Favre doesn’t plan to return

NEW YORK -- Brett Favre is so popular, he will be featured on the cover of the Madden ’09 video game, even though he has retired from the NFL.

And, he said Friday he’s not contemplating a comeback.

“First of all, I’m not going to keep myself in shape,” he said, adding that a return to football “would be nice to dream about, but no. I’m sure after training camp’s over and all the hard work and all that stuff, ‘OK, now it would be nice to go.’ ”

Favre spoke to four reporters before a luncheon honoring him and the 20th anniversary of the Madden game. He conceded he had fleeting thoughts about returning to football.

“There were always second thoughts, but I’m not saying that I’m coming back,” he said.

“It wasn’t ever a clear-cut decision. I can’t expect people to understand, but I think people have all had decisions at times where they. . . . you never know. But there were a lot of reasons to stay, lot of reasons to go. I’ve had people say, ‘Why don’t you come back when you were close?’ And then there were people at 3-13 that said, ‘You can’t retire now. You’ve got to come back and redeem yourself.’ ”

He said he hasn’t worked out since the Packers lost to the New York Giants in the NFC title game but that he typically takes a couple of months off during the off-season.

A night earlier, on “Late Show with David Letterman,” Favre seemed to be leaving the door cracked when he was asked about retirement. He told Letterman that “something’s bound to happen” when training camp nears.

Asked about what he meant, Favre said: “I was just talking about butterflies or whatever. You always get that anxiety of going back for training camp, which at that time is not a good feeling. This year it may be one of: Did I make the right decision? I don’t know. We’ll find out when that time comes. But that’s all I meant. It wasn’t like the phones would start ringing.”

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sam.farmer@latimes.com