He was soundly asleep when news broke of Favre’s retirement earlier this year, so long ago. Set in bed and unaware. Maybe dreaming of dog-mushing. But probably secretly hoping that the day – this day – would someday rouse up and grab the clip-board.
When everyone else in Packer-Land was a pile of weeping and dread, lousy and rolling through a cloud of darkness, this was the day that Aaron Rodgers awoke and became The Man. Wisconsin Rex. My hope is that this realization filled him with hope like the first 70-degree day of spring. The fish are swimming upstream here and there are birds chirping outside the bedroom window in the morning now, so I am able to reach and suppose this is the case.
Saw my first loon of the year on Saturday. I thought, dear readers, as I was sitting on my bench looking south, that maybe it was Brett Favre reincarnate, come back from The Gulf at 70 miles per hour by the position of the stars to say good-bye. I cast my minnow out and he disappeared beneath the cold waves to chase a perch. Good-bye, you wild son-of-a-gun, I sighed, and pulled my hat down snug.
I don’t give a shiny toot what all these folks are saying, I still think he’s gone for good. I sure hope he doesn’t change his mind. I won’t be able to take him seriously any-more if he wasn’t. I won’t be able to accept that as real.
So now we’re entering the Professional Aaron Rodgers Epoch, and how long this adventure will run I cannot say. He’s looked, at times, like a kid who could go places. And then he’s looked silly. Another problem: Constant injuries.
You know when they say about time how humans are only a slice of a sliver in the grand scheme of things? Aaron Rodgers has only played a slice of a sliver of the games that Brett Favre played and yet he’s gotten hurt more. How’s that one work, dear readers? I’ve got my scientific instruments out here on the figurin’ table and I sure don’t have an answer there. Poor luck? Fragile-ness? Heck, though, this busted wing of mine is coming along alright and I don’t really imagine myself the accident-prone type. So who knows? Maybe Brett Favre will twist a knee changing the batteries on his smoke detector tomorrow. Maybe a giant Pelican with a horn like a Rhinoceros will peck out my eyes tonight while I sleep by the window like a cat on a pillow. Can any one of us really avoid the rain-drops forever and ever? I think not.
That Dallas game was a real sour point of the season for many a Packer fanatical. Things weren’t looking so hot until later in the game, really, when Aaron Rodgers took the field in relief and led a miniature come-back. And that was pretty much the only evidence we have that the kid could play at the professional level. Had Brett retired a year earlier, I think I’d be a bunch more worrisome, folks. That Dallas game turned out to be the only reason I have any confidence what-so-ever in the new leader of the offensive unit, which is just one of those things that makes you realize you’ve got no idea. That short-term certitude is for baby perch and Vikings fans. Zing zing.
Well, folks, that is Wisconsin today. We’ll just have to wait for Fishing Opener and the draft and see how things work out. The core in place is solid, no doubt, so if Rodgers can rise and accelerate like a loon lifting from the surface of a pond, we might just be alright for another season. Have you ever seen a loon take-off? You really should sometime. They need about a mile of open water and they scream a bunch. It’s quite impressive.
Until next time, then.
