Someone get a wooden stake and a mallet.

This Brett Favre creature won’t die!

You think it’s gone and buried … and back it comes. Once the sun goes down, and we can see the dark days of winter not all that far from us … back Favre comes to prey on pro football players still in the prime of life. As opposed to this twilight after-life that has been Favre’s career for most of this decade.

And now we have Brett Favre, Minnesota Vikings quarterback.

I can understand this, to a degree.

None of us want to leave our chosen profession before we have to. I could relate to Favre, really, when he said a while back that he’s a football player, and what is he going to do if he stops playing football?

(Of course, Favre has said just about everything, pro or con, concerning retiring or coming back, over the past two-three-four years.)

The difference between, say, sports writing or teaching … and pro football … is that the former professions generally aren’t seen to be non-starters for people over the age of 35. And Favre will be 40 any minute now.

He is not the player he was. As anyone who recalls his miserable performance in the NFC championship game in 2008 will recall … or who saw him stagger down the stretch last season, during his one year with the New York Jets.

He ought to be gone … but, geez, if the Minnesota Vikings will give him $10-12 million to bring his “frayed rotator cuff” to Minneapolis and see what he can do with the Vikings,  well, why not? Just made the Vikings a more interesting team (though not for the reasons most teams usually prefer) and will get them a bit more exposure in TV markets across the U.S.

But, someday, doesn’t Favre have to give it up? Stop chucking feeble passes into coverage, and ducking? And won’t he someday make a retirement announcement and stick to it?

Hasn’t worked out that way so far, has it.