This is just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

This shotgun divorce between the Green Bay Packers and their living legend quarterback finally has reached the point of sheer insanity as Brett Favre once again has been told by the franchise whose championship legacy he helped redefine, to basically get lost.

"Well, I think insanity is a bit strong," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "But it is unusual."

No, insanity works just fine, and absurdity will do in a pinch. How else can you describe this failed media strategy by the Packers' brass to cover their own football malpractice with a smear campaign against Favre?

After weeks of stumbling and bumbling, the Packers threw McCarthy out into the public light on Tuesday and allowed him to be the stooge who tried to execute this dumber than dumb plan. The plan is to paint Favre as some emotionally confused and tortured soul who doesn't know what he wants.

The plan was to characterize Favre as the bad guy, even though they were the ones who pushed him into making a rushed decision on retiring in the first place. And when he predictably had a change of heart months later, management unsuccessfully tried to send him away last week with a $25 million or so golden parachute (bribe). Yet when Favre wouldn't take the money, he sure didn't look or sound conflicted.

Favre kept repeating the same theme. He wants to play and if the Packers don't want him, then let him go play somewhere else.

But team President Mark Murphy, general manager Ted Thompson and McCarthy want to have it both ways. They don't want him, but they don't want anyone else to have Favre, either. So they just kept procrastinating and Favre forced their hands by filing his reinstatement papers, hopping a plane to Green Bay for training camp and essentially telling the team "play me or trade me."

For all this "he said-he said" silliness, we can condense this story into one easy sentence:

By any measure of football practicality, there still is no good explanation for why anyone with half a brain would intentionally want to run one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history out of town.

But that's exactly what McCarthy and the other two stooges, Thompson and Murphy, have done.

They have told Favre, who last year even at age 38 and after 16 years in the NFL was perhaps one of the two or three best quarterbacks in the game, that his services are no longer needed or wanted.

When Favre calls and says he's changed his mind about his retirement, and wants to play again, the correct answer should be, "Do you want me to drive, or should I send a plane for you?"

When you have three quarterbacks on your roster and none of them has started an NFL game, and when your so-called first-string passer's entire career statistics don't even equal Favre's best game, the correct response should be uncontrollable glee with the "Hallelujah Chorus" as background music.

Yet for some absurd reason, Green Bay's response was to act like Favre had cooties.

So shortly after Favre drove out of the Packers training camp on Tuesday, a reporter asked McCarthy why the team chose this insane strategy.

"I don't have a short answer for you," said the coach.

Well, what's the long answer, he was asked.

"We don't have enough time."

Well, actually, we have plenty of time, but it's doubtful that McCarthy and his buddies have any good answers, long or short.

"Having crossed the Rubicon once when Brett decided to retire, it's very difficult to reorient our plans and cross it again in the opposite direction — but we'll put this to our advantage," Murphy said a few days ago.

So this was putting it to your advantage? Bring him in, create another week's worth of a distracting media carnival, split the locker room, put Aaron Rodgers in an impossible, no-win situation as Favre's heir, leave Favre twisting in the wind for another day, then trot your head coach-fall guy out in front of the public to be painted as the perceived villain who ran Favre out of town?

Just out of curiosity, what the heck was Plan B?

As he tried to awkwardly make his way through Tuesday's media inquisition, McCarthy tried once again to say that the reason Favre wasn't welcome into the locker room was because "he wasn't in a mindset to play for the Green Bay Packers. . . . Given his mindset, why would I let anyone of a negative mindset into our locker room?"

Here's a better question: Given his obvious Hall of Fame talent, how stupid do you have to be to have created a situation in which the most significant player in your franchise's history would feel so betrayed?