Before I get going, the very latest: A wild scene has unfolded at Winter Park, with fans reportedly swarming Chilly's vehicle and people streaming into the team's facility. A blurry Brett Favre has arrived. There's a dude wearing a parrot suit.
Sid Hartman: "In my 65 years of doing this, I've never seen anything like that!"
How does the addition of Brett Favre affect the remaining quarterbacks on the roster? Clearly, change is on the horizon for them. Barring a meltdown in the final games of the preseason, Sage Rosenfels has positioned himself to become the backup quarterback. That much seems certain. But what about T-Jack and Booty?
The Vikes could retain Jackson as the third-string quarterback and try to sneak Booty onto the practice squad. Keeping the two isn't entirely out of the question -- in fact, I'd say it will likely happen.
But what if T-Jack just wants to move on? I gave my opinion on that in July when there were rumors that Jackson would demand a trade if Favre became a Viking. I thought it was clear that he'd be making a terrible mistake by moving on from Minnesota, as the Vikes could very well be heading back to the drawing board at the quarterback position after this season. He could hold a clipboard for a season and return in 2010 with a good chance to start.
Mike Florio speculates that Green Bay might be interested in T-Jack, and regardless of how long the odds are of him actually ending up in a Packers uniform, the possibility alone of him getting picked up by a key opponent should prevent the Vikings from letting him go. You can imagine the amount of information Jackson has on what the Vikings will be doing on offense this season. At this point, I think you need to keep him -- regardless of his unhappiness.
He can suck it up for a season. It's not like he's played well enough to deserve any more than that.
In fact, taking a season off might end up being a good thing for T-Jack. While it's absurd to judge a player on one preseason game, the quarterback I saw on Friday was obviously in over his head -- against Indy's backup and third-string defense, no less. How he performs in the coming weeks remains to be seen, but spending the season behind two veteran quarterbacks might be his last, best hope to become the player Brad Childress has envisioned.