You know AA, as a Cheesehead, this is a terrible day. Our Michael Jordan, Our Wayne Gretzky, Our Barry Sanders is now gone. After one of the best seasons hes ever had, and after being only one pass and a few minutes away from the Super Bowl, he has left us. We are now left with Double A-Rod ( yes Double-A-ROD, i live in NY ) Aaron Rodgers. I dont care is ESPN has Favre all day, he deserves it. And what else does ESPN have? WSOP 2006? Today is a day to celebrate the best QB GB ever had. Bring on the highlights.

Looks like Emmitt needs to float a couple of boxes of Just for Men Mort's way.

I understand what you're saying Marc but I think even you'll be sick of it by tonight.

Brett Favre is great, but like everything ESPN is taking this way over the top. Before this last season, he toiled in mediocrity for several seasons. Yes, he won a Super Bowl but get real. I tend to think Sal Pal was right in calling him overrated.

And now they're showing a package from a few years ago on Favre playing after his father's death, complete with old ESPN graphics and Mike Sherman as the Packers head coach. This is just straight-up stupid.

Favre will get a lot of run as being the best QB ever for a while. But how good could he be? He wasn't in any of ESPN's nominated Greatest Highlight Ever.

Haha speaking of which, anyone catch the interview they did with a member on the US Hockey Team. "You were voted the Greatest Highlight, how do you feel?" "Uhh..." ESPN blows my mind with this stuff.

Someone's trying to be like Jay Glazer with that goatee...

To top it all off, Jay Glazer said on Jim Rome today that 1) ESPN's idea that Favre retired because they didn't get Moss was hogwash; and 2) Glazer had the story yesterday and held off because he was afraid Favre would change his mind.

Stop hitting yourself, Mort! Stop hitting yourself, Mort!

/wotxff

I can't watch ESPN until late tonight when college basketball begins. This whole gushfest is about the single greatest moment in man crush history. Madden even thinks it's a little much.

the 'joe torre leaving the yankees' story thinks this is getting too much coverage.

-dan

Brett Favre was a great player, a hard working player, and is a great person. But it would be impossible -- IMPOSSIBLE -- for anyone to leave up to the billing he's been given, both as a player and human being. I harken back to that MNF montage in October before the Bronco game and it was as if he had died, just a bunch of exploitative bullshit.

ESPN is remarkably depressing today. The dude didn't die. At least lighten it up a bit by getting Frank Calliendo on to do Madden mourning the "passing of Favre". Get it - "passing".

Is Mort too depressed to shave or something, that looks awful.

Is G4 stopping their regular programming because the Dungeons & Dragons creator is dead? No, not that I know of or care. See ya next Thursday, ESPN! Maybe some actual sports will be going on by then.

'Twas I that made the original observation, and it was confirmed when Tirico and that toad Herbstreit went off on a couple of e-mailers for basically saying the same thing. I feel vindicated... :)

Oh btw; I heard a clip from some Wisconsin radio station where they interviewed Mark Chmura, of all people. If I'm Favre, he's not exactly the guy I want as a character witness.

Expect a few Wisconsinites to drown in a vat of Schlitz tonight.

I'm guessing the NFL will have to rearrange its tentative national TV schedule for the 2008 season because you know Favre was going to be on NBC and ESPN the maximum times. I bet Green Bay is barely on now...maybe one MNF game.

the two hour special was absurd, hes not dead.

what i love is that while watching the arsenal/milan game (a sport where people move for 90 minutes without commercials as opposed to 5 minutes of moving and 60 of commercials, fuckers) they kept interrupting the scroll with breaking news that favre retired. six hours after the announcement. BETTER YET halfway through the first half they still had the game i was watching on the scroll as not having started yet. what a fucking joke

Same here Mike....I've been yelling at the screen for the whole game. It's not breaking news anymore. Nice goal btw.

Here's the odd thing. I hate how ESPN has man crushes for any great athlete, but for some reason we keep watching their programing. Kind of weird huh?

And Mike, I agree with you. I was getting sick of them showing RBEAKING NEWS: Brett Favre has retired during the Milan/Arsenal match.

It's not breaking when it's 7 hours later. The slurp fest is unbearable. To ifiok2567 the reason we watch is because there is no other channel to watch. ESPN has a monopoly on sports coverage and for that reason we have a need for sites such as this one. Someone has to play the role of watchdog...

if i may copy and paste from the latest deadspin post

"ESPN is a corporation. As a corporation, their goal is to grow and make money. There is no crime in this; this is not an art project. But as most sports fans can tell you, even those of us who grow exhausted of the "Greatest Highlight" and "Who's Now" antics watch ESPN all the time. There is no viable competitor; if you're a sports fan who doesn't watch ESPN, you're really not much of a sports fan.

