Favre jokes about hit below the belt

For a couple of minutes Wednesday, Brett Favre forgot all about his sore elbow and ailing ankle. Getting hit with a football in a sensitive area will do that, and when it’s caught on camera it’s difficult to ignore.

It’s hard to find a day in which Brett Favre isn’t in the news for one reason or another. On Thursday, he joked about his latest moment of fame, which wasn’t how he was expected to spend a light day of practice.

Favre, who returned to practice Thursday, was supposed to have a day off to rest the tendinitis in his throwing elbow and his ailing ankle Wednesday. Instead, he found a way to get injured somewhere in between his elbow and his ankle.

Favre was behind the other quarterbacks when practice began and equipment man Aaron Neumann threw a pass his way that Favre wasn’t expecting. The ball hit Favre a little south of the border and he went down in a heap.

“Sharpshooter Neumann took me down,” Favre said with a chuckle.

A local Twin Cities TV station happened to have a camera trained on Favre when he got hit with the ball and, thanks to the viral video world, within hours, it was being seen everywhere. When asked if the incident was staged or embellished by the “drama queen,” Favre said there was no such fakery and he felt the pain.

“It wasn’t a made-for-TV moment,” Favre said when asked if he dramatized the incident.

If Favre was looking for a reason to take his mind off his sore arm and ailing ankle, Neumann provided it by causing a new pain that made him forget his other injury troubles.

“That was the best treatment I got all day,” Favre said. “For five minutes, I wasn’t thinking about my arm.”

FRIDAY NOTES

A day after saying he might miss the first start of his pro career, Favre was back on the field Thursday and, although he’s being termed a “game-time decision,” if you’re the Dallas Cowboys, you aren’t wasting too much time in your defensive preparation on Tarvaris Jackson and his possible return to the Vikings starting lineup.

Favre continues to wear a protective sleeve on his right elbow to help keep his tendinitis from flaring up.

Also back at practice was center John Sullivan, who missed all of training camp and the preseason with a calf injury, and aggravated the other one against the Lions. It caused him to miss much of that game and all of the Jets game Monday. His injured calf was wrapped, but he participated on a limited basis. If he can’t go, Jon Cooper, the fourth different player to play center for the Vikings since the last preseason game, would get the start.

Safety Jamarca Sanford (back), DE Brian Robison (ankle), TE Visanthe Shiancoe (hamstring) and S Madieu Williams (shoulder) were limited in practice Thursday. Guard Chris DeGeare (ankle) was out.

Dallas rookie wide receiver Dez Bryant missed his second straight day of practice and will likely be listed as questionable or doubtful when the injury report is released later today.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell appeared on NBC’s Today this morning as part of the league’s breast cancer awareness campaign. He couldn’t avoid Favre talk, even from the kitten-ball questions typically thrown out by the morning show hosts. He said he has yet to speak to Favre about the alleged messaging scandal from 2008.