Some Packers Fans Come to Bury Favre

On Friday afternoon, two personalities from a morning radio program in Appleton, Wis., staged a mock funeral for Favre at a bar within sight of Lambeau Field.

By PAT BORZI

NYT

GREEN BAY, Wis. — For about 40 years, Jim Zeutzius has been going to Al’s Hamburgers, a downtown institution here since 1934 that is best known for its 15-stool lunch counter and a neon sign outside that reads, “Eat.” The two milkshake machines appear to be almost as old as Zeutzius, who is 66 and has rooted for the Green Bay Packers for as long as he can remember.

Zeutzius, a former season ticket holder, still shivers when he recalls sitting (surviving?) at Lambeau Field for the famed Ice Bowl in 1967, when the Packers beat Dallas on Bart Starr’s quarterback sneak with temperatures falling to 13 below zero. Zeutzius will not be at Lambeau on Sunday for Brett Favre’s return as a Minnesota Viking; he dropped his tickets several years ago when they became too expensive. But even watching on television, he expects to be tortured by mixed emotions.

“You’re supposed to boost the Packers up,” Zeutzius said as he waited for the daily special, spaghetti with a heaping pile of meat sauce. “But he was so great when he was here. I’m right in the middle. I could swing one way or the other.”

That’s the choice facing Packer fans. Cheer or boo the former icon of the franchise, who won a Super Bowl and broke almost every career N.F.L. passing record over 16 seasons with Green Bay. When the Favre off-season saga — do I play? do I stay retired? — ended, many Packers fans were riled, claiming he was disloyal to this city of about 104,000 by signing with one of their bitter division rivals. Imagine the reaction in New York if Derek Jeter came to Yankee Stadium as a Red Sox player.

(More here.)