Joe versus Bob, the Favre Perspectives

Favre to open 'waffle' house to mark return to Vikes

By Joe VanDeLaarschot

Finally, the greatest mystery of mankind has been answered: Brett "Diva" Favre has announced that he will come back for another year of football.

Wow, thank heavens. The earth can now start rotating again, scientists can return to trying to find a cure for cancer, the United Nations can return to deciding what they want to do about Iran and its nuclear reactor. The most important issue in the world has now been settled, or has it?

Brett "Diva" Favre has decided to return to play quarterback one more year for the Minnesota Losers, er, Vikings. But, wait there are return jet flights available to Kiln, Mississippi. So don't believe for one minute Favre has come back until he throws his first pass in the regular season.

For now he has had the required number of people beg and he had his ego stroked enough that he will allow us "the honor" to watch him for one more season.

Three fellow Minnesota Vikings players had to travel to Favre's Mississippi home and beg him enough that he can feel he's been appreciated enough to come back.

The Vikes, as the old Simon and Garfunkel song "The Sounds of Silence" says, "bowed and prayed to the neon god they made."

Favre could star in his own Snicker's candy bar TV commercial. You know the ones that have been out over the last several months, where some sap has been acting moody and acting like a diva (Aretha Franklin, Abe Vigoda, Betty White) so he is given a Snicker's bar so he can return to his "normal" self.

When Favre shoots his commercial he'll be given a Snicker's bar and he'll just remain himself and the diva he is.

Now Vikings fans can truly understand what the Green Bay Packers were going through the last four or five years of Favre's stay in Titletown.

He has to be begged, cajoled; he has to have his ego sufficiently stroked so that he will then grant fans the privilege of watching him play "one more year." Please stop playing that broken record.

Everyone that reads this column regularly knows I am a died in the wool Packer fan and, years earlier, it could have been said I was a died in the wool Favre fan, but the diva's annual antics are just too much for me too stomach.

I was lucky enough to have tickets to the Packers game last season where Favre returned Lambeau Field for the first time while playing for the Vikings.

I unashamedly admit that my voice went horse or was nearly gone after the game from joining the chorus of Packers fans who reveled in booing and jeering Favre as much as possible. I told others who did not understand my attitude that Favre "is the enemy now and as such must be treated that way."

Favre was a great player for the Packers. He deserves, and will, have his number retired at Lambeau Field some day, but it's great as a Packers fan to Brett "Diva" Favre be in the Vikings' headache. The two deserve each other.

The Vikings have gone to the Super Bowl four times in their history, and a drum roll please, they've lost all four times. Nothing like continuity is there?

One more Super Bowl loss then they won't have rings for five fingers - they won't have "one for the thumb."

Even if they make it to the Super Bowl, which I doubt will happen, Favre will throw his "regular as clock work" game ending interception and the Vikings will return to the Twin Cities once again as "chumps" rather than "champs."

But, the "Diva" has gotten his needed bowing and scraping and once again all is right with the world.

By the way Favre owns a steak house in Green Bay, but the word is out that the eating place is now going to be converted to a waffle house.

Joe VanDeLaarschot is the editor of the East Otter Tail Focus. Tar and feathers can be delivered to him via telephone at 218-346-5900 or by email at editor@eotfocus.com .

No more Lambeau lambastings!

By Bob Williams

Welcome back, Brett Favre.

I, for one, am quite pleased at the return of the "Silver Fox," as my Sunday afternoons with football pals, Brent and Troy, will be that much more exciting.

It's also much more fun to bellow "FAV-RUH!" at the big screen television than it would be to mumble, "that T-Jack," or weirder, "oy, that Helicopter Rosenfels!"

I'm not saying those two fellas can't play the game, but I recall Rosenfels single-handedly winning a fantasy football week for me with his famous helicopter fumble giveaway that led to a late two-touchdown comeback for the Colts in Houston. Four minutes to go in the game, you're up by 17 and you lose.

I just can't get over that. Google Helicopter Rosenfels if you don't recall. Watch that video and tell me you don't want Favre taking the snaps.

T-Jack. I don't know. He could use another year under the tutelage of our man, Brett Favre. He's young. There's plenty of time for him to get under center.

Like Brian Wierima, of the Detroit Lakes Tribune said, "If Favre brings 2-0 against the Pack, I'm happy."

I know, first hand, how ugly a loss to the Packers can be.

My pal Tidbit and I were sitting at Lambeau field, November of 2007. Week 10. You Vikings fans may recall the 34-0 drubbing then Packer Brett Favre and the rest of the cheeseheads laid on Brooks Bollinger and the Vikes.

Brooks Bollinger. Yeah.

Adrian Peterson went out with a bum knee. The whole game was ruthless. I had to make my own fun picking apart Darren Sharper.

"Hey Tidbit, watch Darren Sharper do nothing on this play."

Every play. It was like Sharper was still wearing Packer green and puke underneath his Vikes jersey. He wasn't the only one.

The worst was a guy a few rows over. He had been wearing a white, away Vikings jersey and just being a pest to those around him. Even as the game got uglier and uglier, his behavior seemed to do the same. He was good for a few laughs. At least there was one irritant to Packer fans that day. Then suddenly, in the middle of the third quarter, he turns around and starts really giving it to the Packer faithful.

"What is up with that guy? We're down by three touchdowns and there's no way we're coming back," I offered to Tid.

"Look!"

This guy, to the delight of the end zone seated Pack fans, took off his Vikes jersey and underneath was, you guessed it, a green Brett Favre number four.

It was the final straw. We had to leave.

It was barely worth the free tickets and the drive past all the dead animals from Minneapolis to Green Bay. Tidbit and I took a verbal beating from the obese cheesehead-donned guy next to Tid to the curly haired and quite attractive redhead sitting one seat above me. The walk out was worse--hoards of Packer maniacs laughing, poking and jesting, quite rudely, at two quiet guys wearing purple.

I left that smelly stadium to the waft of bad perfume, bratwursts and body odor and the foul bellowing of rabid Packer fans. Tidbit and I agreed, "We don't ever want to see something like that again."

I'll take number four in purple instead of green.

Glad he's back.

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2/2: Roger Erbes watches television coverage announcing Vikings quarterback Brett Favre's retirement while Erbes was on lunch break at the O B Sports Zone in Fargo last year. MICHAEL VOSBURG/The Forum