ESPN broke news this afternoon that Brett Favre has contacted several teammates and told them he is retiring and will not return for a 20^th season. Minnesota Vikings’ coach Brad Childress visited Favre a couple weeks back to see how he was doing. Upon his return, Childress said he didn’t have an inkling of whether Favre was returning or not. In his afternoon press conference this afternoon Childress said he can’t comment on the reports until he hears it from “the horse’s mouth.”

How will the Vikings fare without Favre? Prior to signing Favre last year, the Vikings made a playoff appearance in 2008 with Tavaris Jackson as the quarterback. But everyone saw how much better the team was with Brett Favre. Apparently the Vegas sportsbooks have also. They have increase the odds of them to win the Super Bowl after this announcement. 

Albert Haynesworth reported to the Washington Redskin’s training camp on time last week in supposedly better shape than last year.  He supposedly understood what was expected from him this upcoming season and accepted the new rule after meeting with head coach Mike Shanahan and defensive coordinator Jim Haslet. 

Haynesworth has yet to practice with the team since arriving to training because he hasn’t passed the fitness test.  He failed on the first attempt because he took a 10 minute bathroom break when he only allowed 3 minutes.  He failed to pass the test the following day as well.

Haynesworth took off the weekend from the test and watched practice from the sidelines.  It was reported that he had a swollen knee Saturday and rest that knee yesterday.  At the time of the this article, reports have him watching on the sideline for a third day in a row without attempting the test again. 

The AFC North division has been historically contested between two teams –  the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens.  But every few years, like last year, the Cincinnati Bengals step up to the plate and win the division. 

This year the sportsbooks have the Ravens as the favorite to win the AFC North at -210.  They signed Anquan Boldin to give quarterback Joe Flacco a big time receiver.  Flacco has been heralded as some kind of wonder quarterback that came out of left field to play great football.  I haven’t bought into this.  If you have watched a good bit of Raven games you would have seen that he lack the decision under pressure.  Boldin is a great addition to the team, but Flacco still has flaws, but people are willing to look and accept them. 

Now that training camps have opened up and one or two rookies have signed, it is time to evaluate the biggest question marks of the league and how they will impact their team.

The biggest question mark out there is the return of Brett Favre. For the sake of this argument we will assume he will be at the helm of the Vikings offense. And if he isn’t, they will be an average team at best.

The biggest question mark this season will be the Philadelphia Eagles and Kevin Kolb. Kolb is the heir apparent to the throne that is vacated after the trade of Donovan McNabb. The Eagles were a playoff team last year and just missed winning the conference because of their loss to the Cowboys. Kolb had a couple decent appearances last season, but the question is if he is the answer for the entire season.