Retiring The Number » Brats & Beer

April 17, 2008
posted under: Brett Favre, Packers

In the grand scheme of things, does it matter when the Green Bay Packers retire Brett Favre’s jersey and enshrine his name and number on the facade at Lambeau Field? No, not really, but with the draft still 10 days away, what the heck else are we going to talk about?

Team president Mark Murphy says he wants to do it early in the season to take advantage of better weather conditions, which seems reasonable enough. Of the eight home games, that leaves four choices: The Monday night season opener against Minnesota, a Sunday night game against Dallas, Week 5 against Atlanta or Week 7 against Indianapolis. Actually any of those games could be an appropriate venue for a ceremonial tribute to No. 4.

Retiring Favre’s number before the season opener would have the advantage of being broadcast — at least in part — by ESPN. Those numskulls are going to eulogize Favre anyway since it will be the first game since 1992 that someone other than #4 will start as quarterback for Green Bay, might as well give them additional reason to wax poetic on Favre’s long and storied career. And it seems fitting, I think, to hold such a ceremony when a division foe is in town.

You could make the same case for the Sunday nighter against the Cowboys. Madden will be there and he’ll go on about Favre, Lambeau Field, and Packer history anyway, so they might as well give him a good reason to flap his jaws. Add in the fact that the date of the game, Sept. 21, would be 16 years and one day from when Favre took the field against the Bengals in relief of Don Majkowski and set Green Bay’s course for the Super Bowl four seasons later. (Mike Vandermause might really blow a gasket, though, if they retired Favre’s number at a Gold ticket game.)

The game against the Falcons, though, seems almost TV-made for honoring Brett Favre and retiring his number. Favre’s NFL career began in Atlanta and ended 17 years later in Green Bay, the bookends of a narrative that hinges on Ron Wolf’s historic trade of a first-round pick for a backup quarterback no one had ever heard of. Such a setting would encompass everything contained in the Favre mythology; just don’t bring up the playoff loss to the Dirty Birds back in 2003.

I’ve read that some out there are questioning why they Packers are in such a rush to retire No. 4 (see here in the comments by “wildbill”), arguing that they should wait a year or two so we can have some perspective, and think there’s some merit to that opinion. But I also think this is what most fans expect. I also suspect that both the organization and Favre want to get this over with so they can each move on with their lives.