Packers Set To Welcome Back Favre
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Though the Green Bay Packers say Brett Favre has put them in a difficult situation, they're prepared to welcome him back.
The NFL announced yesterday that Favre will be reinstated and added to the Packers' active roster today. Commissioner Roger Goodell had held off on granting Favre's request for reinstatement for nearly a week, hoping Favre and the team could resolve their standoff.
"Although we built this year around the assumption that Brett meant what he said about retiring, Brett is coming back," said team president and CEO Mark Murphy. "We will welcome him back and turn this situation to our advantage."
The reinstatement will become effective at 1 p.m. EDT today, when Favre will be added to the Packers' active roster. By reinstating Favre, Goodell is following through on a recent promise to force action. Earlier this week, the team offered Favre a long-term, multimillion-dollar marketing agreement that likely would have kept him retired. But Favre's decision to report to camp makes such an agreement less likely.
A trade remains a possibility.
"Frankly, Brett's change of mind put us in a very difficult spot," Murphy said in a statement released by the team. "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."
Could reorienting their plans include a competition between Favre and Aaron Rodgers for the starting job? Team officials have maintained that if Favre returned to the Packers, it would be in some role other than as the starter — and have said Rodgers is their starter.
In his statement, Murphy said only that coach Mike McCarthy would "talk to the team and the quarterbacks about the plan moving forward, and after he has done that we will share it publicly."
