First week of training camp visits fun, exhausting and revealing

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Fun, rewarding and exhausting, all at the same time, being back out on the road for training camps. Travel-mate Ross Tucker and I got into Ithaca last night around 11:30, and I immediately began cleaning out the notebook from a remarkable first week of camps as we head toward the NFL's 90th season. Off we go:

Tuesday, 10:50 p.m. (Bills camp, Pittsford, N.Y.) Strange day. Sad day. Brett Favre surprises the football world by saying he's not playing for the Vikings, and in the same hour, word comes down that one of the great defensive minds in football history, former Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, has died from melanoma. The day is a mess of phone-calling, dictating from the side of practice fields and then, when I was settling in to watch some practice tape after 10 with old acquaintance John Guy, the director of pro personnel, up in his dorm suite, my cell rang. It was Favre, saying he just didn't trust his body to make it through 16 games, not given the way it felt after he worked it hard the past few weeks, getting it ready for the Vikings' grind. And he was pretty sure this was the end, but come midseason, if some team calls, who knows?

Favre was down. He just sounded beat, like he had nothing left to give, and a little depressed. "I'm sure I'll regret it down the road," he said.

I asked him about the toll this had taken on his reputation. "Two years ago you were 'Sportsman of the Year' and an American folk hero,'' I said. "Now there are kids and adults who are sick of you, who don't love you anymore. How does it feel?''

"Well, then they really didn't love me in the first place,'' he said. "Whatever. Nothing I can do about it. This whole situation, if I had it to do all over again, there're a few things I'd do different. But wouldn't we all? I don't expect everyone to like what I've done the last two years. That's life.

"For people who'd question why I did this, I didn't do it for any other reason than to try to play football for a team [Minnesota] I really wanted to play for. It had nothing to do with revenge against the Packers. Nothing. It wasn't about getting back at [Green Bay GM] Ted Thompson. How much more clear can I make it?''

Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Bills camp) For the second straight practice, the fans respond to everything Terrell Owens does. When he glances up at the bleachers at St. John Fisher College, the crowd cheers. Two teenage boys are bare-chested, one with a T painted on his chest, the other with an O. And I think: This is what it's like in the left-field stands at Dodger Stadium. Mannywood. I christen thee: T-O-town.

As with Manny Ramirez, the past is forgotten; what can you do for me today? The bitter voices from Boston don't matter to L.A. people, and in Buffalo, Dallas' loss is western New York's gain. OK. Fair enough. But if Owens stays longer than a year, you'll see. The volcano will erupt, and there will be collateral damage. Lots of it.

I talk to quarterback Trent Edwards about the risk involved (though T.O.'s track record is that Year One is always the honeymoon year), and he says: "Are you saying it was a desperation move?''

"If the desperate shoe fits, wear it,'' I said.