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Splitting Badly – Packers Have History of Bad Endings With Icons

When Brett Favre was booed at Lambeau Field yesterday, it was just another in a long line of Packer relationships that ended badly.

Curly Lambeau, the team’s founder, left the team after a dispute with the board of directors in 1950, finishing his career as a coach with the Chicago Cardinals and then the Washington Redskins. Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung were exposed in the expansion draft and taken by the New Orleans Saints

Perhaps the greatest legend of them all, Vince Lombardi, left for the Washington Redskins for one final season before cancer took his life. Bart Starr and Forrest Gregg faltered as coaches and were canned, and James Lofton was shipped to Oakland after assault allegations (he was found not guilty). The team’s next great receiver, Sterling Sharpe, was cast aside acrimoniously after injuring his neck, and even Reggie White played a final year in Carolina after retiring from the Packers. Darren Sharper was cut by the Packers in 2005, only to continue his stellar career with Minnesota and now New Orleans, currently ranking 9th in league history in interceptions.

And as for flip-floppers, the great Don Hutson retired twice, only to come back to play again in 1944 and 1945. So is Brett Favre’s indecision something new? Not really, nor is the Packers inability to end the relationship on good terms. It just happens to be the hardest to watch.