Football isn’t like marriage

This summer’s sports soap opera has finally ended with the Green Bay Packers trading their un-retiring and future hall of fame quarterback Brett Favre to the New York Jets.

Packers president Mark Murphy said, “It’s like a marriage that ends. It happens. Neither party is at fault.”

Now I’m a guy who views Superbowl Sunday as a holiday (albeit a secular one – like Labor Day). But even I do not confuse a business negotiation with a marriage.

Uh, Mr. Murphy? Football is not like marriage. Divorce is never no one’s fault. In marriage, two people take vows. These vows normally involve a lifetime commitment, unlike a football contract. Marriages the end in divorce are because one or both spouses don’t live up to those vows.

Marriage is in trouble when one of the greatest tragedies in society is equated with a football player leaving a team and no one notices.

Update 8/8:
I was watching ESPN “1st and 10” this morning and the host said that Brett Favre was coming off a 16 year divorce in Green Bay and moving into a home with his new wife in New York.

Sigh. No, ESPN. Brett Favre was only employed by the Packers, not married to them. Football is a great past-time and all, but it isn’t fundamental to a society like marriage is.