Finally somebody calling Favre's bluff, though I think Favre returns sometime before the regular season, and doesn't hold them hostage until week 4 or 5:
Holdout Type No. 8: The "This Looks Like A Convoluted Excuse To Just Skip Training Camp, But Really, I'm Lawfully Extorting My Team And My Fans" Holdout
As first perfected by Roger Clemens, someone who was much dumber and much smarter than we thought he was. In 2006 and 2007, Clemens pretended he was retiring when, really, he was just trying to make as much money for as little work possible. Both the 2006 Astros ($12.25 million for 15 weeks of work) and 2007 Yankees ($18 million for four months of work) were suckered in. And it would have kept happening if Brian McNamee didn't turn Clemens into a national disgrace during the winter of 2007-08.
Three years later, there's a chance Brett Favre might be borrowing from Clemens' playbook. He says his surgically repaired ankle doesn't feel right. Do you believe him? Is the ankle being treated by the same doctors who treated LeBron's phantom elbow injury that miraculously disappeared the moment he signed with Miami? (Uh-oh, I forgot, he's taking mental notes!) I just know that the Vikings are a Super Bowl contender. It's an uncapped year. The dropoff from Favre to the Tarvaris Jackson/Sage Rosenfels combo is roughly the difference between opening "Inception" with Leo DiCaprio versus opening it with Screech. Really, Favre can name his price ... and as he's naming it, he can pretend that his ankle still aches, that the fire might be gone, that he doesn't know if he can handle another pounding like the one he took in the NFC title game ... and meanwhile, that price keeps climbing and Minnesota fans (and teammates and coaches) keep panicking every time they think of Sage throwing another grounder or Tarvaris coughing up another moonball. If Favre is milking this ankle injury to boost his price, he's an evil genius.
I bet Favre stays "retired" through the preseason, knowing that Minnesota's first five weeks shape up like this:
Week 1: at New Orleans
Week 2: home for Miami
Week 3: home for Detroit
Week 4: Bye week
Week 5: at Jets (Monday night)
He could return during the bye, make his debut on Monday night (in New York, no less), play a 13-week regular season, save himself training camp miles and a Week 1 pounding ... and make the same money. And that's his worst-case scenario. What if the Sage/Tarvaris combo falls apart? What if the Vikes start out 1-2 or ... (gulp) ... 0-3? How much leverage would he have then? Could he get $20 million for 13 games plus playoffs? What about $25 million? That's why I used the phrase "lawfully extorting," because it's perfectly legal but it's also extortion (a word that basically means "inflicting pain or suffering to get what you want"). Minnesota will suffer without Favre, and so will its fans. He knows this. But instead of doing the right thing and either saying, "Pay me a ton of money and I'll play again" or "My ankle's screwed up, I'm too old, it's time to go," he's being a greedy attention hog and milking the situation. Like always. I cannot defend this type of holdout.
However, he's way off base on his Brady comments. This is coming from Bill Simmons. This is the guy bitching about how the Red Sox have no life this year in a column. The same Red Sox team that pays $150 million for their roster every year and is in contention as long as their entire team doesn't get hurt. He thinks Boston is entitled to ****.
So does he realize that the Patriots went 11-5 last year with one of the youngest defenses in the NFL? They're rebuilding on the fly. What has Deion Branch done since New England? Seymour was falling off his prime. All the Patriots did was sell their stocks high so that they could re-build through the draft. And they are so good at it, that they make the playoffs every year they do it.
He just expects a Moss-esque offseason every year because they're the Patriots. What he doesn't realize is that they're going to be a top team in football once again this year or next.
