Wisconsin Goes Bucknutty for 'SI' Favre Cover

Could Brett Favre be the male version of Oprah? Like the daytime talk queen, the Green Bay Packers quarterback seems to have a unique gift for selling magazines with his face on them.

Sports Illustrated is printing 100,000 additional copies of its "Sportsman of the Year" issue honoring Favre. It's the first time in the magazine's history that it has gone back for a third printing, says a spokeswoman.

I'm from Packer country (in case you haven't figured that out) and can confirm that people there are absolutely goofy for the Favre issue, which sold out throughout the state, leaving collectors in a panic. A New Yorker I know bought a stack of copies from a newsstand here and sent them to his mother in Milwaukee as a Chanukah present. The Green Bay Press Gazette says local stores have been taking phone pre-orders from fans desperate to make sure they don't miss out again.

Inevitably, local media raised the question of whether the notorious Sports Illustrated jinx played a part in the team's 35-7 loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday. Favre said it didn't: "I think I've been on [the cover of SI] several times. I don't know if it's ever been that much of a jinx before. I'm not much on superstitions, I'm not much on jinxes. I just never really bought into that stuff."