Brett Favre is a distraction all right – and not just to the Packers

One of the reasons Brett Favre gave for essentially cutting ties with the Green Bay Packers was a noble one: He didn’t want to be a distraction to the team.

Well, that didn’t work. And now he’s a distraction to several other teams as well.

In Tampa, the Buccaneers – and starter Jeff Garcia – wonder if Favre will be taking snaps for them by the end of the week.

Then again, the New York Jets can envision Favre back in green, only a slightly different shade of it.

And in Minnesota, the Vikings haven’t entirely written off the possibility of their old nemesis somehow forcing his way onto the Vikings. After all, can the Packers really say they don’t want him and still dictate where he can’t play?

Throughout this whole affair, Favre rumblings – real or simply rumored – also have been felt in Washington, Carolina, Chicago and Kansas City.

Even in cities where the starting quarterback is cemented in place, people are keeping one eye on the Favre situation – or trying like crazy to avert their eyes.

“To be honest, I can’t even turn on ‘SportsCenter’ anymore,” Cincinnati’s Carson Palmer said today on the Jim Rome Show. “It’s just nonstop coverage of that, it keeps changing and you can’t keep up with it. It’s getting frustrating and annoying as a fan trying to keep up with what’s going on.”

We in the media have certainly done our share of obsessing on this bizarre reality show, but Favre and agent Bus Cook have done little to douse the speculation, dripping out information like a leaking faucet and sending us scurrying this way and that.

How would it feel to be a productive veteran such as Garcia right now, knowing Favre could be on his way to claim the Buccaneers job? Or, for that matter, how would it feel to be Tampa’s Brian Griese or Chris Simms, New York’s Chad Pennington or Kellen Clemens, or Minnesota’s Tavaris Jackson?

Maybe those players are so incredibly focused, they aren’t letting the talk get to them. Maybe they welcome the competition. But know this: Wherever Favre goes, he will be the starter.

Earlier today, in an interview with the Sporting News, Cook said the Jets and Buccaneers are the leading candidates to land Favre and that he cannot see the quarterback sitting out this season.

“I haven’t heard of anywhere else,” Cook said. “Sure, he’d consider somewhere else, but it would have to be the right place. I don’t know for sure, but I think the Packers have called just about everybody. Tampa and the Jets are the two teams out front.”

It’s gotten to the point where what people don’t say is making news. After Tampa Bay’s practice this morning, Coach Jon Gruden carefully sidestepped a question about a reported phone conversation he recently had with Favre.

“I got a lot of phone calls,” Gruden said. “I got a lot of messages on my cell phone. There’s a lot of speculation out there. I don’t want to fuel any reports.

“I’m just going to be real careful saying anything right now, because I don’t have all the facts – nor do you – and maybe you have more than me.

“I don’t want to be evasive. I really don’t feel it’s my point or my purpose to address a lot of issues that I don’t know a lot about. Do I know Brett Favre? Yes, I know Brett Favre. Do I respect him? Yes, I do, but I also have a football team here that I am accountable to and I don’t want to answer any other questions at this point in time.”

Right. Him and half the coaches in the NFL.

But not everyone is sick of the story. Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com, a website that has covered every undulation of the saga from the start, compares this never-ending story to the 2000 presidential election, when “hanging chad” became part of our lexicon.

“It’s like we’re sick of it and yet we still crave to know the outcome,” Florio said. And his booming website numbers seem to reflect that.

“Our traffic has spiked over the past two weeks,” he said. “And if it’s because of the Favre story, I don’t want it to ever end.”

 sam.farmer@latimes.com