Super Blah

So it's the Packers and the Steelers, eh?

Two of the most storied franchises in NFL history competing against each other in the biggest game of the season, you don't say?

The Packers, winners of the first two Super Bowls and three overall, against the Steelers, looking to break their own record of Super Bowls won, going for their seventh.

Well wake me up on February 7th.

I cannot stand a team or individual dominance over a sport. The New York Yankees, Lance Armstrong, Jimmie Johnson...you don't impress me, you bore me! It takes the fun out of cheering all season long, just to get to the end and realize, "Wow, these teams are here again...I feel like an idiot for rooting for ANYBODY else."

Ok, so Packers fans, I realize that you haven't been to the big show since '96, but you've been at least a playoff team 90% of the time since then.

Steelers fans, shut the hell up. I know most of you are asking yourselves, "what the hell is he talking about, we have the chance to win our third championship in the last seven years!"

Exactly. You're very proud, good for you. The rest of us are SICK of you. Take solace in knowing that the only team we are more sick of than you are the New England Patriots and they've choked harder than a rookie porn star these last three years.

We thought we finally caught a break when Big Ben struck again this off season. There was no way you guys were gonna stay afloat with all this drama from the center of your franchise...AGAIN!

But yet again, you weathered the storm, won the games you had to win, and made me physically ill in the process.

Where is all this parity that the NFL hypes up year after year? I thought because of the salary cap limit, the NFL draft, and free agency we were supposed to believe that ANY given Sunday that ANY team can win?

Who cares if Green Bay or Pittsburgh wins another title besides the die hard Packers and Steelers fans?

Seriously. Honest question. Do you care?

If so, why? Where's the draw? What are the headlines this year?

Can Aaron Rodgers step out of Brett Favre's shadow? I thought he already did that by keeping his head held high and letting Favre self-implode over the last four years.

Can Big Ben step out of his own self-inflicted image gunshot wounds? Hasn't he already done that by staying out of trouble situations this year and guiding his team to the Super Bowl?

Is that it?

It's certainly not because the Black Eyed Peas are doing the half-time show this year because they're hackneyed garbage...

I guess it's the commercials then. Those of us outside of Green Bay and Pittsburgh get to care about the marketing this year.

Happy Super Sunday, kids.

An Open Letter To Brett Favre

Dear Mr. Favre,

As the writer of a prominent sports blog, I have watched the last three years of your career with due diligence.

I sympathized with you when it seemed as if the Green Bay Packers were pushing you out of the door in favor of Aaron Rodgers. The Packers, the very team that you had laid your body on the line each and every day for 16 seasons, seemed to not want you any more. That's tough to deal with, especially for an all-time great.

So you said your goodbyes and headed back home to your swamp in Mississippi. We started planning your parades and sculpting your Hall of Fame bust.

But then you pulled a 180 and came back to the NFL...to play for the New York Jets? What the hell was that all about? The Jets?! If you wanted to sell your soul to the devil, you could have just opened up a chain of Favre's Chicken N' Biscuits restaurants.

Regardless, the season ended without a playoff berth, due in large part to mistakes you made (and the Dolphins kicking the hell out of you in the season finale), and you retired once more. You even had to have off-season surgery for all the punishment you took.

Once again, back to the swamp. But you didn't stay this time either, did you?

Nope. You joined the Minnesota Vikings, a team that's been one of the biggest rivals of the Green Bay Packers for decades...a team they still play in their division twice a year.

To add insult to injury, most of your old Packer fan base turned on you.

Which, by the way, I can appreciate the whole "I'll show you that I still have it!" mantra that must have been the fuel behind your SECOND return. But going to your long-time division rival to play against your former team is really emotionally crippling to your fans. Isn't it, Jason Taylor?

Still, you had a pretty darn good season. You made it all the way to the NFC Championship game, but alas, an interception that you threw cost the team the game and the trophy.

NOW. We've finally arrived at this YEAR.

You came back...again...to the Vikings, with the specific purpose of winning the whole damn thing. (After having ANOTHER off-season surgery and having the distinction of being the only player/grandfather in the NFL)

You led the team to a horrible 3-5 start, which compounded with the fact that you almost went undefeated last year with relatively the same players, makes it look twice as bad. You got the coach fired after an embarrassing 31-3 lost to those darn rival Packers on national television. Then came out allegations that you were texting pictures of your penis to a woman from the Jets organization. Then you got whacked on your shoulder causing you to have numbness in your hand and end your streak of 297 consecutive starts. And finally, with three games left to play, your team has officially been eliminated from playoff contention.

Woof, deep breath.

It is for all the aforementioned details of the last three years of your life, that I strongly and passionately urge you, to go away.

Don't even bother retiring or anything, just disappear.

In a matter of 36 months, you have managed to somehow completely tarnish a first ballot HOF career without the help from any performance enhancing drug rumors. Your life has become a complete and utter joke with a storyline that's staler than any daytime television.

You can't win the Super Bowl anymore and you've set the Vikings back at least three years from contention (which I'm sure Adrian Peterson will be happy about).

Go back to Mississippi, put on your wrangler jeans, and never speak publicly again.

And in your specific case, no texting either. You've lost that privilege as well.

Sincerely,
The Studly Pastures Writer