After several weeks of dithering, former New York Jets employee and sometime TV host Jenn Sterger finally agreed to meet with the NFL to discuss the text messages and, um, photos that then-Jets, now Vikings quarterback Brett Favre had supposedly sent to her while they were both employed by the team:
Sterger's sitdown with NFL probers -- which came after more than a week of uncertainty about whether she would agree to that interview -- greatly ratchets up the chances that Favre will disciplined by the league for the purported misconduct, which allegedly occurred when he was playing for the Jets in 2008.
Sterger, 26, met for several hours with NFL security chief Milt Ahlerich and another league investigator at an undisclosed location in Manhattan. She was accompanied by her lawyer, Joseph Conway, and her manager, Phil Reese.
"We can confirm that a meeting took place with the NFL today and we cooperated fully by providing them with substantial materials in our possession," Reese told The Post after the sitdown.
"We now await the NFL's decision."
That decision could be among any number of things; since Favre and Sterger were both employed by the Jets at the time these messages were allegedly sent, it could come under the category of workplace sexual harassment. According to this USA Today article, a friend of Sterger's who supposedly saw the photos says Sterger wasn't "harassed" by them at all:
Allison Torres told Steppin' Out magazine that she was with Sterger when the lewd photos arrived. She added that Sterger and Favre regularly traded text messages in a relationship that was two-sided.
"I actually saw it when he sent it. We just laughed when he did it," Torres, 24, told the magazine.
"We talked about it like girlfriends talk about that kind of stuff. You have to understand that Brett Favre isn't the first celebrity that tried to hook up with her."
So it really comes down here to another case of "he said, she said", which may make it difficult for the NFL to take any action at all. But what's the saddest part of this whole sad story is what it has done to the legacy of Brett Favre.
Think about it. Three years ago, when he left the Packers as they made it clear they were moving on to Aaron Rodgers, Favre could have retired with the legacy of being one of the greatest, if not the greatest, quarterbacks in NFL history, with a couple of Super Bowl titles and many league records -- all of which were recorded after he was unceremoniously dumped by the Atlanta Falcons because they didn't think he could play back in 1992.
Instead, he came back for a mediocre year with the Jets and then did a ridiculous, ESPN-fired dance with the Vikings for two years, with mysterious private jet visits and cable-TV countdowns and slobbering on the Worldwide Leader that was just about as bad as the nonsense they did with LeBron James last summer. Favre, at least, performed last year, having the best year of his career and nearly taking the Vikings to the Super Bowl.
But after that interception in the NFC championship game against the Saints last year, he should have retired. Instead, he came back yet again, banged up, bloodied and injured, and has played about as erratically as a 41-year-old QB should be expected to play -- and then, this ridiculous soap-opera-type scandal has reduced him to a national joke.
The NFL may wind up fining or suspending him for workplace sexual harassment -- or they might let it go. Either way, they're in a difficult position, and so is Favre, who has tarnished his playing legacy.
When he faces the Bears this weekend, he'll surely be subjected to questioning about all this again. Maybe that'll help the Bears. It surely won't help Favre, or the league, fix up his or their battered image.