First, understand that I come at this as a person who lived in Minnesota for about ten years. I’m used to booing Brett Favre kind of instinctively, not only because of where I lived but because my bestest friend is not only from Wisconsin, but one of those really weird Packer fans with (no lie) a giant pile of VHS tapes of old Packer games that are being saved for literally no reason except that they are tapes of Packer games, and you do not get rid of tapes of Packer games.

It was already a running joke between us before this most recent round of Brett Favre nonsense, the way he spent years playing the “maybe I will retire, and maybe I won’t” game, dicking around the team and the fans and enjoying — it seems to me — the constant attention generated by vaguely threatening to quit and then watching as everyone fretted about the possibility, and then doing the “well, twist my arm, ow, ow, okay!” dance, and watching everyone rejoice.

If you don’t really follow football, the first thing you have to understand is Favre’s well-deserved larger-than-life reputation. He’s one of those Guys, like Michael Jordan, who become the team. In Favre’s case, as his Wikipedia entry concisely notes, he “possesses most of the well-known NFL career records for quarterbacks.” The most well-known is his never-miss-a-game thing: he didn’t miss a start between September 1992 and his retirement. And sports fans absolutely love that stuff — that “iron man” stuff, where it seems like you don’t get injured because you can’t be injured, because you’re too tough.

Brett Favre is 38 now. No matter what anybody tells you, time does not stop for Brett Favre any more than it does for anyone else. Two of his last three seasons, 2005 and 2006, the guy definitely seemed to have lost a step. He threw 29 interceptions in 2005 — NFL league leader! — and his team won a total of four games. It seemed like things were winding down, especially since he kept saying they were winding down, and he kept having press conferences about whether or not he was about to retire.

But he was blessed with a 2007 season in which he played extremely well, particularly for a guy who was aging. And because it definitely looked like there was a good chance this would be his final season, the sports media spent every game in which Favre played — if you watched any Packer games last year, you know this is true — talking and talking and TALKING and talking and talking about how great he is, how sweet, how generous, how team-oriented, how brilliant, how gifted, how rare, how goooooood-lookin’. It became sort of hilarious, and at some point, I believe it was Joe Buck (but it might have been a different announcer) who became fed up himself and made a comment like, “Do you think we need to discuss how shiny Brett Favre’s helmet looks today?”

Despite a disappointing end to the season for the team, this would have been a great season to retire on. In fact, it almost seemed like a gift, like he was granted one more season in which he could be really good, so that he could be remembered as really good, instead of really unable to recognize when it was time to go. Finally — FINALLY — after about five years of dicking around, he announced that he was actually retiring. What followed was a maudlin, endless, overblown, entirely deserved Wisconsin-wide weepfest over how much he was loved, how much he would be missed, how great his contributions had been, and how grateful everyone was to have had the opportunity to pay him millions and millions and millions of dollars to come out on the field once a week and play football.

Apparently, about three weeks after he retired, he suggested that maybe he had changed his mind and wanted to unretire. (Remember, at this point, the guy was already famous for yanking everybody’s chain about retiring.) So the team said yes, agreed to take him back, and set up a contingent of folks to fly out and firm it up. At which point he reportedly took it back and said, “Never mind, I do not unretire.”

Until a couple of months later, when he said, “Okay, never mind, I actually do want to unretire.”

Note that it looks like he did this about a month before players were to report to training camp. NFL teams, you probably know, do not lounge around in the off-season waiting for the season to start, especially when they have to completely rebuild the offense after the departure of the quarterback who has started — say it with me — every damn game since September 1992. In the case of the Packers, they drafted quarterback Aaron Rodgers in 2005, and he’s been standing around lugging Brett Favre’s water bottle for the last three years as Favre waffled about retirement. But after Favre’s retirement, they committed to a new offense under a new quarterback and, presumably, they worked on developing it.

I am told by my Wisconsin sources that Favre has made it pretty clear that he doesn’t feel any responsibility for helping Rodgers prepare to be a good quarterback — in other words, no responsibility to the team after his own departure.

All of this is by way of background as I try to understand why so many sports columnists continue to unquestioningly take Brett Favre’s side and absolutely excoriate the Packers for not welcoming him back “with a parade” when he suddenly decides to change his mind again and want his job back. That particular commentator, Jason Whitlock, can think of no reason the Packers wouldn’t happily undo all the preparation they’ve done in the last, say, four months a couple of weeks before training camp other than that they’re tired of Brett Favre being right about the fact that they didn’t take Randy Moss. Really? REALLY?

It’s impossible that they’re tired of being jerked around every year? It’s impossible that they’re concerned that Favre will decide to retire again a month from now? It’s impossible that they’re not prepared to gamble on a guy who will be 39 in October and has had two so-so seasons out of his last three? Does Whitlock really need to claim that the entirety of Favre’s increasing late-career tendency to throw interceptions is the result of his psychic injury over the team foolishly not taking his advice about personnel? Is admitting the fallibility of Brett Favre so difficult that he must be defended even in a situation in which NO MATTER HOW GOOD HE IS, he is unquestionably acting like a flaky jackass? How do you hint at retirement for years, retire, tentatively un-retire, firmly re-retire, and then ask to un-retire, and not have every eye in sports journalism rolling right out of its host skull?

The other thing that kills me is that some of the same columnists are perfectly able to recognize that, viewed objectively in terms of his actual merit, Favre is not worth all that much — probably owing to his age and the unevenness of his performance over the last several seasons. John Clayton of ESPN.com gently explains that the Packers obviously have to welcome Favre back and let bygones be bygones, partly because they wouldn’t get anything better than a third-round draft choice if they try to trade him. If he’s not worth more than a third-round draft choice to anybody else, why is it so inconceivable that they might think about another quarterback?

I’m both exhausted and baffled by the repeated assertions that because of Favre’s contributions to the team, he “deserves” to be able to act like a flaky jackass if he wants to. Brett Favre made better than $10 million a year for his contributions to the team. He was adored, he was idolized, he was treated like a god. He was very well compensated for his contributions to the team. What does it say to the many guys who have handled the ends of their careers with some dignity when you imply that it makes no difference, because you’re entitled to act like as much of a freakshow as you want?

Look, if you think the Packers should take him back and see what happens and let him try to earn his job back, then that’s fine. But the idea that there is no conceivable reason other than idiocy and ego that the people who have already been through this much waffling and this much nonsense might decide they’ve had enough and it’s time to build the post-Favre Packers now instead of a year from now is absurd. Of course, it’s professional sports — everyone’s ego is involved. It would be childishly naive not to see the enormous impact of Favre’s own ego on this entire enterprise, and undoubtedly, the GM’s ego is in the mix, too.

But a total lack of sympathy for any point of view other than Favre’s, as if even now, the entire Packer organization has to leap at the command of a guy who did have a great season but was on a clear path to fading if you look at the entire trajectory of his career — and who already retired — blows my mind. Are they supposed to throw him another party when he really retires? Do we have to watch another season full of cloying tributes when that happens? What if he retires in a year and then this happens again next summer? Is there any point where embarrassment is supposed to set in?