Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

No Sign of Favre at Camp, but the Vikings Don’t Seem to Mind

MANKATO, Minn. — The rain held off, but it was still overcast and a little muggy last Friday when Minnesota Vikings players, coaches and staffers trudged out for the first practice of training camp at Minnesota State University. No one expected Brett Favre to be there, but that did not stop Jennifer Farasyn of Redwood Falls, Minn., from staking out a prime photo-taking spot.

Players leaving the Myers Field House locker room must cross Stadium Road to reach the practice fields; a security guard holds up traffic to let them pass. Farasyn, wearing a white Favre No. 4 jersey, positioned herself at the edge of the crosswalk across the road from the field house. She snapped pictures with a digital camera in her right hand while carrying her sleepy 4-year-old daughter, Brynne, dressed in a children’s Adrian Peterson No. 28 jersey.

Farasyn was prepared on the small chance that Favre would show up. Avoiding camp’s first days is as much a rite of summer for Favre as Fourth of July fireworks and the arrival of mosquitoes. If things play out as expected, Favre will finish his second summer as a Viking without ever setting foot on this campus, crossing Stadium Road or riding a bicycle from the new air-conditioned dormitory to the field house as his teammates do.

With Coach Brad Childress’s blessing, Favre, who had surgery on his left ankle in May, has earned modified Roger Clemens treatment while considering whether to return for a 20th N.F.L. season. Even if Favre announced his retirement tomorrow — which, if one were keeping track, would make it the third consecutive year he has done so — Farasyn said she would not believe him.

Image
Brett Favre, who has toyed with retirement the past three years, has not said if he will return for a 20th season.Credit...Paul Battaglia/Associated Press

“He’ll be back,” she said.

Many Vikings officials and players think so, too. They predict Favre will report after the team breaks camp Aug. 12 but before the second exhibition game Aug. 22 in San Francisco. Favre is due to make $13 million this season. His agent, Bus Cook, did not respond to an e-mail asking when Favre might announce his intentions.

“He needs time, he gets time,” said Childress, who flew to Hattiesburg, Miss., to visit Favre on July 19. “He’ll make a decision, and we’ll live with it either way.

“Would I love to have him come back? I’d love to have him come back. But that’s something that he’s wrestling with right now, and he’ll do what’s best for him and his family. I think everybody can live with it either way.”

No one on the Viking payroll, from the owner Zygi Wilf to the ball boys, has publicly complained about Favre’s absence.

Image
Some folks will try anything to get Brett Favre to come to Mankato, Minn., where the Vikings have their training camp.Credit...Jim Mone/Associated Press

“If I make it 20 years in, I might not come to training camp either,” defensive end Jared Allen said playfully. “Brett, we’ll see you in a couple of weeks, baby.”

Favre’s indecisiveness has been an off-season staple for four years running, kept aloft by the occasionally angst-ridden comment from the man himself. This time, at least, Favre did not announce his retirement and change his mind, as he did in forcing the Green Bay Packers to trade him in 2008, and again last year with the Jets.

In May 2009, a month after the Jets granted Favre his release, he had arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder. After much back-and-forth last summer, Favre told Childress in late July that he was done before reconsidering three weeks later and agreeing to a two-year contract Aug. 18.

What followed would have made a remarkable denouement for any aging player. Favre threw for 4,202 yards and 33 touchdown passes with a career-low seven interceptions. He made his 11th Pro Bowl and became the first 40-year-old quarterback to win an N.F.L. playoff game. Favre led the Vikings to the N.F.C. championship game, a 31-28 overtime loss at New Orleans.

Image
A long sign at Minnesota State University’s Mankato campus began a countdown of sorts for quarterback Brett Favre, who is expected to return sooner or later.Credit...John Cross/Mankato Free Press, via Associated Press

“If he could come in the way he did last year and do the same thing, I’d have no problem with that,” tight end Visanthe Shiancoe said. “And we’ll be a more seasoned team.”

If Favre returns, all 22 players who finished last season as starters for the Vikings will be back. That does not include middle linebacker E. J. Henderson, who is practicing after missing the final month with a broken leg. Wide receiver Sidney Rice, after a breakout season with 83 catches for 1,312 yards, started camp on the physically unable to perform list with an injured hip.

Still, the Vikings like their Super Bowl chances so much better with Favre than with quarterbacks Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels that they appear willing to wait for him. And so do their fans.

“I really think he’s coming back,” said Rick Childs of Elysian, Minn., who stood outside the field house Friday in a Favre jersey and a blue horned helmet, holding a Vikings banner that had been autographed by dozens of players.

“One, I never saw him so happy and excited if the Vikings scored, even more than he was with the Packers or the Jets,” Childs said. “He was almost like a 12-year-old, so energized. And if he wasn’t going to come back, he would have said it a lot sooner so they could get somebody else ready.”

Except that was what he did last year. And the year before. In yet another Summer of Brett, only the arrival date changes.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section D, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: WAITING GAMES BEGIN, BUT FOR DIFFERENT ENDS; No Sign of Favre, but Vikings Don’t Seem to Mind. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT