Oh heavens, please, not this again!

First, the minor news. Texas Tech's Graham Harrell, who surprisingly went undrafted this year, reportedly worked out at the Cleveland Browns' rookie camp last weekend. I think this is fantastic. If he signs with the Browns, some good things will definitely happen, owing that he doesn't get psyched out or injured. Not only would this solve the Derek Anderson problem, but maybe having Harrell and Brady Quinn on the same team will be good for both of them, a sort of auto-catalytic motivation. I mean, I could be totally wrong, and the resultant mess could have the chemistry of boiled cabbage, but it's fun to speculate. Any Brownies fans out there want to comment?

***

And now, the big one. According to an anonymous source,* Brett Favre, everyone's favorite retirement drama queen, who is approximately 500 years old in football years** has started talking with Vikings coach Brad Childress about mounting a possible comeback. Does anyone hear that sound? This is the collective face-planting of every Wisconsinite into their cheese and sausage. For heavens' sake, Brett, make up your mind!

Personally, I think he should stay retired. Yes, we all realize that the man's suffered some horrific injuries and can still stay upright, which has lead to several theories that he is everything from the Second Coming to a very well-built cyborg, but the his collapse with the Jets last season was just mortifying. Plus, he's certainly ticked enough people off along the way."Please!" begged a friend and Jets fan that I met in grad school, "Go back to Wisconsin!" From the other angle, most Packers fans still don't even want to talk about it. 

Of course, then, if he does come back to play for the Vikes, everyone's wondering what Favre's motivation is. Favre certainly has enough money, so it can't be for financial gain even in this floundering economy. Is it going to be an ill-fated publicity stunt? Does he believe he can actually help the rather anemic-looking Vikings? Is it his ambition to play for a different team every year? I have a new hypothesis. I'm starting to think that he is literally addicted to playing football. Contrary to some people's belief, it is psychologically possible to be addicted to things other than sex, drugs, and rock-and roll. Time for a Second and One Soliloquy O' Science!

The way the human brain works is that when we do something that we like, our brains produce certain chemicals, most notably dopamine (the chemical above). Dopamine then makes us feel good. Why do we like eating chocolate cake, nice weather, and watching overconfident running backs get tackled? Because the stimulus-response loop produces dopamine. Of course, there are other chemicals involved, like adrenaline (think of skydiving, snowboarding, and fight-or-flight responses), and serotonin, which modulates our moods.  However, when we over-stimulate all of this repeatedly with something (anything), stuff can go haywire. People don't even understand how it works, but we want more feel-good chemicals, and thus we can become addicted to the stimulus. Could it sincerely be that Favre is somehow trapped in an endless dopamine feedback-loop of throwing more interceptions than anyone? Or is he addicted to the attention?

If it's the former, by all means, let the guy play until he's 70 if he can. Let him be the Strom Thurmond of the NFL. If all of this retiring-unretiring claptrap is just for more news-time, however, I think that, barring him taking the Vikings to the Super Bowl (and having them actually not choke it away for the fifth time), the best thing all of us sportswriters can do is ignore the recent dose of Favreapalooza.

Which then, of course, begs this question: Why am I writing about this at 4:30 AM?

*When it comes to Favre, "anonymous source" means "Peter King" nine times out of ten.

**Football years are kind of like dog years, only there's more math involved and they're not as easy to explain to little kids.