Brett Favre Punishment: Does It Even Matter At This Point?

The NFL is finally ready to hand down the Brett Favre punishment for his sexting controversy that the world has been talking about for months.

Luckily for Brett Favre, he'll barely be around to deal with the punishment.

The Minnesota Vikings quarterback, who has had a disastrous season both on and off the field, is supposed to hear within the next 48 hours about his punishment regarding his sending of inappropriate pictures and text messages to former New York Jets employee Jenn Sterger when he was a member of the Jets in 2008.  Fox Sports reports that Brett Favre will be fined, but not suspended.

Great job, Roger Goodell and the NFL.  You're finally handing down the Brett Favre punishment on the guy's last day at work.

Goodell has been saying that the investigation and Favre's subsequent punishment would come down before the end of the season, making everyone think that Favre could actually earn some sort of relevant discipline.  Instead, the NFL copped out of making a controversial decision and waited until Minnesota was out of playoff contention and Brett Favre was sitting on the sidelines watching his team play meaningless games in the final weeks of the season.

It's stupid and meaningless to punish Brett Favre by suspending for a game he won't even play in, so a fine is the only thing that the NFL can do at this point.  Had they had some courage, the NFL could have made a statement, like they did with Ben Roethlisberger, and showed the world that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.

Instead, they spent all season kissing Brett Favre's butt instead of punishing him.  They seems like the league was too busy honoring the guy during every Vikings telecast to complete their investigation quickly enough and serve Favre with a serious punishment.  Instead, the NFL couldn't stand to lose their cash cow and crack down on the gunslinger.

Now, Brett Favre can ride into the sunset and let the world forget all about his transgressions.  What kind of message does this send to the rest off the NFL?  Apparently, players can now do stupid things late in their careers and not be punished for them.

Bad move, NFL.  You missed the boat on this one.

 

© Ryan Desmarais 2010

You can follow Ryan Desmarais on Twitter @RyanDesmarais

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