Dear Mr. Favre: Please retire.

It’s not that I have anything against you. On the contrary,… Dear Mr. Favre: Please retire.

It’s not that I have anything against you. On the contrary, for most of your career I have proclaimed you the best quarterback in the NFL. Possibly in league history.

You see, I’m more worried about your reputation.

It isn’t very thoughtful of you to keep your helpless team waiting around while you make up your mind. It has a big draft to prepare for, and your decision will likely affect who it will choose with the fifth overall selection.

Sure, you mean the world to the Packers’ fans and the organization itself.

You have been Mr. Consistent. You have made the most consecutive starts by an NFL quarterback (221). You hold the record for most consecutive seasons with at least 20 touchdowns (12). You have had the most consecutive 3,000-yard passing seasons (14).

Oh yeah, there’s also those three NFL MVP awards and one big, shiny Super Bowl ring, something that people will always remember you for bringing back to Green Bay.

But something happened to you last year. Sure, you still threw your 20 touchdowns, which I’m convinced you would be able to do in your sleep. However, there’s that small matter concerning those career-high 29 interceptions.

All of a sudden you reminded me of another Iron Man in the twilight of his career.

Being a diehard Orioles fan myself, I cringed as I witnessed Cal Ripken Jr.’s batting average dip from .340 to .256 to .239 in his final three seasons. All the while, I began to wonder: Would the team be better off without him?

He was no longer the power-hitting, slick-fielding shortstop that I had come to love during my childhood. Instead, he became the rally-killing, cement-footed third basemen whose legacy will likely remain with his many baseball fans.

Likewise, I began to notice a sluggishness in you last year that I never saw before. You no longer seemed like the gazelle who used to prance in and out of the pocket, eluding one mammoth defensive lineman after another before slinging a perfect spiral to your receiver 40 yards down the field.

Those defensive lineman were catching up to you. In fact, they got to you 24 times in 2005. And your passes weren’t the precise lasers they used to be, but rather they regularly resembled a wounded duck descending to its final resting place, which was all too often in the arms of a defensive back.

I would hate for you to experience the same consternation Cal received from Orioles fans in his final playing days.

It gets even worse.

Recently, John Madden hinted that you might be traded. In fact, he said you might even be secretly negotiating with other teams.

Please, please tell me this isn’t true.

I have never known John Madden to be a conspiracy theorist. A slow, dim-witted, repetitious analyst? Maybe. But not a fraud. And now he’s telling me that there’s a possibility that I could see Brett Favre end his career wearing something other than green and maize?

Yes, I know you didn’t start your career with Green Bay