Brett Favre set to rejoin Packers

Published 10:29 pm Sunday, August 3, 2008

Quarterback Brett Favre rejoined the Green Bay Packers Sunday, ending his five-month retirement with plans to play this season and, apparently, a pledge from the team that he’ll be given a chance to win back his starting job from would-be successor Aaron Rodgers.

Favre and the Packers had been at odds in recent weeks, with Favre asking to be released and the club offering him a lucrative marketing deal to stay in retirement and far away from training camp in Green Bay.

But once the NFL announced Sunday that commissioner Roger Goodell would reinstate Favre and Favre boarded a plane to travel from Mississippi to Green Bay, things changed quickly. Barring a last-minute trade of the quarterback to another team or another abrupt change of heart by the three-time league most valuable player, Favre might have an opportunity to pick up where he left off last season, when he led the Packers to the NFC title game before he tearfully announced his retirement in March.

“Sixteen years after Brett Favre came to the Packers, he is returning for a seventeenth season,” Mark Murphy, the team’s president and chief executive officer, said in a written statement released by the club. “He has had a great career with our organization and although we built this year around the assumption that Brett meant what he said about retiring, Brett is coming back. We will welcome him back and turn this situation to our advantage.”

General manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy had been adamant in recent weeks that the team had moved on without Favre and was committed to Rodgers as its starter. If Favre returned, they’d said, it would have to be as a backup. But a source familiar with the situation said last night, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, that Favre would be allowed to compete with Rodgers for the starting job and the club’s negotiations with Favre on the proposed marketing deal had ended.

Murphy said: “Frankly, Brett’s change of mind put us in a very difficult spot. We now will revise many actions and assumptions about our long-term future, all predicated on Brett’s decision last March to retire. As a result of his decision, we invested considerably in a new and different future without Brett and we were obviously moving in that direction. That’s why this wasn’t easy. Having crossed the Rubicon once when Brett decided to retire, it’s very difficult to reorient our plans and cross it again in the opposite direction — but we’ll put this to our advantage. … This has been a tough situation, but the Packers will make the most of it.”

A private plane carrying Favre, wife Deanna and agent James “Bus” Cook arrived in Green Bay shortly after 8 p.m. EDT Sunday night. Favre exited the plane and waved to a crowd of a few hundred fans gathered at the airport — in a severe lightning storm, no less — before driving off in an SUV.

The Packers technically have 24 hours after Favre is reinstated to trade him, release him or put him back on the roster, but promised to make the move today. Favre’s $12 million salary for this season will go back on the Packers’ salary cap. He currently is on the team’s reserve-retired list.

Rodgers had a rough night in the Packers’ annual “Family Night” scrimmage at Lambeau Field on Sunday night, as a few boos were mixed in with enthusiastic cheers from the crowd of 56,600 when he was introduced.

Rodgers hit his first pass of the night to Donald Driver, and drew a pass interference penalty on a deep pass to Driver on the next play. He then missed on his next six attempts, including several balls that seemed to bounce off receivers’ hands.

After he threw another three incompletions to begin a simulated two-minute drill, Rodgers appeared to be heating up until he threw an interception in the end zone to safety Aaron Rouse.