With season lost, will Favre want to retire?

When Brett Favre was traded to the Jets in 2008, his long, illustrious career with the Packers didn't end with the best relations with coach Mike McCarthy and General Manager Ted Thompson.

No Vikings victories were more important to Favre last year than his two against Green Bay. He beat the Packers at the Metrodome, then walked into Lambeau Field and made it a season sweep.

Now, the two losses to the Packers this season, including Sunday's 31-3 result, probably hurt as much as many defeats in Favre's long career.

With the Vikings at 3-7 and pretty much out of the playoffs, you wonder if the 41-year-old Favre, whose ambition was to get to the Super Bowl one more time, might choose to retire.

A year ago, Favre could do no wrong, putting up a 107.2 quarterback rating and throwing for 4,202 yards and 33 touchdowns to only seven interceptions. But it's been a completely different season this year, as he now has 10 TD passes, 17 interceptions and a 69.8 rating. He has suffered a number of injuries and had missed star receiver Sidney Rice for the entire season up until Sunday. It seems as though missing running back Chester Taylor as a blocker and pass-catcher has hurt him more than the Vikings probably had imagined.

Favre did say after the game that he was going to re-evaluate. What that meant for sure, nobody knows. He didn't say what he was going to be re-evaluating -- his season, or his desire to continue playing.

The Vikings don't know who their starting quarterback will be next year. They still don't know if Tarvaris Jackson, now in his fifth season, can be a winning quarterback on an every-game basis.

Wilf could save some money by negotiating a deal for the balance of his $16 million salary for this season.

And the Vikings could find out if Jackson can perform as a starting quarterback or if they need to start looking for someone else.

Stay tuned. This situation could be the latest story line in Favre's career.

Childress situation For the Wilf family, Sunday's one-sided loss really hit hard.

This was the first game this year that the team wasn't competitive at all, and it doesn't sit well with ownership that the team is out of playoff contention with six games to go.

I had a brief chance to say hello when he came back off the field after honoring Hall of Fame defensive end John Randle. And he wasn't a happy soul.

I believe it would be a big mistake to fire Brad Childress. Last year he proved he could coach, going 12-4 and coming up just short of the Super Bowl.

Yes, the Vikings are 3-7. But Childress is not the problem. He is the same coach and has the backing of most every player. Let's face facts. This team is not as good as it was last year. Some of the older players are not as effective as they were a year ago. And nothing was done to really improve the team from 2009 to '10.

The speculation about Childress being fired a few weeks ago was just that -- speculation.

I believe it still is just that. But the Packers loss was very hard for the owners to take.

However, playing at home, the Vikings didn't even perform nearly as well as they did in their heartbreaking 28-24 loss at Green Bay earlier in the season.

As late as Saturday, Childress had told Troy Aikman, the Fox color analyst on Sunday's telecast, that Favre had his best week of throwing the ball and that the team had great practice sessions.

In addition, you had the return of Rice, who caught 90 passes last season as a breakout star with Favre.

However, again, like in most of the other six losses, the Vikings secondary was horrible. The secondary has had problems all year defending quick-rhythm passes, and the Packers' Aaron Rodgers completed 22 of 31 passes for 301 yards and four touchdowns.

Chris Cook, one of the Vikings' two second-round picks this year, and Asher Allen, a third-round pick last year, weren't very effective in stopping Green Bay receivers despite the great pass rush. The loss of cornerback Cedric Griffin to injury has been a big one. He was a big boost both in his ability to defend against the pass and to tackle.

Not high on Vikings Aikman, the Hall of Fame quarterback with the Dallas Cowboys, said he wasn't very impressed by the Vikings.

"Teams like [the Vikings], they need to have good things happen to them early in the game, and when the opponent jumps up on them like Green Bay did, it's hard to rally from those deficits," Aikman said. "They failed to do it today and they played against a better football team. It's just been that kind of year for Minnesota all season."

The Vikings thought they would have one of the best defenses in the NFL this year, but Aikman didn't agree.

"They haven't had much defense for a lot of things," Aikman said. "I think sometimes we use quick passing as an excuse for the lack of sacks, and this is just a team that has not performed very well, regardless of whatever the opponent has done against them."

Aikman praised Rodgers for getting outside the pocket on a number of occasions, something that the Vikings went into this game not wanting to let happen.

Asked if the Vikings had any future this year, he said: "No future this year. If it wasn't already, it's over after this one."