Favre may go out on high note

Packers 26, Bears 7

CHICAGO — After shredding the Chicago Bears' first-team defense in an otherwise meaningless 26-7 victory for the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night, Brett Favre certainly sounded like a man who was ready to leave the game.

Standing on the 20-yard line with a group of teammates, Favre got choked up during a TB interview, saying he would decide "soon" whether he would return next season.

"It's tough. It's tough," Favre said. "I'm going to miss these guys and miss the game."

Still, Favre stopped short of saying he would retire. And the prevailing sentiment seems to be, why wouldn't he return?

After a fairly successful season in which he helped the Packers rebound from last year's 4-12 fiasco — their first losing season with Favre under center — to win their final four games and finish 8-8, teammates, opponents and even Favre's own family have said that they see no reason why he should retire.

He still has a milestone to pursue: After completing 21 of 42 passes for 285 yards and a touchdown Sunday, Favre is only seven touchdown passes shy of breaking Dan Marino's career mark of 420. With the Packers' victory, Favre tied Marino for No. 2 in career victories (147) and is only one away from tying John Elway for the record.

And unlike last offseason, Favre won't have to decide whether he wants to play for a new coach and learn a new offense.

But while Favre maintains that he still enjoys loves to play, he doesn't seem quite as convinced as everybody else that he should keep playing. He exchanged handshakes and hugs with teammates before he was pulled in favor of backup quarterback Ingle Martin with less than two minutes remaining in the game.

LIONS 39, COWBOYS 31: At Dallas, the Cowboys are headed into "the tournament" at their worst. They couldn't even beat Detroit on a day when a loss would've given the Lions the No. 1 pick in the draft.

Done in by repeated mistakes from Tony Romo and a few more by Terence Newman, the Cowboys blew their last chance to win the NFC East the loss to the Lions.

Roy Williams caught a pair of touchdown passes, Mike Furrey and Mike Williams each caught one and Jason Hanson kicked four field goals, helping Detroit (3-13) score its most points of the season and win a game the franchise might've been better off losing