Brett Favre is a lot more intelligent than he looks.

I’m not saying that he looks dumb, but the future Hall of Fame quarterback has kind of a rugged, good ol’ boy, “aww shucks” attitude about him, so at first glance he doesn’t seem like a person who splits atoms or operates on people’s brains for a living.

He doesn’t, of course. He plays football. He’s plenty smart enough to be a football player and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But until this week, I didn’t realize how smart the guy was.

I really don’t know what’s going to happen between Favre and the Packers. In the last week, there’s been all kinds of talk about how Favre wants to come out of retirement and maybe play again for his old green-and-gold team at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, or maybe for the Vikings, or the Bears or Buccaneers or Panthers, etc.

The Packers have to decide whether they want to take him back, or release him, or trade him or maybe kidnap him and ship him off to Antarctica where he’ll be forgotten forever. It doesn’t sound like they want him to play for them, but at the same time they don’t want him to play for someone else who might possibly beat them. It’s a slippery situation.

There have been lots of rumors and speculation, and I really don’t know which ones are true and which ones aren’t. At this point, I had decided not to really care all that much about it anymore.

But then one story caught my attention.

According to one published article, the Packers — at one point — offered Favre $20 million to stay retired.

You read that right. Favre’s bosses were going to pay him 20 million buckaroos if he would agree to just sit around and not do his job.

Twenty. Million. Dollars.

How did Favre pull that one off? The guy is a genius.

I’ve heard of farmers getting paid for not growing corn and for not raising hogs. The concept confused me, but I just figured it had something to do with the complicated agriculture economy, which is something I don’t want to understand.

Actually, I think for a while our great nation had agreed to pay that crazy dictator in North Korea large sums of money if he would agree to not blow things up. I don’t know if that was the greatest idea, but hey, I figure if that’s what it took to keep the guy from blowing things up, maybe it was money well spent.

But $20 million for not playing football? Favre is definitely on to something here, and I want in.