it’s about Brett. At suburban cocktail parties holding a Bud Heavy, squeezed into a corner by strangers who want to know what he was like. At holidays, when family members at the table want to hear a story or two. At graduate school, when professors and fellow students want to hear me talk about Favre. At my son’s pre-school, when parents want to ask a question — it always comes down to Brett.

I was in awe watching him work on the field during those two seasons. I remember the Monday night game in Champaign on the University of Illinois campus against the Bears (still my favorite game). I can still see him unloading that ball to Donald Driver in the game’s opening minutes. I was a fan of my own teammate. Does that sound strange? It might, but we were all fans on the sideline when Favre and the offense were on the field. I never sat down because I never wanted to miss one of those magical moments, and they happened quite often in those days. Teammates would stare with wide eyes and open mouths as Brett uncorked 80-yard TD passes or made plays out of thin air.


During the 2006 season in Buffalo, I spoke briefly to Brett as we walked down the tunnel hours before our game against the Packers. By briefly, I mean a handshake and a few words — nothing much. But it is still one of my favorite moments in the National Football League, and it has nothing to do with what I did as a player on the field. It wasn’t about the game, schemes or wins and loses — it was about respect.

And now, it’s all gone. Sure, the breakup that happened in northern Wisconsin last year wasn’t pretty, but neither was yours with your girlfriend in high school. Every player who has either played with or lined up against Favre respected the man as a player. Nothing, and I mean nothing, had to do with the man as a person. Yes, he had his faults, but then again, we all do in some aspect of our lives — hidden away in some dark closet.

The guy could play and play well. He brought entertainment to our living rooms for 17 years, folks, and brought little-known teammates like me along for part of the ride. Give him the respect he deserves today and let him walk away from the game.

Man, he was fun to watch. And as a fan of this game, I will miss it — greatly.

[Gunakor]

Brett has had an incredible career. He won a ring, played in 4 championship games, and has racked up more wins as a starter than anyone in NFL history. He will be immortalized in Canton, and deservedly so. All the best to him in his future endeavors.

That said, I'm glad this is over.

[Harlan Huckleby]

That said, I'm glad this is over.

It ain't over till its over.

I wonder how his arm will feel this summer.