One part of the latest Brett Favre miniseries that’s been largely ignored – yes, there is something – is the fact that, for the first time in his career, Brett is without a contract, an unrestricted free agent free to sign with any team. At the Packers, he was always under contract and never able to shop his services. As for the Jets, they were assigned the Packers’ contract in the trade.

I will never forget negotiating the 10-year, $101M contract in 2001 that was terminated last week by the Jets. We had several player contract talks on hold – Darren Sharper, Ryan Longwell and others – pending the Favre negotiations. Brett’s contract would not only reward him but would also provide the Packers much-needed Cap relief to be able to fit new contracts for Sharper and Longwell into our Cap as well (ironically, both became Vikings later in their careers).

Bus Cook and I negotiated for months on the deal but, as everyone now knows, once the season was over, Brett headed off to his Mississippi refuge to play golf, mow and basically be unavailable. Trying to get him to focus on the contract – even one with nine figures in it – was a challenge.