After the Green Bay Packers released Desmond Bishop on Monday, ESPN Wisconsin's Jason Wilde reported that the linebacker would be visiting with the Minnesota Vikings on Tuesday. Wilde followed that news immediately with a cautionary tweet.
"If the #Vikings sign @Desbishop55, I hope #Packers fans realize the guy did NOT want to leave," Wilde wrote. "Does NOT deserve to be called traitor."
What's deserve got to do with it? These are the same fans who refuse to honor Brett Favre, one of the storied franchise's all-time greats, because he committed the unforgivable crime of finishing his career in Minnesota. Recall that after Favre awkwardly left Green Bay in 2008 and spent a year exiled to the New York Jets, he signed with Minnesota to play for offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, his former quarterback coach in Green Bay.
Thanks to that largely irrelevant turn of events, we're now seeing regular reports of Favre publicly accepting some blame for how things ended with the Packers, and fans decreeing that he should never be welcomed back to Lambeau Field.
Throw out all of the thrilling victories Favre delivered for the fans when the franchise surrounded him with a cast of offensive nobodies. Throw out the return to competitiveness for a team that had been frustrated for decades. Throw out the whole notion that Green Bay's image changed from being the league's least attractive outpost to its most charming, thanks to the media attention Favre attracted. The dude played for the Vikings, so he's dead to us.
Packers fans have the reputation of being among the NFL's most knowledgeable. But when they start using the word traitor to describe great athletes who played hard for the team, they come off as ignorant and petty.
