Views on News • August 4th, 2008

Fleischer joins the fight over #4

by Chris Lato

Did the Packers take my advice?

OK, probably not – but they did finally wise up and bring in a PR pro, and a heavy hitter no less. Their pick is none other than former Bush administration press secretary Ari Fleischer.

Is it too little, too late? After all, some of us saw this coming months ago. It seems Fleischer will play a behind-the-scenes role, which is probably for the best. Heaven forbid this whole flap takes on a political, anti-Bush angle as well.

The way the press is breathlessly reporting every teeny weeny advance in the story suggests it’s never too late to bring in the big PR guns, but the Packers could have been in a far better position if they had taken the PR offensive a long time ago. They let it hang out there for too long, allowing Team Favre to shape the story and make team leaders look like the bad guys – although Favre’s next job after football ought to be opening a chain of Waffle Houses. His image is tarnished as well. It is starting to feel like the only way to mend fences would be for Favre to lead a stellar season with a trip to the Super Bowl.

By the way, speaking of the press coverage, holy cow. I don’t know that ‘going overboard’ begins to describe it. By the time I heard a local reporter comparing the landing of Favre’s plane yesterday to the Beatles arriving in the US in 1964 - well, let’s just say that comment buried the needle on the ol’ B.S. detector. The station I watched must have shown the same shot of Favre getting off the plane at least 6 times in the first five minutes of their 10PM newscast. It’s rather disheartening to see TV news going this crazy, especially when it was obvious there wasn’t that much news to report on the Favre front.

However, as I wrote before, fingers can be pointed all over the place in this situation, but the bottom line is that the Packers need to do what it takes to win. That’s why having Aaron Rodgers compete against Favre is the wisest move. Early indications are that Rodgers is a bit shaky, and Favre is a three-time MVP with the experience needed to go up against Rodgers…but let’s see how it goes. Who knows what kind of shape Favre is in, or whether the team even plans to give Favre a fair shake.

One can’t help but feel sorry for Rodgers - but hey, it’s just a game, right?

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