Perhaps now, we can talk about somebody or something other than Brett Favre.

Perhaps now, we can enjoy the many other things that are going on in the sports world, with the PGA Championship though one round, the Mankato MoonDogs approaching their first playoff berth, Minnesota State opening a new era in the football program, high-school sports ready to begin next week.

There’s so much to do, so little time to contemplate the daily wanderings of an egomaniacal professional football player and the stubborn organization that no longer will win games because of him.

It’s been a mind-numbing couple of weeks at Minnesota Vikings training camp, and it’s not just because you can spend three to four hours each day watching grown men sweat. The camp chatter has been permeated by how Favre was affecting that day’s events. Is he coming to Minnesota? How is Tarvaris Jackson handling the speculation? Can the Green Bay front office be so wrong? So right?

You saw coach Brad Childress talking with Chester Taylor, well away from the rest of the team, and you wondered about that rumor that had Taylor going to Green Bay for Favre. One day, when defense end Brian Robison and quarterback Gus Frerotte were not on the practice field, the speculation turned to a trade for Favre, and while everyone chuckled at that prospect, the cynical nature of fans and media forced all to at least mention the possibility.

So now, Favre is in New York, playing for a Jets team that has less chance of winning the Super Bowl than the one that he shunned in the spring and then shunned him in the last month. The Packers are in a weaker position, putting the fate of this season into a quarterback who has never started a regular-season game.

And here in Mankato, there can now be peace.

John David Booty can keep the No. 4, ex-Packers will no longer be deluged with questions about their former teammate, and media folks can continue to report the mundane happenings on the practice field each morning and afternoon. Childress won’t be asked about Favre until sometime in the future, when the Vikings or whatever team he’s coaching then takes the Jets or whatever team Favre is playing for then.

And come Sept. 8, when Minnesota faces Green Bay on Monday Night Football, we’ll not have to watch Favre quarterback one of the teams or suffer through his since-postponed retirement celebration.

Chad Courrier is a Free Press staff writer. To contact him, call 507-344-6353 or e-mail at ccourrier@mankatofreepress.com.