NFL Insider - Vikings Should Move on from Favre

I hate writing about this story but it needs to be said: you get to holdout as an accomplished veteran and make last minute decisions once in your career. That’s it. Nobody really faulted hockey players Mats Sundin or Teemu Selanne for making last-minute decisions to come back mid-season in the NHL for their respective clubs. But you only get to burn that card a single time. Brett Favre had his flip-flopping delayed decision process last summer. This year is trying to pull that crap again, and the Minnesota Vikings are the ones stuck holding the bag.

Favre has set a deadline of July 30th before he decides if he will suit up in the purple for the Minnesota Vikings. Brad Childress is apparently “ok” with that. Really? He realizes that pre-season starts August 14th right? If Favre signs, and right now it’s 50-50 odds that he will, Favre would have just over a month before Minnesota has to suit up for Week 1 of the playoffs. How exactly is Childress alright with this? More importantly, at what point do NFL teams say, “Screw you, we’re not waiting on you. We’re moving forward without you,”?

To make the pill slightly easier for Minnesota to swallow, the Vikings have three soft matchups to start the season. The Vikings play Cleveland, Detroit and San Francisco to open the season and all those are winnable games with, or without, Favre. The problem for Minnesota if they sign Brett Favre is that they face the upstart Green Bay Packers in Week 4. Just in case you’ve forgotten, Favre was the mainstay in Green Bay, quarterbacking the team to a win at Super Bowl XXXI in his 15 year tenure as a Packer. That game will not be an easy won for Minnesota to win, especially if Favre is emotionally wrought by playing his former team.

After Week 4, the Vikings have a gimme against the Rams on the road before having to suit up against the Ravens and Steelers in back-to-back weeks. In Week 8, they play in Lambeau field against the Packers again. That means the Vikings have a very good chance of going 4-4 SU in their first eight games before they get a bye week in Week 9. After that, it’s a crapshoot, but the Vikings are a playoff caliber run defense and rushing attack that needs a passing attack sometime soon.

The quarterback position is a toss-up between Sage Rosenfels and Tavaris Jackson right now, with John David Booty probably being the best option on the table. Still, Booty is in just his second NFL season and is not ready to start taking snaps. The problem for all three of these guys is that all of them know that if Brett signs, they’re going to be sitting on the bench. That shouldn’t be a problem for Rosenfels, but it puts Booty even further from the starting spot, and decimates Tavaris Jackson’s career.

That’s what puzzles me about Minnesota’s willingness to wait for Brett Favre. In one scenario they don’t get Brett Favre, and Tavaris Jackson goes back to losing football games while the crowd cheers and chants for Brett Favre in his place. Or they sign Brett Favre and Tavaris Jackson’s confidence is completely shattered. Again, all this inadvertently affects Booty’s mindset, although a year alongside Favre may give Booty some lessons learned by proxy.