Time To Get Serious About Favre

It seems that the Brett Favre talk is starting to become real — after Ed Werder and Chris Mortensen of ESPN broke the news that Favre did indeed have surgery on his throwing shoulder. Now we have to try and figure out what it means to Favre, the Vikings and the rest of the NFC North.

The Inevitable

I think it’s safe to say we all saw this coming, right?

A game of charade between Hattiesburg, Miss., and Minneapolis that started when the Vikings lost in to the Philadelphia Eagles on NFC Wild Card weekend.

It was clear then, after starting quarterback Tarvaris Jackson went 15 of 35 for 164 yards and one interception — good for a lowly QB rating of 42.9 — that this Vikings team needed to make a move at the quarterback position.

There just isn’t enough time in the pro game to wait for a quarterback like Jackson to develop into a starter when the window of opportunity — or the window of running back Adrian Peterson’s prime — closes with each passing Sunday.

The Vikings made a trade in late February, bringing in quarterback Sage Rosenfels from the Texans and promptly giving him a three-year deal. Is he an improvement over Jackson? Yes, I would say so.

But we tend to forget, now that quarterback Jay Cutler is in Chicago, that the Vikings were one of the first teams to inquire about Cutler when the drama began to surface in Denver.

Do you see where we’re going here? The Vikings have spent all offseason looking to upgrade the position.

But that was before Favre was granted his official release from the Jets, making him a free agent. And that’s when the rumors began to circulate, prompting us to put Favre front and center in the news again for another offseason filled with questions and opinions on what the aging quarterback and his beat-up shoulder could do.

And I think we’re starting to see answers.

Minnesota-Bound?

Is Favre a sure thing to go to Minnesota this summer?

If he did have surgery as Werder and Mortensen reported, there will be a recovery time, and there will be some anxious eyes watching him throw the ball before the Vikings make any type of offer. All of us, fans and media alike, will have our own judgments about whether a quarterback of Favre’s age can lead a team for 16 regular-season games on a shoulder that was operated on.

But we aren’t making that decision. The Vikings are — and if they see that Favre can still make the throws, well, this talk might just be a formality.

If they believe Favre gives them the best chance to win in the ’09 season, the best chance to compete with Chicago, Green Bay and Detroit, they will and should make the move.

Sure, it’s a big risk for head coach Brad Childress if the Vikings do go ahead and make this move, but the seat Childress is sitting on isn’t going to get any hotter. It’s a win-or-else season for him, so I can see why he would be enamored with the idea of Favre coming to training camp and running an offense he already knows and has already produced with.

For Childress, there’s always a risk when you roll the dice with a quarterback who struggled at the end of the previous season, but maybe — just maybe — that’s what this team needs.

What Do We Believe?

It’s pretty clear that Favre’s agent, Bus Cook, isn’t the best source of information when it comes to his client’s career. So we’re just going have to wait and wonder if this will or won’t go down.

But there’s no reason to have surgery in the first place just to ride a tractor — there just isn’t. You have corrective surgery on your shoulder to throw the football down the field, and no other reason.

I will admit that I’m biased toward Brett, having played with him for two seasons in Green Bay and growing up here in Chicago watching him play.

But even I have to admit that I have my doubts and my own realization that the Brett Favre the Vikings may get isn’t the same quarterback I played with in 2002. The velocity of the arm may still be there, but age catches up to every player in this league, and we might have just seen that at the end of the ’08 season.

Does this matter in Minnesota? Do the Vikings believe that a soon to be 40-year-old quarterback with shoulder issues is their best option to win the NFC North?

I believe they do, and because of that, I have to lean toward the belief that the NFC North is going to be loaded with big arms and big drama in ’09 — starting in Minneapolis with No. 4 under center.

Why doesn’t this surprise any of us?

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