The Five Reasons Why Favre Isn't Coming Back to the NFL

No need to worry. Brett Favre is NOT coming back to the NFL this year.  I feel reasonably confident in this statement.  I feel 100% sure that he shouldn't come back.  The uncertainty comes with whatever his true intentions are.

These are the five reasons why I believe Favre will not be back:

• His body is done.  Last year he suffered through a stress fracture of his left ankle, as well as a calcaneus bone avulsion on that same foot.  I actually contend that both injuries had more to do with age and not being in good enough shape when he began to play games.  His body could simply not hold up.  Add onto those injuries a chest/shoulder injury he suffered on that massive hit he took last season that knocked him out of the game. Minnesota's offensive line is only getting older and slower, so it's unlikely he's really up to feeling that kind of pain again (unless he doesn't go back to Vikings).
• He has no more axes to grind that will motivate him to play.  I actually think this is the best reason. When he signed with the Vikings in 2009, I believe his main motivation was to get revenge on the Packers.  That he did, winning both games they played against Green Bay that year.  However, the roles were reversed in 2010, and Favre had to taste defeat twice at the hands of his former team.  He also played terrible in those games.  In those two losses, Favre was 33 of 67 passing, with 1 touchdown, 4 interceptions, and a QB rating of 50.4 and 51.2.  
• He's not good enough to play for almost any team.  The reason why I say this is due to Favre's penchant for turnovers and rogue play.  People forget that when he had his amazing comeback season for the Vikings in 2009 that this was a highly aberrant year for Favre in his career.
• In 2009, he had a 68.4% completions, 4,302 yards, 33 TDs, 7 INTs and a QB rating of 107.2. That was his third highest yard total in a season, tied for fourth highest touchdowns, by far his highest QB rating, and (most importantly) he had never thrown for fewer interceptions in a season EVER.  
• In the five years before this remarkable year, Favre averaged 62.7% completions, 3,896 yards, 23.6 TDs, 20.2 INTs, and a QB rating of 82.54.
• He went through too much last year personally in a way he had never had to deal with before.  Favre had always enjoyed a rather stellar, hero-worship-type treatment from the media.  Some of that changed with the Jen Sterger scandal.  I'm not going to rehash that here, but that seemed to show a side of Favre that the media hadn't seen before.  An evasiveness that could never been attributed to a guy that always seemed to talk far more than anyone expected.
• Finally, there's a new coach in Minnesota who is highly unlikely to allow a starting QB to simply show up a week before the regular season starts.  Brad Childress allowed Favre too much freedom, in my opinion.  Although I was completely not a fan of his play-calling (how can you allow a back like Adrian Peterson to not get the ball in the second half of virtually every game??), he seemed to not have a lot of respect from Favre. There's no way another coach is going to give Favre the free rein he had under Childress.

Photo: http://blippitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/brett-favre-vikings.jpg