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MINNEAPOLIS -- The best quarterback on the field Friday night played for the Vikings, but he didn't wear No. 4 and he's nowhere near 40 years old. The best Vikings quarterback in this game was Tarvaris Jackson, who lost his chance to be the starter when the team signed Brett Favre earlier in the week, who might still get traded before the season starts and whose performance was summed up by Vikings coach Brad Childress with a single word.

"Perfect," Childress said. "Look up the numbers. It was perfect. That's what the numbers say. He was perfect."

And indeed he was. Jackson's quarterback rating for the game was a 158.3, which is the highest number attainable by the byzantine formula that calculates that statistic. He completed 12-of-15 passes for 202 yards and two touchdowns, including a 64-yarder to Darius Reynaud in the third quarter. And if teams were looking at this game to see if they might want to trade for Jackson, he didn't do anything to hurt his case.

The Minnesota Vikings finished the 1998 season with 15 wins. The offense averaged almost 35 points a game (best in the league) with a 35-year-old Randall Cunningham under center, two big-play receivers in Cris Carter and Randy Moss, and a steady run game led by Robert Smith and Leroy Hoard.

And Brian Billick was the brains behind it all. He would parlay his successes as the Vikes' offensive coordinator into a head-coaching gig with the Ravens. Billick's offensive philosophy in Baltimore never produced anything approaching what he was able to accomplish in Minnesota, and by the time he was fired nine years later, he was known as much for his inability to develop a franchise quarterback or find a deep threat at wide receiver as he was for the organization's 2000 Super Bowl win.

So it is with some irony that the man behind Kyle Boller weighs in on the Vikings' current stable of quarterbacks now that Brett Favre has temporarily* announced his retirement.

Back when Tarvaris Jackson was assumed to be the long-term quarterback of the Vikings, his teammates talked around any question of whether Jackson was the right man for the job.

But now that we're just waiting for Brett Favre to make it official that he's going to be a Viking, and Sage Rosenfels is set to be the backup, it's pretty much open season for players (or player's dads) to explain what it's been like in recent years.

Good news: the Vikings are still in the running for Brett Favre. Despite reports, head coach Brad Childress hasn't given Favre a deadline and even admitted that he's "anxious to see exactly what he's got left in that cannon because he had a pretty good arm as we know."

Yeah, if this is 2007.

Vikings coach Brad Childress went on a Minneapolis radio station this morning and said there is no deadline for a Brett Favre decision.

Yes, the Vikings are interested in the retired quarterback, but other than that, nothing is official. We have not heard from Favre -- yet his agent, Bus Cook, tells us his client is retired. ESPN has reported that Favre underwent surgery to repair damage in his throwing shoulder and was given a deadline of the end of this week to officially return.

"Absolutely not," Childress said on KFAN when asked about a deadline. "Maybe by Deanna [Favre] or somebody like that, but certainly not from me. Not even close. Don't know where that would have dropped out of the sky from."

The Minnesota Vikings haven't even tried to hide their lust for Brett Favre. That's how obvious this has all become.

As training camp draws closer, you can expect to see more and more about this burgeoning story. The Vikings want Favre. Favre wants to stick it to the Packers play again. It was only a matter of time before someone stepped up and asked the good people of Minnesota what they wanted.

Brett Favre isn't going away. Just accept it, cope, and try to move on. Last week, Yahoo! Sports reported that the ole gunslinger was done. A day later, speculation suggested otherwise.

And now it's like every other offseason: Favre doesn't know what his NFL future holds, we'll spend months talking about it, and, ultimately, he'll return for one more season. Good times.

The owner of the Minnesota Vikings is Zygi Wilf, which means Brett Favre has become The Boy Who Cried Wilf. He also now qualifies as the most persistently annoying athlete in sports, a man in distinct danger of losing his icon status in this country because he CAN'T ... MAKE ... UP ... HIS ... FRIGGIN' ... MIND. After telling us back on Feb. 11 that he truly, honestly, genuinely, emphatically is through with football -- "It's time to leave," he said -- guess what he's doing this week?

He'll be meeting with Vikings coach Brad Childress about returning to the NFL for a 19th season, which would be his second un-retirement in less than a year and further evidence that Favre is dizzier than Courtney Love on a bender.

According to agent Bus Cook, no one has called Brett Favre to talk him into playing in 2009.

That seems plausible. Last spring, approximately 45 minutes* after announcing his retirement, Favre promptly took it back, forced the Packers to trade him to the Jets, where he looked every bit the 39-year-old, 17-year veteran on the downside of a great career.

New York waived Favre off the retired list last week, which could mean nothing. Or, since this is the ole gunslinger we're talking about, everything. Apparently, Wrangler jeans' favorite spokesperson can also hold a grudge. Via the New York Daily News' Gary Myers:

The goal of every NFL team is to win the Super Bowl. Even if, through front-office hires and player acquisitions, that doesn't always appear to be the case. But of the last 15 teams to hoist the Lombardi trophy, only two featured quarterbacks not classified as "franchise caliber."

In 2000, the Ravens won it all with a kick-ass defense. Trent Dilfer's job was to give the ball to Jamal Lewis and get out of the way. Two years later: same story, different team. The Buccaneers' defense did the heavy lifting; Brad Johnson was in charge of game-managing Jon Gruden's version of the West Coast offense with short passes and handoffs.