Our long Green Bay nightmare is over.

Or is it?

Maybe?

Don’t be so sure.

After weeks of negotiations, rumors, speculation, commentary and debate – so much so that even ESPN’s analysts and commentators seem to be tiring of it, Brett Favre has been reinstated by Roger Goodell’s office and is back in Green Bay.

Professional sports is full of seemingly insane contract negotiations, drawn-out arbitration, exorbitant endorsement packages and player egos large enough to – occasionally – induce a strike by the most highly paid workforce on the planet by any number of means of measurement. The “Brett Favre saga,” as some commentators have taken to referring to it, however, is impressive if only for the sheer audacity of the situation: Favre retires, Favre goes home to Mississippi, Favre decides to un-retire, Favre fights his own former bosses to get his old job back while getting “tampered with” – or not – by Minnesota, Favre declines a $20 million offer to effectively stay retired, Favre goes back to Green Bay to “compete” for his job back. Get all that? Yeah, neither did we. Who declines a $20 million dollar offer to stay home, anyway?

The propensity for great athletes to come out of retirement is almost staggering. Before Favre there was Clemens, before Clemens was Jordan and many more. The risk they all run, of course, is that of coming back and being little more than an rusted stage trophy awaiting the end of a nightmare season that runs counter to the sports hero image they had cultivated over so many seasons in their prime. A sort of athletic King Lear, in a way. Nobody wants to see or remember Brett Favre that way.

Perhaps the answer, then, is for the various professional athletic organizations to adopt rules barring re-entry. Once you’re retired, you’re retired. End of story. A bit harsh? Perhaps. Would it cause professional athletes to consider their options a bit more closely before making the decision to retire? Probably. Would it put an end to the speculative morass that overtakes ESPN and the locals sports coverage every time one of the “great ones” retires? Yes.

So, Brett Favre: We’ll see you, and Aaron Rodgers, in Green Bay. May the best – not the youngest, not the most storied, not the highest paid – win.