Good God, you're coming up with reasons
Good God, you're dragging it out
Good God, it's the changing of the seasons
Whoa, you're such a (expletive) hypocrite.

-- "Fake It," by Seether

My buddy, Pete Schwaba, e-mailed the other day from California. He's a hotshot Hollywood screenwriter -- he loves it when I call him that -- and he's got a knack for writing just the right thing. Born in Chicago, raised in Wisconsin and having written, directed and starred in "The Godfather of Green Bay" and co-written "A Guy Thing," the man has a way with words.

So when he dropped me a note about the ongoing Brett Favre unretirement saga, he knocked it out of the e-mail park.

Unbelievable.

That was it. One word. Summed it up pretty well, I thought.

And now, it's really unbelievable.

News of Favre's "itch" to play football again broke a little less than two weeks ago -- and a little less than four months after his tearful farewell news conference -- causing a seismic shift in the Wisconsin sports landscape.

But the story broke wide open on Friday, when the Packers received a letter from Favre and his agent, James "Bus" Cook, asking for his unconditional release, followed by news that Favre had actually informed the Packers of his plans to unretire in late March, only to renege on the plans.

The Packers will not -- under any circumstances -- honor Favre's request for an outright release, preferring instead to trade him, two NFL sources said.

The Packers had decided to move on in the wake of Favre reneging on plans to unretire in late March. According to two NFL sources, Favre informed the Packers during the annual NFL meetings -- less than a month after his tearful March 6 retirement press conference -- that he wanted to play again.

At the time, both Packers coach Mike McCarthy and general manager Ted Thompson told Favre they would welcome him back, and plans were made for him to return, including chartering a plane to go to Mississippi to complete the comeback deal.

But two days before the meeting was to occur, Favre called the team to say that he had changed his mind yet again and had decided that he wanted to stay retired after all.

Having been burned by the indecisive Favre again, the team decided after that to commit fully to moving on without Favre, the sources said.

On Tuesday, Favre, Cook, Thompson and McCarthy participated in a conference call in which Favre made it clear that he wants to play again this season, sources confirmed. Afterward, Favre was convinced that the Packers did not want him back and told Cook to move forward with the formal request for his release, one of the sources said.

Favre could have instead petitioned for reinstatement from the reserve/retired list, upon which he'd been placed by the club on April 25. Had he done so, the Packers would have had 24 hours to either put him back on their 80-man roster or release him.

If the Packers granted Favre's request, he would be free to play for any of the league's other 31 teams, including NFC North division rivals Minnesota and Chicago, both of whom could be in the market for a quarterback.

The Bears reached Super Bowl XL two years ago but did so despite Grossman's inconsistent play. Now, Grossman and Orton enter camp battling for the starting job.

The Vikings, meanwhile, are a chic pick for Super Bowl XLII, and coach Brad Childress runs a version of the West Coast offense. Favre's former quarterbacks coach in Green Bay, Darrell Bevell, is the Vikings offensive coordinator, while ex-Packers Ryan Longwell, Darren Sharper and Robert Ferguson are on the Minnesota roster.

The Packers are slated to retire Favre's No. 4 at a ceremony at Lambeau Field during the Sept. 8 regular-season opener against the Vikings on "Monday Night Football." The Packers report to training camp on July 27, and Favre is scheduled to present his buddy, center Frank Winters, for induction into the Packers Hall of Fame on July 19.

From Favre's wholly dishonest text message ("It's all rumor") to his buddy at the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald after the news broke on July 2, to our unsuccessful attempts to get coach Mike McCarthy to address the situation following his appearance earlier this week at the Green Bay Boys & Girls Club, to general manager Ted Thompson's continued silence, to the divided opinions of Packer Nation flooding my State Journal e-mail inbox, it's been interesting theater. And it promises to continue.

The whole thing really is unbelievable (thanks, Pete!), and yet, you kind of had a feeling some of it would happen, didn't you?

The biggest surprise to me is how split public sentiment is. While there are still plenty of Brett Favre zealots, who really do see him as someone who can do no wrong, there are considerably more fans who are fed up with his indecisiveness and are bothered by the position he's putting their favorite team in. Yesterday, for example, I was at the gym and had the GM and a member debating back-and-forth the issue while I tried to do triceps pushdowns.

This isn't to say that the majority of fans are against Favre, or that Thompson doesn't have plenty of folks who hate -- a strong word, but sadly an accurate one in a number of cases, based on the anecdotal evidence in my inbox -- him. One fan, in fact, emailed me saying that if Thompson doesn't take Favre back and Favre ends up playing elsewhere, he will cheer AGAINST the Packers.

I really don't get that one thing -- why Thompson hasn't earned the benefit of the doubt from more Packers fans. From what I know of him -- which I'd like to think is plenty -- he is a decent man who wants more than anything for the Packers to be successful, and will always do what he believes is in the best interest of his team.

That doesn't mean he might not be wrong about all this. That doesn't mean that if chooses not to accept Favre and instead releases him or trades him, it might not be a mistake. It very well could be. But why is it so hard to grasp that maybe, just maybe, he knows what he's doing?

To be honest, I've never understood that. Before last season, in the aftermath of his decision not to trade for Randy Moss and drafting Justin Harrell -- and Favre's angry reaction to that decision -- I wrote about the way fans viewed Thompson. I couldn't get over how strongly some people felt about him.

"I think the people I work with understand how I go about my business and why we're doing certain things," Thompson said then. "Yeah, from an organizational standpoint, I would like for the Packer fans to think the Packers are in good hands, quite frankly. Not necessarily everybody patting you on the back, but to kind of there be a little trust with the Packer fans (in) me.

"But at the same time, this is a big -boy place, and if I get criticized, I'm OK with it. Personally, I can take it from an ego standpoint, but I would prefer it if it was more of a positive message, just because of the people out there who are getting up and reading that at the breakfast table or watching it on the nightly news at night. It might make them have a bad day thinking, 'Oh my gosh,' that sort of thing. I'm not immune to that. But I'm fairly thick-skinned about other things."
And now, here we are, after he built a team that went 13-3 last season and played in the NFC Championship Game (where they were one Favre interception away from the Super Bowl), Thompson is back to being vilified by a large part of the fan base. Why?

Favre had his chance to come back. He chose to retire. He had another chance to come back. He chose to stay retired.

Whether Thompson did enough to talk him out of it is irrelevant. Favre sat before the cameras on March 6 and said as emotional a goodbye as we've seen in sports. He also absolved Thompson of the blame for his retirement, saying that the things Cook and his older brother Scott Favre had said about it were wrong. The team moved forward accordingly with Rodgers.

"I think Ted has been criticized a little bit unfairly," new president and CEO Mark Murphy said earlier this week. "I think he has handled this situation very well. As an organization, we made it clear, we wanted Brett to come back (in March). We had a great year last year; he had close to an MVP-type season; and we were close to the Super Bowl. We wanted him back."

Now, if the Packers don't take Favre back and you disagree with that, that's OK. But seriously, enough with the hate. Let's just see where this leads. And if it leads to Favre taking the Minnesota Vikings to the Super Bowl and the Packers go 6-10, then ... well, I don't even want to think about it.

Because that would truly be unbelievable.