Such specific instructions on how to treat Brett Favre Sunday from Garry D. Howard (“Cheer first, jeer later”). On the way home from work, I had the displeasure of listening to a surprisingly stupid caller on the Sirius NFL channel give similar advice. Thanks for your opinions, gentlemen, but nobody asked you.
It’s always been my opinion that fans have the right to boo whenever they like, and I get very sick of shushing fans and complaining players. Now, for me personally, I wouldn’t ever boo anyone on my team who’s giving it his all–whatever he’s screwed up I’m sure he feels worse about it than I do. The other team is a different story. Regardless of how I feel, each fan pays his or her money and have the right to express themselves as they please. (Obviously within reason: I’m not talking about spouting racist epithets or throwing things on the field.)
I’d make the case that Packer fans should boo Mr. Favre–and not good naturedly.
In 1985, I attended my first game at Lambeau Field, and it was Monday Night against the undefeated Chicago Bears, who would go on to win Super Bowl XX. I was with my dad and I was all of 10 years old. Those who remember the ’85 Bears will recall the team was a squad full of self-important, arrogant jerk-offs. (Those who do not remember are invited to sample their cringe-inducing “Super Bowl Shuffle” or to read the game summaries of their pitiful playoff experiences in the following two years–hee hee!) When the visiting team was announced, the boos reigned loud and filled the night sky. I may be remembering incorrectly but for some reason they announced both the goofy 300-pound rookie defensive tackle they called “The Fridge” and the great Walter Payton. The boos got louder for the Fridge and louder still for Sweetness. My dad was booing with both thumbs pointed down, but I know for a fact that he thought highly of Payton as both an athlete and a human being. It would be hard not to. But what he was expressing and, in my opinion, what the Lambeau faithful were expressing wasn’t their judgment of Payton’s career or of his humanity or anything else, but they were telling him, “You’ve got no friends here tonight!” It was a mean soccer-style mob that night, and the game took an ugly turn very quickly (with DB Mark Lee getting ejected in the first quarter–in an incident with Walter Payton). But the very undermatched Packers almost beat the supposedly best team ever, losing only 16-10, with a couple questionable referee-ing decisions (including Lee’s disqualification) helping along the way.
Now, unlike many of my fellow Packer fans, I’m not a Favre hater. (No fair-minded, thinking person could trace the events from July 2008 and come to the conclusion that Brett deliberately quit the Packers in order to become a Viking. But forget that for now.) What I’d like to see Sunday is a nasty, hostile environment, one that forgets all about the past and concentrates on the here and now. Late October is the perfect time for the word “boo.”
