NFL teams
Adam Schefter, ESPN Senior Writer 10y

Source: Rams called Brett Favre

NFL, Los Angeles Rams

For all the questions about whether the Rams would call Tim Tebow after Sam Bradford suffered his season-ending knee injury, they didn't. They called a bigger-name, higher-profile quarterback.

After the team lost Bradford to a season-ending knee injury, St. Louis called Brett Favre on Sunday night, asking whether the 44-year-old retired quarterback, who is now a grandfather, would be willing to leave his farm to plow through the back half of the Rams' schedule, league sources said.

Favre hasn't played since December 2010, but that didn't stop the Rams from reaching out to Favre's agent, Bus Cook.

One source familiar with the Rams' conversations said that if Favre took them up on their interest, "it could break Twitter."

Yet the man who famously wavered over whether to play too many times to count didn't waver this time. Through Cook, Favre told the Rams that he was retired -- actually, really, officially.

Favre was asked about the Rams' interest in an interview with Sports Talk 570 Powered by ESPN in Washington on Thursday and made it clear he is not returning to the NFL.

"It's flattering, but you know there's no way I'm going to do that," he said.

Favre said his 2010 NFL season with the Minnesota Vikings, when a shoulder injury ended his consecutive-starts streak at 297, convinced him it was time to stop playing.

"I had a great career. I think if anything, the last year that I played was an obvious writing-on-the-wall vision for you, if you will," he said. "It was time."

Favre said he's "content" with his life away from the game.

"My family took a backseat for 20 years. My 14-year-old daughter plays volleyball and is in the ninth grade and will be playing again the next three years. I've taken trips that I never thought I'd take. I've gone to Yellowstone and I've gone to Glacier National Park. ... We've gone down to the Bahamas, we've done things that really everybody in my family just kind of waited for.

And even if he did have any hopes of returning, he said Thursday that his body won't allow it.

"I'm like a yardstick, I'm so stiff," he said. "So I'm just trying to ... not stay in shape to play, but stay in shape to do everyday things, not only with my daughter and my wife and my grandson, but really just for me."

The Rams ended up signing veteran quarterback Brady Quinn, who had been released by the New York Jets earlier this week, and brought back Austin Davis, who spent the 2012 season and the 2013 preseason with the team. Both quarterbacks will back up Kellen Clemens, who will get his first start this season when the Rams host the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night.

Davis, who like Favre played at the University of Southern Mississippi, holds most of the school's passing records. He also has Cook as his agent.

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