I’m not a fan of Brett Favre. Oh, sure, I’ve always recognized his amazing skills, but as a purple-blooded Minnesota Vikings fan, I haven’t really appreciated those skills very much.

I have a few friends who are Bears fans. We don’t see eye-to-eye on many things regarding professional football, but we can always agree on one thing — we don’t care all that much for the Green Bay Packers or quarterback Brett Favre.

In fact, if I’m ever in a situation where it looks like I might have to come to blows with a particularly adversarial Bears supporter, I’m always quick to curse Favre’s name. After that, it only takes a second for Mr. Bears Fan and me to become lifelong chums. We find common ground as we curse Favre together. In these situations, I guess you could say that Brett Favre is a uniter, not a divider.

Favre is expected to face the press and officially announce his retirement today.

It’s about time.

He said earlier this week that he’ll hang up those cleats, at age 38, because he’s “tired.”

Well so am I.

I’m tired of watching the guy win MVP awards (3), throw touchdown passes (442) and win games (160). I’m tired of it, because a lot of those NFL-record stats came at the expense of my dearly beloved Vikings. Favre made a habit of putting my Purple People Eater defense through the shredder.

Sure, once in a while we got to him. It took quite a while before Favre discovered how to win in Minnesota’s domed stadium. He took some lumps in the meantime.

But the man always seemed to get the last laugh. And even when he was getting knocked on his behind by the likes of John Randle or Jack Del Rio, Favre always got up and came back for more. And more. And more. And worst of all, he usually came back with smile on his face.

Once, I considered mailing him a pocket dictionary with a note, advising him to look up the word “quit,” because he obviously didn’t know what it meant.

The media loved him for it, which tended to fuel my dislike of him. A sports commentator would delve deep into his thesaurus for terms of endearment any time he was about to describe anything Favre did on the football field — and the guy never seemed to do anything wrong.

But honestly, I disliked him because he regularly whipped my team. Year in and year out, game after game, it seemed like he found a way to thread the needle and complete that one pass that looked impossible to complete. He’d somehow find that right receiver at the right time and turn a certain Packer loss into a win.

It was enough to make me sick to my stomach.

So when I heard Tuesday that Favre was retiring, it was cause for celebration. For me, it was the combination of a late-arriving Christmas gift, a tardy birthday card, a dozen late Valentine’s Day roses and an early cool, green frothy St. Patrick’s Day brewski.