The night before the first game that Brett Favre will play against the team with which he spent more than a decade and a half, the version of his televised interview with Jon Gruden is slightly less inflammatory than the version that aired this morning.

The question is the same. Asks Gruden: "What do you say to all the Packer fans? They gotta be confused."

Said Favre in the version that aired Sunday morning: "It was 16 great years. I hope they enjoyed it, they appreciated . . . that run as much as I did. You can't take that away. You just have to let it go and just move on."

In the late Sunday/early Monday version, the "and just move on" language was omitted.

We're trying to find out why that phrase was removed. More accurately, we're trying to find out ESPN's official reason for removing the phrase.

The difference is subtle, but in our view significant. The answer seem to have a harder edge with "just move on" as the last words. Without that phrase, it seemed almost innocuous.

Anyway, we'll let you know why those words made it into the Sunday morning shows, but ended up on the cutting-room floor by Sunday night.

Favre to Packers fans: "You just have to let it go and just move on"
In an interview with ESPN's Jon Gruden aired a day before the greatest regular-season game since the last overhyped regular-season game, Vikings quarterback Brett Favre was asked a simple question.

"What do you say to all the Packer fans? They gotta be confused." (Kudos to ESPN's technicaly staff for scrubbing out any "F" words.)

"It was 16 great years," Favre said. "I hope they enjoyed it, they appreciated . . . that run as much as I did," Favre said. "You can't take that away. You just have to let it go and just move on."

Favre also suggested that he might be a little emotionally spent after last week's win over the 49ers. But he stopped short of suggesting that it might keep him from bringing everything he can bring to Monday night's game.

Meanwhile, though he been great in the MNF booth, Gruden at one point reminded us of Brucie from the "we can kill them" scene in The Longest Yard when he asked Brett, "How much do really just want to beat them?"