It could be worse. You could be Ted Thompson. No matter how awful your life is—fallen arches, unruly children, two gas-guzzling Hummers in the garage—you could be Thompson, the goofy general manager who has decided that Brett Favre can be the Packers' backup quarterback in 2008. This is the football equivalent of deciding Elvis will give up singing to play the tambourine.

As a consolation it-could-be-worse prize, you could be Aaron Rodgers, the unproven quarterback whom Thompson has anointed Green Bay's starter. Imagine being Rodgers and running onto Lambeau Field for the first time next season. For that matter, imagine being Rodgers and running onto any NFL field while Favre, the national treasure, looks intently at a clipboard on the sideline.

But as cartoon-character bad guys go, Thompson is hard to beat. To bench a future Hall of Fame quarterback who helped your team get to the NFC Championship game the previous year—well, it takes an inspired ego to think of that one.

Favre isn't an aging Michael Jordan, who was well past his prime when he donned a Wizards uniform. If he were, Thompson's decision would be understandable.

No, this is a player who was the leader of a very good team last year.

No one is exactly sure what the Packers are going to do with Favre—keep him, trade him or release him—but relegating him to the tundra's sideline seems the strangest, meanest choice of all.

Regardless of whether he knows it, Thompson is about to begin construction on a new wing in the Museum of Sports Scoundrels. This would be called the How To Make an Incredibly Bad Decision for Your Franchise While Alienating Your Fan Base wing.

But that name won't fit over the door. So let's call it the This Guy Probably Thinks Lombardi Was a Pansy wing.

Thompson does not belong with the wife-beaters, murderers and other miscreants who have taken over the sports pages.

But unless he changes his tune, he might end up in the same notorious league as traitorous franchise movers Robert Irsay, Art Modell and Walter O'Malley, sucker-puncher Kermit Washington, coach choker Latrell Sprewell and fiction writer Barry Bonds.

He will be deemed lower than Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who cannot, if his life depended on it, do the right thing.

He will be right down there with the late Ted Stepien, whose bizarre trades seemed aimed at ruining the Cavaliers, and late Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz, who once pinched a penny so hard it yelped.

In Cincinnati, they still remember Reds general manager Dick Wagner as the man who unplugged the Big Red Machine.

Ted, baby, Double T, whatever it is they call you: Listen to me. You will be Wagner, et. al! You will be the guy who buried a breathing Favre. You'll be Zinedine Zidane for headbutting the entire city of Green Bay. You'll be agents of darkness Scott Boras and Drew Rosenhaus, poison-tongued John Rocker and those thieving refs from the 1972 Olympic basketball final.

Where does a villain hide in Green Bay? Nowhere, that's where.

Ted, I implore you, for the sake of the children you might have someday—the children who will be harassed at school—don't do this. If you do, whenever your name comes up, a question will form on the lips of otherwise polite people: Aren't you the idiot who dumped on Brett Favre?

Is that how you want to be remembered? Do you want to be Woody Hayes and Bob Knight rolled into one clenched fist of "principle?"

There's nothing wrong with taking a stand, with fighting for something you think is right. But not only is this stand wrong, it seems petty. It seems much more a personal matter than a personnel matter.

Favre obviously did not handle this situation well. That's not worth arguing. He tearfully announced his retirement in March, and the Packers moved on. Now he's running alongside the bus and smacking his hand against the door to make it stop.

OK, it's bad for Rodgers and the Packers, who had their own plan. It's annoying for all involved. And you, Ted, think it's your turn to play with the toys.

But it's still Brett Favre you're dealing with here. Not Don Majkowski. Not Blair Kiel. Brett Favre.

Sports fans instinctively know when something is not right, and the Packers' decision to retain their control of Favre and make him a backup quarterback is not right. It reduces much of what Favre accomplished a size or two, from larger than life to just another guy. It's a slap in the face to a quarterback and a city.

If the goal is a championship, who gives the Packers a better chance of getting to the Super Bowl? The still very capable legend? Or the young quarterback who has never started a game in three seasons in the NFL?

Ted, come to your senses. Unless you like the way the word "dastardly" fits you.