Favre leaves or stay depending more than on wins and losses

Brett Favre has not made his decision on whether to retire of continue wearing NFL jerseys as one of the oldest player of the league. Well, what people are concerning most about is that whether he will stay with the Minnesota Vikings. Those who wants him to stay believes that Favre’s staying means more than just wins and losses.


Favre not only led the Vikings to their most successful season on the field in more than a decade, his presence was a boost to everything from the team's box office and merchandise sales to sponsorship deals and its pursuit of a new stadium. His first year with the Vikings has been a marking year as he led the Vikings to 12 victories in regular season and NFC championship game against the New Orleans Saints.

It’s more than that. Favre’s existence also help the franchise earn much more money than ever. Favre's Vikings jersey was the No. 1 seller throughout the league, the ticket office was deluged with requests in the days following his signing in August and the team locked down some lucrative sponsorship deals that were sorely needed to offset the lack of revenue generated by the Metrodome.

Well, all are true, but I doubt whether he will be able to give as big influence in 2010 season. He turns 41 in 2010 and there are many potential star quarterbacks. And his trick of retiring and getting out of retirement could hardly work again.

Pro Bowl before Super Bowl, being forgotten soon

It has been reported that the rating for Pro Bowl increased a lot since it was scheduled before the Super Bowl game. it’s true as the rescheduling had caused a lot of people to discuss about whether the move was a wise one or stupid one.

But after the game finished, all was finished. All attention was soon turned to the Super Bowl. Who cares who won the Pro Bowl? Reports about the Pro Bowl suddenly disappear just like they never really existed. People will continue talking about the performance of a player or a team after the Super Bowl game, but one piece of report about AFC beating the NFC was all about the supposed-to-be all-star game after it finished.

Now, most fans are buying Super Bowl jerseys and the jerseys of the champion team must be hot after the game. as for Pro Bowl jerseys, buying them means nothing more than buying the most unpopular NFL jerseys.

Peppers seems determined to leave Carolina

The Carolina Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers seems to have no more reason to continue wearing the No. 90 Panthers jersey. He has the determination to leave Carolina, and the team has not shown any intention to keep the Pro Bowl defensive end.



Well, Peppers already made it clear that he wanted to leave the Panthers last year, and he stayed there for the 2009 season because the Panthers did not let him go and stuck him by hanging the franchise tag on him. The tagging cost the Panthers $18.2 million plus a $1.5 million bonus for making the Pro Bowl. And that seems unlikely to happen again for 2010 season as it will cost the Panthers up to about $20.1 million, plus another $1.5 million for the Pro Bowl and $250,000 for each playoff win. And a long-term contract will have to pay Peppers $15 million a year.

The Panthers would rather to let Peppers go and save the money to develop a new star. I guess so. And according to Peppers’ agent, the Panthers failed to keep their promise of contacting Peppers and him talking about a new contract. After spending all of the eight years of his NFL career with the Panthers, Peppers appears to believe that it’s time for him to leave.

2009 season out-of-expectation: New Orleans Saints

When the 2009 season began, most of us were wondering who would make it to playoff games. Will the Pittsburgh Steelers win their seventh Super Bowl champion? Will it be the Minnesota Vikings as they brought Brett Favre out of retirement to put on the purple No.4 NFL jersey? Or will it be the Indianapolis Colts who had won all the last nine games of last season? But few believed that the New Orleans Saints could go such far as they are now.




The quarterback in No. 9 Saints jersey led the team to win every of the first 13 games of 2009 season, and Drew Brees was well-matched with Peyton Manning on MVP meter before the most votes eventually went to Manning. And it was almost for sure that the team lost their last three regular-season games on purpose to the Dallas Cowboys, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers.

Entering the post season competition for the playoff ticket, the Saints continued performing out of our expectation. Winning over the Arizona Cardinals 45-14, they played the next game against the Minnesota hard and managed to win the NFC championship with a 31-28 overtime win over the Vikings.

For the last game of the entire 2009 season, no one now could predict the result before the last minute of the game. The Indianapolis Colts are surely the best, but the Saints are just far from being wait-to-die.

Two Pro Bowl players have to pay fines for missing practice

The 2010 Pro Bowl game has become even less attractive with many big-name real stars being replaced. Those who did not find good excuse to be away just missed preparing practices without excuse, although they have to lose some money for such unexcused absence.

Julius Peppers and Bryant McKinnie did that by missing Friday’s practice as the NFC all-stars prepared for Sunday’s game. And the league has said the two are subject to fines for the unexcused absence. Agents for both have not given any explanation yet.

And there was change to the NFC roster: the San Francisco 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis was ruled out because of knee injury, joining more than a dozen players who were originally picked to put on the Pro Bowl jerseys but announced injuries later. Willis’s job will be done by Carolina Panthers linebacker Jon Beason.

Patriots WR Welker is not ready yet to undergo surgery

We have not seen the New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker playing on field in his No. 83 Patriots jersey for 25 days since he injured his left knee while playing against the Houston Texans at Reliant Stadium. What is going on with the injury now? Well, Welker said he was still waiting.




According to latest reports, the Patriots receiver still has not had any surgery and did seem likely to have one soon. The reports said that Welker purposely is waiting for the procedure to be performed, allowing time for his MCL and ACL, which he tore during the Jan. 3 loss to the Texans, to heal.

Having been placed on injured reserve since Jan. 6, Welker has not made it clear where or when he will undergo the surgery. The most recent words from him about the injury was what he said two weeks ago on WWLS Radio in Oklahoma City, “We’re just taking our time right now to wait on (the MCL) to heal and make sure that we exhaust all the options."

Browns QB Quinn may not need foot surgery

According to the Cleveland Browns president Mike Holmgren, injured quarterback Brady Quinn may need quite a long time for his foot injury to heal before wearing back his Browns jersey to play football again, but he also believed that the quarterback could avoid surgery that may keep Quinn out for longer time.




Hurting his left foot in a Dec. 20 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, Quinn missed the Browns’ final two games. But the team did not give specifics of Quinn’s injury until Holmgren, who took over the club’s football operations last week, provided the most detailed update on Monday. Holmgren said he met with the team’s medical staff and was told Quinn needs time for his injury to heal but would likely be able to avoid surgery.

Opening the season as Browns starting quarterback, Quinn was benched after 10 quarters. He was given back the job but continued to fail expectation, going 2-7 in the nine games he started. All through the season he had only totally 136 of 256 (53 percent) for 1,339 yards with eight touchdowns and seven interceptions.