Sometimes it's okay to cry.

I think today I felt fine shedding a small, manly tear as I clicked the TV over to ESPN. There it was, the press conference every Green Bay Packers fan has been dreading, Today Brett Favre made his retirement official. I guess everyone in the football world was waiting for it but it still came as a bit of a shock. Now, I know many of the people who read this page are either, not interested in football or, more than likely, Vikings fans from my home state but this isn't so much about football as it is about the end of an era. It was the second game of the '92 season when coach Mike Holmgren benched starting QB Don (Majik man) Majkowski put in his back up, Brett Favre. His first regular season pass for the Packers was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it was deflected back to Favre who caught it for a loss of seven yards. Hell of a way to start out a career, they lost that game 31-3. After suffering a ligament injury in the next game, Don Majkowski was again removed and Favre came in struggling and was being booed off the field by the home crowd. Favre shut them up with a touchdown pass to Wide Receiver, Kitrick Taylor with thirteen seconds left in regulation for the win and the beginning of a wild roller coaster ride for Cheeseheads around the word. He was called a "Gun slinger", a loose canon with a canon for an arm. At the age a of 38 it was said that he could still hit the field goal post, dead center from 50 yards. For sixteen seasons he helped keep the cheese, kraut, pork and beer from clogging our arteries by making our hearts beat half way through our rib cages. Watching a really close game was like calisthenics, you could be exhausted from just sitting there, watching him throw sixty yards off his back foot or perform some kind of underhanded, flip pass into triple coverage while simultaneously, being wrapped up by a Line Backer and scoring. Then you would have the days when it seemed like nothing was going right, by the fourth sack, the second fumble and the third interception all you wanted to do was drown your head in a bucket of Leinenkugels and die. Most of all, Favre was tough, cracked ribs, broken thumbs and fingers, concussions, none of that mattered because it was part of the game to him and that is the saddest part of his retirement to me. It not only signifies the end of the Favre Era but, the end of real, hard nosed football. Face it, we live in a world where being tough doesn't count for as much as being famous, rich or pretty. The Ray Nitschke's, Jack Tatum's, Dick Butkus's, the guys with the any day, any weather, any injury, any time mentality are leaving the sport now add Brett Favre to the list. He was tough, he never missed a start in sixteen seasons and if you actually know how hard an undefended QB got hit on a clean blitz you may appreciate that statistic. I get it that now players are worth so much money that they are more of an investment property that a player. There aren't too many guys out there that would sacrifice a finger tip, ala Ronnie Lott, just to get back on the field and hit somebody. Oh there are a few out on the field that won't let a bloated toe bench them for ten weeks and know what ankle and wrist tape is for but they are sadly in the minority. That is what bites me most about the end of Favre's career. It seems to mark the end of the Tough Guy Era of football. The bad boys are gone and the pretty boys are taking over, broken noses are being replaced by metro hairdos, scars are being concealed or surgically reduced, some one has given the warriors Nerf swords and it burns me to my soul. I think I speak for all Packers fans when I say, Thank you Brett, you will be missed but never forgotten. Thank you for the good times and the bad, the ups and the downs. Most of all, thank you for being loyal and tough and making us remember the purity of that old Lambeau magic. It won't be the same without you but we all wish you the best. Having said that, I would just like to add... Go Pack Go!