Brett Favre should have quit while he was ahead

It is a dead end street, but a sports bar there is a thoroughfare of debate.

What's he doing? Where was he doing it? Who called whom? Why Brett why?

On Brett Favre Pass, some folks are wishing he had thrown his last.

"I just wish he had stayed retired," said Ron Enke, manager of Champion's sports bar, located a Hail Mary away from Green Bay's Lambeau Field. "What coming back has done for his image, what it has done for the mood of the town, lots of people wish he had stayed retired."

Eight months after the face of the NFL tearfully announced his retirement, that face is bruised and blushing.

It is the face of an accused liar. It is the face of an alleged cheater. It is a face lost.

The works of a lifetime, tarnished in less than a football season. An American hero, undone by the American way.

That's the thing about freedom. It gives us the right to choose wrong.

The score is now final, and it's not even close.

Brett Favre, New York Jets quarterback, Green Bay Packers traitor, fast-leaking legend, should have quit when he said he was quitting.

"People around here love him for his football," said John Dederich, a patron at Green Bay's Stadium View sports bar. "We never did give him much credit for his intelligence."

Once savvy, Favre has turned squirrelly. Once immortal, Favre has become vindictively human.

Wouldn't he have looked so much better on a "Monday Night Football" telecast or Mississippi lawn mower?

"Even some of his biggest fans are now seeing him as a spoiled child with no consideration of others," said Tim Meyer, chairman of the communications department at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. "That selfish attitude has turned a lot of people off."

Perhaps, in the last eight months, we have seen a different Brett Favre. Or perhaps we are finally seeing the real one.

Whatever, it has been the equivalent of a warm farewell followed by the guy changing his mind, barging back through the front door for one last piece of pie, spilling that pie on his lap, dropping messily asleep on your couch.

As splendidly as the great ones welcome us into their world, why don't they ever know how to say goodbye?

Here's how Favre did it.

In March, after 17 record-setting seasons and amid much national mourning, the future Hall of Famer quit. He said it was because he was tired of football. The truth is, he was tired of the Packers.