Favre is Retiring

As I (and many others) suspected, 39-year-old quarterback Brett Favre won't be coming back. He sent an email to ESPN announcing his retirement; although given Favre's history with this, who knows where we'll be in September.

Jets owner Woody Johnson and general manager Mike Tannenbaum held a telephone press conference addressing the current situation.

Favre spoke this morning with Johnson, Tannenbaum and head coach Rex Ryan to make it official with the team. According to Tannenbaum, they expect all of the necessary paperwork to be filed within the next two weeks. This would remove $13 million from from the team's 2009 cap, which puts them in a much more comfortable position going into free agency and the Draft.

For whatever it's worth, I have a hunch this is really it for the future Hall-of-Famer. Although he was always fairly even-keeled and upbeat I always saw a look of fatigue on Favre's face throughout the year. His biceps injury and the end-of-season collapse certainly didn't help that.

During the call Tannenbaum himself brought up the topic of free agency so I asked him if that comment meant that they feel that Favre's successor is currently not on their roster. (In other words, not Kellen Clemens, Brett Ratliff or Erik Ainge.)

He responded: "I think we feel pretty good that with a competition between those guys we'll have a pretty good quarterback. The best player will play. We have three guys on the roster that we have a feeling for. Another quarterback will be determined as an opportunity presents itself."

So, what do we get from this? The Jets right now have no idea who their starting quarterback will be. They will review all of their free agent options and using one of their high-round Draft picks on a quarterback just became even more of a possibility.

Can Kellen Clemens fit the bill? Ratliff and Ainge seem unlikely. As I've discussed previously, from his previous playing time, it hasn't looked like Clemens is the guy. Then again, maybe giving him a chance to play behind a solid offensive line might change his effectiveness.

It's going to be an interesting few weeks.