Celebrity divorces are messy things. Too much information is shared and both sides usually come out looking worse for wear. Brinkley v. Cook, Alex & Cynthia Rodriguez, the list goes on. In the sports world divorces are a little different, but once again we see that there are no winners, well maybe the media, but neither side is going to look good. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you Favre v. Green Bay Packers.
Brett Favre has spent the last couple of years hemming and hawing, thinking about retiring, talking about retiring, and then, finally, kind of, sort of, actually retiring. Until he decided he didn’t really want to retire after all. Well, see, the thing is, the Green Bay Packers have already decided to move on and aren’t exactly welcoming Brett back with open arms.
So of course things are now getting messy. And when things get messy, it’s time to go to the media:
And, now nobody is a winner. Not Brett Favre, who has clearly burned bridges with the Packers, and maybe, just maybe, even with some of the Packers fans. The Packers certainly aren’t the winners. They don’t want to bring Favre back, but they don’t want to let him go to another team either. Since 20/20 hindsight doesn’t solve any problems, what can the sides do right now, to make this a PR win for both sides?
For both parties a quick resolution is the best option. So:
1. Hold a joint press conference where both sides announce publicly what the next steps are going to be. Favre’s going to stay with the team or the Packers are going to trade him or he’s not going to come back after all. Whatever, but agree to what’s going to happen, let everbody know and then move forward.
2. If you are going to trade him, do it quickly and don’t worry too much about where he goes or what you get in return. Yes, the Packers are a special club with a unique relationship with the community and their fans. But they aren’t so unique that they can’t function like other teams. The San Francisco 49ers traded Joe Montana, who won three more Super Bowls than Brett Favre. The franchise moved on, Montana moved on and that was that. Montana had another good year or two, but the Niners committed to Steve Young (admittedly easier than committing to Aaron Rodgers) and moved forward.
3. Take the high road. Wish Favre success in the next stage of his career.
4. Understand that no player is bigger than the Green Bay Packers. Once the season starts, fans will fill Lambeau Field. There will be some signs and some booing, but ultimately the fans want to root for this team. Remove the drama and refocus on the season ahead.
eyecube 
Legal marriage separation refers to both husband and wife living apart from one another. Generally, a legal separation does not mean the couple must soon obtain a divorce, and is instead a time to cool off from a dispute. Therefore a separation is not a divorce, yet a divorce attorney can represent you in court during the establishment of the legal marriage separation.
Source: http://www.divorcelawfirms.com
Duly noted, thanks Frank.
[b]Favre Part II – The Media Created Epic
Get Your Popcorn and Check Your Brain at the Door[/b]
I rewound and watched Brett’s interview last night TWICE, because I had seen an early release of some of the comments from it that didn’t jive with what Brett said.
Then, later in the evening, I heard ESPN reporting that Brett might “show up at training camp and cause a circus.” HE NEVER SAID THAT. In fact, he never even mentioned training camp. That was the media filling blanks they created.
“It’s tempting just to, as everyone said, you know, call their bluff or whatever,” Favre said. “I think it’s going to be a circus in itself already, whether I go there, whatever.” Favre’s tone of voice while making that comment clearly indicated he thought doing that was absurd. “I don’t want to go back there just to stick it to them, ” Favre added.
Perhaps he was referring to training camp – perhaps he was talking about playing at Green Bay in general, but ESPN’s reporting spun it as if he were vindictively wanting to get back at the Packers by disrupting training camp. Quite the contrary, he was just saying that others were suggesting he could call the Packers’ bluff, and that while it was tempting, he had no desire to “stick it to them.”
Further, ESPN was reporting that Brett was even now waffling on whether he wants to come back and play. That’s not true! He was stating that he was ready and able, but that “where is a different story.”
This entire thing makes me ashamed of the sports world in total. To treat a guy who played with so much heart, honestly, and dignity like this really disgusts me. It was the media who ginned up this retirement story every year, NOT Favre. Yet I heard it characterized on ESPN last night as Favre’s “never-ending reversals.” He reversed himself ONCE. Other than that, HE’S BEEN HOUNDED ABOUT IT and merely responded that he hadn’t made any decisions. Good grief, during those years, as if his age and the team’s success weren’t weighing heavily enough on his mind, his wife was battling cancer and his father died. He would be irrational not to carefully consider putting the kind of total, grueling physical and emotional effort into another year that such a decision warranted.
The media loves salacious BS, and if it doesn’t exist, they certainly know how to create it, but sports is generally pretty straight forward. Next, they’ll be changing the scores of sporting contests just to fit into the story lines they create.
Watch it for yourself, then compare it what the idiot talking heads are saying and reporting:
The media did the same thing in the Democratic primary. They rammed as much drama and controversy as they could into it for the sake of greed, money, and ratings, and at the expense of democracy. You should see the ratings CNN and MSNBC got during the primary. It was a freakin’ bonanza.
Further, Fox News edited the Favre interview: 1) so they could split it up into 2 nights and up their ratings, and so they could play up anything that was even remotely controversial. According to http://gretawire.foxnews.com/, earlier in the morning, the entire 40 min. interview with Favre would be available on that website shortly, now they’re saying it won’t be posted there, but more excerpts will be aired on Fox Tonight:
[quote]We have showed you two parts of our interview with Green Bay Packer Brett Favre…but we spent much more time with him. (We taped about 40 minutes.) We will post here – on GretaWire – the rest of the interview that you have not seen ON THE RECORD. I expect we will post the rest tomorrow…
UPDATE – (Wed)…the entire interview won’t get posted here until tomorrow…but we are looking at airing more of this interview tonight that you have not seen …[/quote]
http://gretawire.foxnews.com/2008/07/15/gretawire-note-bret-favre/
Like Fox News can’t spare a few moments from exploiting that poor woman’s death whose body was just found, [i]ad nauseum [/i]to show the entire interview unedited.
Now people are tuning in and clicking away on Fox News, sports networks, and other websites to find out what’s going on with Favre and the Packers, so they’re milking it for all it’s worth and outright LYING in order to make it sound as dramatic and contentious as possible. Too bad if they’ve got to turn Favre into a villian in the process. For a lot of jealous, loser can’t do “commentators” and writers that’s just an added bonus. If they want to create news, they should get off their flabby asses and play a sport, not throw feces at the ones who do.
I swear, this is really sickening. I’ve already gotten to where I get my news mostly from NPR, PBS, and digging on the web on my own, so only watching the actual sporting events and shunning ESPN and the others won’t even be noticeable in my world.
If we keep tuning in to this tabloid crap, and the media keeps profiting from this behavior, we can kiss real objective “reporting” good bye. I for one, will not.
http://teristyrades.blogspot.com/2008/07/favre-part-ii-media-created-epic-get.html