Our Long National Nightmare is Over as Brett Favre is Traded to the New York Jets

In case you missed it overnight, the protracted, messy divorce between Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers has culminated with the NFL's all-time touchdown leader being shipped to the New York Jets for a conditional draft pick.

The Jets, making their boldest personnel move in team history, last night acquired Brett Favre in a blockbuster trade with the Packers.

It's a move that completely alters the face of the Jets franchise and immediately has a chance to make the 2008 season something special. The move gives the Jets their most iconic player since the days of Joe Namath.

The compensation to the Packers is believed to be a conditional 2009 third or fourth-round draft pick that could become a first- or second-round pick depending on Favre's performance and the team's success.

The acquisition of Favre, who is scheduled to make $12.7 million this season, means the end of the Chad Pennington era.

Pennington, who's due to make $6 million in 2008, is the odd man out as the Jets clear salary cap space, leaving Kellen Clemens as Favre's backup.

Here's why this might work for the Jets. With today's win-now mentality in the NFL, the Jets are in far better shape with Favre than either Pennington or Clemens calling signals, and made significant moves to upgrade their team in free agency this past off-season, notably adding guard Alan Faneca on the offensive line. You can also argue they have a superior receiving and tight ends corps than Green Bay had entering last season, when nobody saw the Packers as a title contender.

The conditional pick is a no-brainer for an obvious first-ballot Hall of Famer and there isn't a Jet fan alive who won't gladly part with the No. 31 or 32 pick in the draft in return for a Super Bowl appearance.

Of course, there are several reason this won't work. First, the Jets may be the most snake-bitten team in the league and every season they start brimming with hope usuallly winds up in disaster (see Vinny Testaverde's 1999 Achilles injury, for example). Second, when legendary quarterbacks move on after a storied career to new teams (see Joe Namath with the Rams and Johnny Unitas in San Diego), it rarely works out. But Favre, having started 275 straight games, is still in decent shape and isn't nearly in the same brittle physical condition as Namath and Unitas were back then.

Granted, he's a 38-year-old quarterback and has only a year or two left, but if you a Jets fan today, you have no reason but to be thrilled. You're the little stepbrother in a town that houses the defending Super Bowl champions and today the football world is looking at you. This by no means makes the Jets any kind of favorite in the AFC, what with the Patriots, Chargers, and Colts, among others, well ahead of you.

But like I said, with the win now mindset in the league, this trade is a no-brainer.

Besides, in mid-December 2007, was there anyone alive who thought the New York Giants would win the Super Bowl?