Brett Favre ruining Jets’ gift exchange with “buy American” obsession

NEW YORK — Reports from the New York Jets indicate that Brett Favre is negatively affecting the team’s annual Christmas gift exchange.

“For a long time, every year we do a little ‘Secret Santa’ deal,” said receiver Laveraneus Coles.”Fifty dollar limit, you know, a couple of small things to brighten everyone’s spirits and keep us going as the season winds down. It’s great for morale.”

Except this year, that is.

“This year we invited Brett to join, which we thought was going to be great,” Coles said. “I mean, he’s our new teammate and all. But he’s ruining it. He’s absolutely obsessed with this ‘Buy American’ propaganda, and he’s foisting it upon all of us. And it’s really annoying.”

The trouble started when Coles, who is organizing the gift exchange, sent out his introductory email to the entire team with the rules for the year. Favre replied with an email that stated,

Since we are all suffering with a bit of the economic “woes” I would like to purpose that we have an ALL AMERICAN Christmas. Since we all work in the “service” industry I think we should think about those that do not. It might take a bit more effort but I think we should make a pledge to buy only “Made in America” goods as presents. There are several websites out there that can help you find companies that still manufacture here in the good old USA. Remember that our grandparents and great-grandparents lived by and worked for domestic manufactures. (sic) I think we owe it to the American worker, especially in this time of need, to take a bit more time and buy American made products. I trust this will be received with support from all of you since you don’t want to be labeled communists or sell-outs.

“Fine, right?” Coles said. “So I send out another email saying, ‘Like Brett said, let’s try and buy American,’ but then he totally freaked out and gave us another lecture about buying only American products, along with sending us to a bunch of propaganda websites that he I guess goes to.”

“It’s really making it not fun this year,” said guard Alan Faneca. “I’m kind of seen on the team as the ‘dude who can talk to Brett,’ so everyone is sending me emails saying, ‘Go talk with Brett, see if you can talk some sense into him, that sort of thing.’ And I’ve tried, but there’s no reasoning with him.”

Favre is not making it easy on his teammates with his gift choices, either.

“I got Brett in the exchange, and his list is all stuff that you can’t buy in America,” said running back Thomas Jones. “He asked for some CDs, some headphones, and a wool sweater. You can’t find any sort of electronics product that was made in America. Even stuff from Bose is made in Mexico. There hasn’t been a CD manufactured in this country since about 1994. On a side note, who still listens to CDs, anyway?”

Favre is standing by his guns that it’s important to be patriotic these days.

“We have to have some pride in our nation,” Favre said. “Now that I’m in New York, I finally understand why patriotism is so important. When I used to play for Green Bay, I didn’t get it, but I think that’s just because people from Wisconsin aren’t real Americans, at least not like those of us who live in the New York metro area, especially those of us who live and work on the New Jersey side.”

While many of the Jets players are extremely frustrated, one positive side note of Favre making a huge deal out of this is that the players are actually consciously checking the tags of the items that they buy.

“Yeah, I’m looking for the buy America tag,” Coles said. “But I gotta tell you something; when I do it, I’m not thinking about protecting the loss of jobs from this country. I’m wishing I could outsource Brett Favre. You know, maybe send him to the CFL. I think we can do that under NAFTA.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!