Favre, after another interception, is seen here contemplating just how much he wants to jerk around his team and the media before the start of next season.

Vikings quarterback Brett Favre called a press conference today to announce his (third) retirement from football.  Favre cried a lot and said that finishing his career on a game in which his 2 interceptions and 1 fumble ended his team’s chance at a title was a fitting way to call it quits.  Immediately after his press conference, Favre called another press conference to cry and un-retire (again), followed by an exclusive interview with Fox News saying, while crying, that the Vikings were at fault for the way things had ended and then threatened to leave the team for the rival Packers if things didn’t immediately get resolved on his terms.  Favre then called another press conference in which he did nothing but sob uncontrollably while making no attempt at saying anything at all.

Cardinals/Saints

Here’s all you need to know about this game:

Not the QB shootout I was hoping for.  The Cardinals couldn’t protect Warner, which kept him from getting the ball in the hands of his talented receivers. Meanwhile, Drew Brees and Reggie Bush put on a pretty good show.

Colts/Ravens

I’m pretty sure the Ravens thought they were playing Hot Potato and not football.  They threw 2 picks, fumbled twice… even Ed Reed fumbled.  “But wait,” you say, “Ed Reed is a safety, how did he fumble?”  Well, Ed Reed picked off Peyton Manning, returned it 38 yards, and then got stripped.  Thus is the creative variety of the Ravens’ turnovers on Saturday.  It’s never fun watching a game in which one of the teams keeps shooting themselves in the foot.

Vikings/Cowboys

The Cowboys have sore vaginas.  They claim that the Vikings were running up the score on them.  The Vikings won 34-3 after a late touchdown.  The previous two weeks, the Cowboys beat the Eagles 24-0 and 34-14 (after the Eagles scored a late touchdown to make the score look less pathetic).  Keith Brooking charged the sidelines at the end of the game and shouted at Vikings’ coach Brad Childress. “I thought it was classless,” Brooking said. “I thought it was B.S. Granted, we get paid to stop them, but…“  Well, there you have it.  You blow out a team twice in a row, including in the playoffs, then get blown out and cry about it.  Then you admit that you didn’t do your job in stopping them and that’s why they beat the shit out of you.  Then you say “but” acknowledging that you’re being a hypocrite and a crybaby while simultaneously trying to justify it.  No, Keith Brooking, they aren’t classless.  They were competing with integrity.  They were playing hard til the end.  That’s what you’re taught to do in every game of every sport since you were in elementary school.  I’ll let the Vikings’ Visanthe Shiancoe, who scored the late TD, have the last word.  “Ok, we apologize.  I’m sorry.  Better?”

Jets/Chargers

This was the only good game of the bunch, though I’m sure several thousand idiots out there are complaining about the low score.  It featured a scoreless tie at the end of the 1st quarter, with both defenses dominating early (though the Jets’ uncreative offensive play-calling is probably to blame for their lack of a first down through their first 3 or 4 possessions).  Then the Chargers took control for most of the game, until the Jets fortunes were turned around starting with two interceptions, including this impossible grab by Darrelle Revis:

After that, the Jets scored two TDs in the 4th on a bootleg pass from Mark “Dirty” Sanchez and a breakaway 53 yard run by Shonn Greene.  The only downside to this game was the three missed field goals by Chargers’ kicker Nate Kaeding, which would have given them at least a tie and at most a win.  But despite that, this was a hard-fought close game from start to finish.  That’s about the least these teams could give us after watching the three previous ass beatings.

29-33, 379 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INT

He had more TDs than incompletions.    One of his incompletions was due to Charles Woodson, possibly the defensive MVP, just barely tipping the ball off course.  His 5 TDs, which tied an NFL playoff record, went to 3 different receivers.  He was so on that, on a play in which he was trying to throw the ball out of the back of the end zone, he got hit while throwing and the resulting weaker pass was under-thrown enough that it was caught by a diving Larry Fitzgerald for a score.  On one play, Warner threaded the needle on a pass to Steve Breaston in which his receiver had about one foot of distance on the defender, and the cornerback still almost knocked the ball away, and yet it landed perfectly in Breston’s hands.  That play, and his entire game, just illustrated why, when Kurt Warner is feeling it, he’s as good as any QB in the history of the game.  I hope next week’s games are half as entertaining as this shootout.