It’s because of wonderful things Favre does

I have been, for many years now, a connoisseur of great endings. Ice Bowls, Kirk Gibson home runs, and Dorothy discovering it was all only a dream. I’m a sucker for such stuff. But what are the alternatives? Cynicism, then death? I’ve been in California too long for that to happen. I prefer unbridled optimism and the sunshine with which to find it.

Which brings us to the happy-or-sad saga of Brett Lorenzo Favre, a quarterback of some distinction who last year left the Great White North for the friendly confines of New York City, where the munchkins are now hovering all around him, offering their sage, munchkinly advice. Just insane, isn’t it?

You’ve got that snot-bubble Thomas Jones calling him out after the Jets’ collapse down the stretch. Apparently Jones, a middling running back who had his first Pro Bowl year with Favre at the helm, is too stoned on his own wonderfulness to remember the Jets’ going 4-12 last season.

Before Favre arrived, the Jets were the French Foreign Legion of football, an outpost, a place of misfits and crushed souls. Under Favre, they started out an amazing 8-3, till someone banged up his right wing, after which Favre couldn’t throw a gum wrapper out a car window without Brandon Flowers picking it off.

Admittedly, it was a not-so-great ending to what looked like a fairy-tale year. But I guess that’s New York for you. Only Amy Adams and Meg Ryan find happy endings in the concrete apple. For the rest of us, there is only disappointment and midwinter slush.

Thing is, Brett Favre is a national treasure, ask almost anybody. Forget the recent interceptions for a moment and think about whom you’d rather watch. Brett Favre or Jake Delhomme? Brett Favre or Joe Flacco? Kyle Orton? The estimable Kellen Clemens (Favre’s backup)?

No, I’m guessing most fans would prefer to turn on the tube to find No. 4 performing on a wintry day, when the dark sky makes it look as if the world is about to collapse -- conditions are muddy, war-like, and there is the very real possibility that you might witness the greatest ending ever. For all his wear and tear, you still get that feeling with Favre, that you might see something just extraordinary.

Because the NFL, at its very best, isn’t computer graphics and referees studying replays, in those weird hooded cubicles (like priests). The real NFL is the gritty, grim and whiskered visage of Favre squinting at the strong safety, playing poker in the snow. That’s magic. That’s football. That’s the kind of moment that has made No. 4 the most popular player of the modern era.

With all its technology, the NFL should be trying to figure out how to copy and paste Favre across the league, not ways to drive him out.

As I often do to get through a day, I have been making lists -- shave, get dressed, breathe deep, that sort of thing. In this case, I’m making lists for Favre. Does he stay or go? Pro and cons. Pluses and minuses. It’s almost impossible not to have a little fun.

Reasons for Favre

to retire

Keeps falling asleep in huddles.

During coin flip, refs offer him an AARP discount.

CBS planning new show: “CSI: Brett Favre.”

Reasons for Favre

not to retire

A little gut looks good on a quarterback.

There are still 29 teams he hasn’t played for.

Even in wheelchair, can always beat Chicago.

Meanwhile, down deep in the swamps, where the best quarterbacks seem to emerge from the ooze, they’re getting ready to appoint Favre’s air apparent. Tim Tebow -- rhymes with TiVo -- is Florida’s rhapsody in blue and orange. By the time he’s done next season, Tebow may be the first collegiate player to win both the Heisman and the Nobel Prize. A little too good to be true, Tebow is, but if I have to choose between him and Pacman . . . well, you know.

Yet, for all his considerable gifts, I get the nagging feeling that the young Gator might be the next Bobby Douglass, a big southpaw who’s neither a true thrower nor runner, the kind of hybrid who always puzzles the pro game’s offensive geniuses. Hope I’m wrong, which has happened (check preceding paragraph). Honestly, I hope Tebow reinvents the game.

Till that happens, I’m praying to get another 100,000 miles out of Favre, a quarterback with more arm and a herculean heart. (Talk about dream matchups, how about Favre against Tebow? In the snow, of course.)

See, Favre loves football the way I love raindrops on roses and meatballs on toothpicks. This retirement of his is a complicated saga, deeply personal and compounded by the fact that even when he goes, he sometimes ends up staying. There is something marvelous and vaguely Shakespearean in his grinding passions for our national game.

Hamlet in chin-strap . . . refusing to ever take a knee.

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chris.erskine@latimes.com

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Erskine’s Fan of the House column will appear Thursdays in Sports. His Man of the House column appears Saturdays in the Home section.

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