Brett Favre is retiring— again. This time, though, it may be for real. And this is news that really kind of pulls on the heartstrings, since I’m pretty sure that Favre is every American man’s man crush, as well as the most likeable QB to grace to league pretty much ever. I mean, a guy that will let Ben Stiller co-opt his girl so graciously for the sake of comedy (There’s Something About Mary) must be alright.

Last year, Favre was mired in a load of cyclical double talk when he retired from his longtime team, the Green Bay Packers. In typical agent speak, his agent Bus Cook told the press, “Nobody pushed Brett Favre out the door but then nobody encouraged him not to go out that door either. I don’t think he had a lot of encouragement to stay, but nobody told him to leave either.” I guess that’s kind of the NFL equivalent of, “He’s just not that into you.”

Then Favre decided to come back to the NFL, but it was too little too late as far as the ungrateful Packers were concerned. Somehow, sixteen seasons, a Super Bowl win, and three consecutive MVP awards weren’t enough for Green Bay to keep Favre on. So he did what any scorned guy would do: move on to the next best thing, i.e. the Jets.

It was a pretty solid season, with Favre completing six touchdowns during the Jets-Cardinals game, a personal best and only one less than the record for the most touchdowns completed in a single game ever. Towards the end, Favre wasn’t really performing his best, throwing eight interceptions and two touchdowns, but for a man playing his eighteenth NFL season, that’s not so bad. Not playing your best when you’ve dominated the NFL for seventeen seasons is kind of like scoring with the runner up of Miss America.

Today the thirty-nine year old announced his retirement from the NFL for the second time. With NFL records for the most career touchdown passes, most career passing yards, most career pass completions, most career pass attempts, and most consecutive starts, Favre can definitely end his professional football career without regrets. When you’ve started 291 consecutive pro football games, you can hardly feel like you didn’t give it your all. Yes, we’ll miss Brett Favre, but if anyone has earned the right to move on, it’s him. And I don’t think this will be the last we’ll hear from him. The man really loves football.