"On the level of a captured Bigfoot being turned loose in a roped-off Times Square, there's no getting around the fact that Sunday from 3 to 3:15-ish at Lambeau Field is going to be a freak show.

And as the ticket-bearer paying NFL prices to be entertained, you are free to respond however you choose to Brett Favre's re-entrance to the grounds he either consecrated with his 16-year presence or defiled by crossing over, depending on your point of view.

Boo him, as LeRoy Butler advises, or greet him with applause, as our Garry Howard suggests, and no doubt both reactions will blend into a peculiar cacophony before the actual business of the afternoon is allowed to proceed.

But there is another way to acknowledge Favre, a middle road, if you will. We're talking about a wholly unrealistic, literally in-a-vacuum welcome back for No. 4, yet a response that would be completely appropriate for the occasion.

And that would be dead and utter silence.

So quiet that you could hear a wounded-duck football gently plopping in Corey Webster's gloved hands during the 2007 NFC Championship Game.

In a sophisticated way, a small town that is not exactly viewed as such by the outside world could emphatically say that the game to follow is bigger than one player.

In an enlightened sense, it would reflect that hero worship, rage or any other divisive emotion doesn't apply to a regularly scheduled event for amusement purposes only.

And in a refined manner, Brown County, Wis., could become the Jack Nicholson seats at the Staples Center, where even Brett Favre in a Vikings uniform would be viewed as coolly and dispassionately as Elvis coming back to jump center against the Lakers.

Again, totally unrealistic, because, in a good way, there is nothing particularly sophisticated, enlightened or refined about an NFL game, and expecting a crowd as passionate as a Green Bay crowd to curb its enthusiasm for the time it would take to put the proper stamp on Farve-ageddon II would be way too much to ask."