Favre Already Under Contract With Vikings?

As we prepare to join the NBC family, we’re making a conscious effort to get back to our roots. Sure, we spend a lot of time commenting on news either broken by others or announced by the teams or the league. But we built our following primarily because we can get stuff that others don’t have -- and because we can (and will) post rumors, without adhering to the two-source nonsense that paralyzes the flow of information about sports. We caught wind this morning of a tip from a very unusual source. A member of the military -- an officer serving in Afghanistan -- contacted us with two eyebrow-raising-nuggets that had made their way to him on the other side of the globe, from credible sources. We pondered using it even without corroboration under the thinking that, if a guy in harm’s way would get a thrill by fooling us into using a Bradshaw-Is-Dead-style rumor, then we’d be glad to give him that thrill in exchange for the sacrifices he’s making for the rest of us. Because, however, we’ll soon be working with a legitimate media organization (or, as the case may be, undermining its legitimacy), we decided to poke around a bit. After hitting a dead end, we got in touch with a source who would know the truth. The source explained that no information could be given, adding “I will not deny it either, I will leave it at that.” So with that extended preface (you can wake up now, by the way), let’s get to the meat. The rumor that the source would neither confirm nor deny is that the Vikings already have signed Brett Favre, and that the team and Favre are waiting to release the news. If accurate, this means that the Vikings have a signed contract that they have yet to submit to the league office. Setting aside for now the question of whether league rules permit such tactics, it puts into perspective recent developments such as Favre’s use of “we” when discussing the matter with Artie Lange’s biatch, the visit by a Vikings trainer to Favre to check on his arm, and reports that coach Brad Childress wanted to see Favre participate in some of the offseason workouts. These details all make much more sense if Favre already is a member of the team. The other bit of information, which we also posed to the source who declined to confirm or deny the rumor, is that the Vikings already have green-lighted the production by Reebok of purple jerseys bearing the number 4 -- and the five-letter name that isn’t pronounced like it’s spelled. None of this news should be regarded as earth shattering, but it’s the clearest sign yet that, come early 2010, Favre will be conducting his third annual retirement press conference.