ESPN knows this. They know they have you; you aren't going anywhere. Because of this, they do not need to cater to you. To grow, they must bring in new viewers, people who are more casual sports fans, people who are more drawn in by the shiny objects of "controversy" and Dick Vitale. They're the ones who might think, hey ... I AM curious about how the world of sports intersects with the world of Hollywood! They are the new viewers; they are the people who discovered Nirvana way too late and ruined everything. (Note: We are one of these people, at least when it comes to Nirvana.) They are exactly the type of people who keep Chris Berman in our faces every night. And they're exactly the type of people who love the "Greatest Highlight;" people who, really, don't actually like sports that much."

pretty much sums it up

if there were another place i could watch champions league games legally i would. trust me i would, espn's announcers for soccer are horrendous and the second rate billing they give it is infuriating. they dont respect the sport and just pay for the rights because people will watch it. let foxsoccer have it, they actually care about the sport

Anyone who saw Favre late in the season at Chicago or in the NFC Championship game knew he was done. He looked like a dead man.

For you ESPN Insiders (and we all are), you can hear Mike Tirico going off because someone asked "did Brett Favre retire or did he die?" in the "Public Opinion" segment on today's show. (Don't take this as proof of someone actually listening to the Mike Tirico show.)

/dfhobfrp

What were Tirico's comments? I'm not an insider.

When I first turned on Sportscenter, I actually thought Brett Favre had died in a plane crash or had a heart attack. Everything about it was completely pathetic, especially from Schlereth who would freak out whenver somebody even hinted at Favre having a less than noble reason for retiring

Regarding Tirico's show (and don't feel bad for not being an Insider -- it's not really worth it), they started off the segment talking about the number of emails they were getting of people telling them to talk about something else. One email said, "Did Brett Favre retire or did he die? Let me know when you talk about something else." Tirico said something about how bad the Mavs were doing after Jason Kidd had joined them, as if that's what they should talk about, then said this is probably what they'll talk about for the rest of the week, though they'll talk about other stuff.

Another guy said that "he was going to turn it off until SportsNation" (I like how he skipped Stephen A's show) "until they were talking about Favre, and then he would turn that off." Tirico said "It wasn't 9/11 or an assassination, but one of the greatest quarterbacks just retired. Do you want to talk about Alfonso Soriano's finger?" They also tried to justify talking about it because "it just happened four hours ago".

They finally said that if you don't like what they're talking about, your radio has an off button somewhere on it and you can use it.

It wasn't anything earth-shattering, but it was pretty surreal for something on ESPN's stations. I understand now when Scott Van Pelt corrected himself last week and said, "I thought I was on the radio" last week.

/blkwfi

Wow, ESPN is so out of touch it's not even funny. And when people try to tell them about this, they dismiss it completely. Absolutely blows my mind that a corporation could be so clueless as to what it's consumers want.

NFL network has completely redone their programming, they just did a one hour Total Access on the retirement, and nothing else. The last part of Path to the Draft was about Favre, and now they are showing his Super Bowl win against the Patriots.

Is Brett Favre a stud? Hell yes!

Is Brett Favre a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer? Hell yes!

Is ESPN's Day of Veneration for Brett Favre just another acts of shameless and cheesy self-promotion for The World-Wide Leader? Hell yes!

Mort forgot to shave his playoff beard.

BTW the repeat of the Packers SB 31
win is on NFL Network. It was originally on Fox, so the broadcasters were Summerall / Madden. This was one of my favorite announcing teams, since this was when Madden was still an ex-coach giving analysis not the rambling version he is today.

This is the problem with ESPN not having any competition nationally (until all of the Comcast SportsNets join forces). We know what's on ESPN and dissect what they say a thousand times; I didn't know anything about the NFL Network's programming until I re-checked this thread 'cause it's on a sports tier here. FSN? The Best Damn Hooters Girls Competition's on.....I might have to watch the rest of that.

The retirement is even the lead story on the washingtonpost.com's sports page.

Well, the Skins were looking for a veteran backup. Anyone seen Redskins One headed for Mississippi ?

NFL Network has 30 hours of "Primetime Favre" content until Saturday? I'm gonna go and projectile vomit.