by the Night Writer
Some bad reps are hard to shake. For example, Cleveland will always be remembered as the city who’s river caught on fire, Philadelphia fans will always be remembered for booing Santa Claus and Green Bay will always be remembered as the town where someone killed the coach’s (Dan Devine) dog during a bad year. Like Brett Favre, however, Packer fans are apparently interested in an encore, as Aaron Rodgers is (unpleasantly) learning.
Favre fans have not just been supporting Favre with their words; they’ve been going after Rodgers. And many haven’t minced words.
After the morning practice Friday, Rodgers talked about some of the abuse directed at him.
“I understand it to some point if I put myself into a Favre fanatic’s shoes,” Rodgers said of getting booed. “The things I can’t understand, the things I really take personally, is when I’m driving up to the (parking lot) gate and punching in my punch code and somebody says (expletive) to me. That kind of bothers me.
“Or when a little kid is yelling swear words at me. That kind of gets to me. They expect a high level of play and they miss Brett Favre. I understand that. But the (expletive) and the little kids saying swear words to me, I don’t understand that.”
Actually, Rodgers should have been able to understand the kid, who was likely using small words. Of course, being Green Bay, the kid was probably drunk and that may have made it harder.
Little else could be expected from a bunch of #%&@*% people who go around wearing hats resembling a @&)#$ piece of cheese.
Mmmmm, cheese.
I don’t pay much attention to football (except when Tampa Bay won the superbowl, Go Bucs!) but has Brett Favre retired like twice already?
Brett retired and then four months lster wanted to un-retire. The Packers apparently had had enough of his act and finally traded him. He almost ended up with the Bucs, but apparently Gruden wasn’t willing to sweeten the offer to the Packers any further.
I encapsulated some of the drama around this a couple of weeks ago in a post entitled “You’re So Favre, I Bet You Think This Post is About You.”
I dunno, Minfidel. Broad brush and all that. Favre does have something of a cult of personality in Green Bay, but it’s worth noting too that when Rodgers actually took the field last Monday night he was received well. If the Packers are right and Rodgers is ready, you’ll see this sort of thing fade quickly. Especially if ol’ number 4 keeps complaining about “arm fatigue” while performing in swamps of Jersey.