Dear Brett Favre:

You’ve done it all. I’ve been a fan for all of your eighteen years in the NFL, and tonight was the first time I’ve ever rooted against you.

Through all the constant retirement waffling, all the interceptions, all the haters who called you washed up, called you a diva, you shut them up for an entire NFL season with play that proves unequivocally that you are one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game. To do what you have done past the age of 40 defies description.

Tonight you played with guts and grit, and you carried your team on your shoulders to the brink of another Super Bowl. You may have fallen short at the end, but you need not hang your head at all. You are one of a kind, and your team would have never made it this far without you.

Now, I beg of you, retire. You have no more points to prove. Let your fans remember this glorious season as your last, even if it didn’t end the way you hoped.