Colts coach Tony Dungy, who apparently believes that his nice-guy image grants him a license to opine on matters involving any of the other 31 competitors within his chosen industry, has opted to speak about the current mess between the Packers and Brett Favre.

And Dungy is siding with the team.

“Being on both sides of the fence and seeing it both ways, I’m a little bit more on the team’s side,” Dungy told William Rhoden of the New York Times.

“When Brett told them he was thinking about retirement, they may have said, ‘If you’re out, you are out, understand that, because once we move on down this road, you’ve got to be out.’  Now he wants back in with them but wants back in on his terms.

“He’s saying, ‘I didn’t work out, I’m just ready to play now and I’m your best bet to get to the Super Bowl.’”

Dungy also provided some general observations that might soon have relevance to a certain veteran Colts receiver with two bad knees, and a certain veteran Colts quarterback who just had surgery on one of his.

“Understand that it is a business and that at some point it is going to come down to business over feelings,” Dungy said.  “Players have to understand that it is going to come down to that, whether it’s Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott.  Eventually, it is going to come to a point when the team says as great as you were, it’s diminishing returns now and we’ve got to move on.  There’s a lesson for all of us — coaches, general managers players:  You can be replaced.”

Though we really don’t think it’s Dungy’s place to get between the Packers and Favre (or any team and any of its players) on matters of this nature, Dungy is right.

The fact that Dungy would choose to speak on this subject also confirms our belief that there’s a prevailing sense in league and media circles that Favre is losing his battle with the team, badly.

While getting my toupee adjusted a haircut this morning, my barber compared the Favre versus Packers situation to Maxximus versus Commodus in Gladiator, with Maxximus owning the crowd and Commodus trying desperately to wrest it from him.

In this case, Favre used to be Maxximus.  While trying, however, to exploit the crowd in order to get his way, Favre has become Commodus.