The monster of all conspiracy theories, of course, goes something like this: Favre decides to end his retirement last summer. The Packers tell him they’ve moved on, and he asks to be released. The Packers deny his request, believing he’s got a deal worked out to sign with the Vikings.

Favre accepts a trade to the New York Jets, hatching a plan to spend a year of penance in the AFC before fulfilling his goal of signing with the Vikings. He plays for the Jets, announces his retirement after the season and waits quietly until the Jets draft Mark Sanchez as his replacement.

A day later, Favre seeks and receives his release from the Jets, allowing him to be a free agent in the off-chance he one day decides to play again. Less than a week later, word leaks that he’s discussing his options with the Vikings. On Aug. 18, he finally signs with the Vikings 12 months after he admitted his intentions to McCarthy.

Did it happen that way? Had the Vikings been planning for Favre’s arrival a year before it happened? We’ll never know unless Favre admits to it someday. But even the reasonable hint of that arrangement is enough to give this matchup cross-country appeal.

The full story is here.

Growing up, my dad never watched football. Ours was a college basketball house; I got a kick out of rooting for Louisville while Pop cheered for Kentucky. I played a couple years of varsity soccer in high school — starting often, in fact, thanks to the unfortunate fact that our team wasn’t very good — and liked to watch the diving competitions in the Olympics… other than that, I was really never into sports.

That changed once I got to college, and only because I was an hour away from Nashville and my aunt had season tickets to Tennessee Titans games. I went to a game and started to figure out the rules; that led to my watching Titans games on TV while doing my laundry and otherwise procrastinating from coursework. In 2000, the Titans made it through the playoffs and into the Super Bowl — called by many the greatest Super Bowl ever, in which the Titans came up just one yard short of tying the game in the last seconds and forcing overtime.

Steve McNair was the quarterback, then, that cemented my love of football. He didn’t just pass, but could take off running in a split second. And unline most quarterbacks, he didn’t just slide safely to the ground seconds before being tackled; no, he was a massive man and would give defenders as hard a time as any running back.

So I’m sad to hear of his death, and even sadder about the strange circumstances… though the news is still developing, it seems he’d been having an affair with a woman 16 years his junior, telling her he was planning to divorce his wife. Just a reminder that fame and wealth come with a price — and that “immortality,” whether through sports achievements or whatever else, is quite the false hope.

Not only good at basketball, but safe if they suddenly decide to go deer hunting.

If a college tournament basketball game can be prolonged for six overtime periods, why can’t the National Football League let the occasional game run a little longer, instead of clinging desperately to the much-maligned coin-toss, sudden-death, first-score-wins system?

I still think professional football — marketing aside — is not as bad as its critics think; in fact, one need only look to this year’s Super Bowl (usually somewhat disappointing) for evidence of what a great game it still is. A stifling defense against a fiery, flashy offense… and a close, back-and-forth game to boot! It’s heads above the professional level of any other full-team sport (and here I ignore baseball, because the rhythm and dynamics are so unique to it), and every game truly means something (as opposed to pro hoops or stickball, where the vast majority of more than 100 games are relatively meaningless), and so-called “stars” still can’t showboat without the help of their teammates (see Owens, Terrell).

But the overtime rule needs to be changed — TV schedules be damned.

P.S.: The classic post by my friend (which itself references a classic post by a wonderful writer and rabid NFL hater) referenced in the title is here.

UPDATE: In hurriedly posting this, I forgot to mention another sporty post by a political commentator, Daniel Larison. It’s here, and takes a look at that peculiar American tradition of mocking, hating and berating soccer. He (and I) both think it absurd, to hold so strongly a matter of preference as absolute fact. But, as one of his commenters notes:

Every year, by the way, I ask my composition students to name the two most controversial, divisive topics in America today. They guess abortion. War. Etc. I let them go for a while until I say, “Soccer. And WalMart.” They sit there stunned for a second. Then one person opens his mouth and… BOOM.

It has almost come to fisticuffs. Twice.

Seriously, it’s a good read. Check it out.

My team, the Tennessee Titans, are now 4-0, their best start ever (even when they were called the Oilers and located in Houston). Only the Buffalo Bills have as good a record. The Titans grind out wins — their longest run on Sunday was just nine yards, and their quarterback is Kerry Collins, a graying veteran taking the place of an emotionally unstable Vince Young.

It seems like every day, for me, consists of a bunch of reading about politics. It’s interesting, but on Sunday I realize that it’s overkill. Instead, I can relax and watch a totally unneccesary game, played at the highest level, and let a lot of my other worries fall by the wayside.

Don’t get me wrong… there are far too many men whose lives this time of year are singularly focused on football. They watch games all day, checking their fantasy football leagues during commercial breaks; during the week, they watch SportsCenter and read FanNation.com and do more of the fantasy league stuff. I’m not one of those guys, and don’t intend to become one. It’s often said that Americans are too distracted, and I’m inclined to agree. How many people I know, who have some supposedly solid opinion on our parties or the candidates or the economic plan or the courts — people who, ultimately, know very little if anything about the real issues or the real motivations of “conservatives” or “liberals.”

But Sunday’s hours of distraction, for me, are a blessing right now. I can play with Lewis and Owen and still keep an eye on the game; I can talk to Shelley about all kinds of things during a day mostly spent at home, and we can both enjoy the long bomb into double coverage, the defensive breakdown that allows a 5-yard run to turn into a 50-yarder, the QB sack that comes with such ferocity that we can FEEL the hit, cringing when it happens.

It’s fun! It’s football, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Now back to the real world. Until later tonight, of course, for the Monday Night Football game that really caps the weekend.

Today, however, it’s time to watch football, eat pizza and pretend all my other struggles simply don’t exist.