The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Shane Frederick

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July 27, 2010

Vikings need Favre more than Favre needs Mankato

Expect to see No. 4 in Mankato on Friday.

Expect to see plenty of No. 4s in Mankato when Vikings training camp begins and for the two weeks that follow, actually.

Don’t expect to see Brett Favre in town, of course. Nobody expects that. But there will be plenty of purple and white No. 4 jerseys dotting the bleachers surrounding Minnesota State’s football practice fields as well as the restaurants around campus and downtown even as the Vikings work out near Blakeslee Stadium without their star quarterback.

Some of those jerseys will be worn by people who, in years past, proudly walked around Vikings Village wearing T-shirts with phrases and illustrations that were, let’s just say, unflattering toward Favre, a player they loved to hate.

Favre was a Packer then, of course, and few could have even imagined him finishing his Hall-of-Fame career in Minnesota.

It’s almost guaranteed that Favre won’t set foot in Mankato between now and when the Vikings break camp on Aug. 12. Even the team’s decision to move the players overnight digs from Gage Towers to the newer — and much cozier — Sears dorms probably won’t coax the real No. 4 to south-central Minnesota.

Supposedly, he’s still contemplating retirement, something he has already done twice, only to change his mind late in the summer.

And, yes, everyone expect that Favre will join the Vikings at their Eden Prairie headquarters sometime after the other 79 players on the roster wrap up two-a-days and speed north on Highway 169, not to return for another year (or two — there’s been a speculation of a lockout in 2011).

And that doesn’t seem to bother many people, considering how things worked out for a season ago when Favre famously signed with the Vikings last Aug. 19, one week after training camp ended.

The difference then, of course, was that Favre was retired and a free agent. If he does indeed stay out of Mankato this year, it will be the first time in his career that he’s skipped training camp while being unretired and on a team’s roster.

While even non-cynics believe Favre’s deal last year was in the works even before training camp started, count me among those who think there was something to Childress’ supposed last-ditch effort to get him in Minnesota. After watching Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels during the first days of camp, I wouldn’t be shocked if every other player on that team was sending texts to Favre begging him to bail them out.

The fact that the quarterback position was barely addressed in the offseason and seeing Joe Webb — a quarterback who was drafted as a receiver who was quickly turned into a quarterback again — get almost all of Rosenfels’ reps in minicamp made it almost obvious that Favre would be returning.

Watching the Vikings’ handling of Favre makes one wonder why Green Bay decided to stop playing Favre’s retirement games and ultimately tell him that they were moving on without their franchise player two years ago. Certainly, Packers general manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy would not have let him skip camp and show up a few weeks later — even though it probably would have worked out just fine. (In two of the last three seasons — one with a full training camp, one without — Favre has taken the Packers and the Vikings to the NFC title game only to toss terrible late interceptions and lose.)

Of course, the Packers had Aaron Rodgers waiting in the wings. The Vikings have no quarterback of the future.

They need No. 4 this year — even if he doesn’t come to Mankato.



Shane Frederick is a Free Press staff writer. Read his blog at mankatofreepresshockey.blogspot.com.

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Shane Frederick