The general manager of the Houston Texans spoke for Aaron Rodgers and Brad Childress. He spoke for two former Jets massage therapists. And he spoke for those tired of the drama queen who wears Wranglers.
Brett Favre?
“I don't think so,” Rick Smith told Peter King of Sports Illustrated on Sunday. “I don't want to bring the circus to town.”
So the Texans will take another approach, and they will let a fifth-round rookie run their first-place team for now. This will be seen as perfectly sensible. Favre seemed finished last year, after all, as both a quarterback and a sit-com.
But Favre is worth a phone call, as well as a look. And if the risk for the Texans is that cameras will descend on their facility, and that too many reporters will require too many news conferences, then what's the matter with that?
What's the matter if the Texans, for once, host a circus?
According to King, a Favre text suggests he's not coming back regardless. Favre said he hasn't thrown a football in a month.
But that also means Favre was throwing one in late October. That also means Favre likely hasn't given up what he couldn't before.
Houston being a six-hour drive from his Mississippi home would be just one selling point. The others:
Andre Johnson. A team that has won five in a row. Wade Phillips as an assistant, not as the head coach. And one of the league's best offensive lines and running backs.
The Texans have reason to hesitate selling. Favre went from 33 touchdowns and seven interceptions in 2009 to 11 and 19 last year.
“The truth,” a Minnesota columnist wrote after last year, “is that for all Favre did to boost the Vikings in 2009, he did more to destroy them this season.”
Still, Favre also lost his best receiver, Sidney Rice, before the season started, then was hurt himself. It's unlikely he switched from star to bum in the time he switched from 40 years old to 41, and a day last November said as much.
Then, Favre threw for 446 yards. How many of the quarterbacks the Texans are considering now will ever have such a day in their careers?
But there the Texans were Sunday, having lost their second quarterback in as many weeks, and their last option was the oldest one. “Now that the Texans are down to their third quarterback,” the Los Angeles Times said, “please no one ask Brett Favre how he's feeling.”
That's when Smith spoke for Rodgers and Childress and everyone else. No chance, Smith said, no circus.
That's fitting for a franchise that has always been closer to C-SPAN than ESPN. Not only have the Texans avoided the playoffs in their existence, they have avoided attention.
They've kept the monotone hum going from Dom Capers to Gary Kubiak. They've tried to be professional, as well as the anti-Jerry Jones. And if they were sometimes smart to work this way — for example, passing on a sure box-office lure such as Vince Young — they were off the national map.
“They're just there,” Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle wrote last year, “painting the town gray.”
Their roster paints accordingly. Johnson, their electric superstar, comes without an off-field spark.
This season appeared to be the triumph of that. But then bad luck became worse, and suddenly the Texans had no choice but to try to find a quarterback who 1) was available and 2) knew something about playoff tension.
Favre?
Maybe he has two more months of football in him. Maybe he gives the Texans their best chance if they go to the playoffs for the first time ever.
But who wants all that attention?
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