Sometime in the next few years, Disney or some other movie house will make a film, most likely starring Dennis Quaid.
It will be a movie about a grizzled old man from Mississippi who wears a half-beard to work every Sunday and claims to be enamoured of affordably-priced jeans.
The protagonist will be a millionaire who is styled as a working-class hero, through whom many men live vicariously. His story, and the persona he projects are as American as Wal-Mart and fast food restaurants and morbid obesity.
It's the type of story screenwriters swoon for, because it's practically written already. It won't take much doctoring, and there's a good chance its final scenes will be put together before the year is out.
Your protagonist, who looks vaguely like Quaid, is Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre. He is 40 years old – the rough equivalent of 92 in football years – and has no business playing in the National Football League at that age.
But he does, quite well at times, and does it as if he's a character in an old western movie. He's stubborn as a post, a man among men, a shoot first, ask questions later type.
His nickname these days – The Old Gunslinger – completes the metaphor. Add to it the fact he is openly contemptuous of his superiors, has been put out to pasture more than once, and will go down as one of the greatest athletes in the history of football, and you've got yourself an American hero.
The movie will probably make a hundred billion dollars.
It's true Favre appears to be fading fast this season after a spectacular start, just as he did last year with the New York Jets. It's true he makes boneheaded mistakes and appears more concerned about his legacy than about his teammates.
He has clashed with his head coach on matters he should have little say in. He is a prima donna who happens to be old and distinguished enough to get away with it.
But he's a guy most people can root for, who should be running on empty but still has a few gallons in the tank.
Earlier this season he led the Vikings to a last-second win over the San Francisco 49ers, a game that couldn't have been scripted better by the greatest of Hollywood hacks.
He almost did it again last week against the Chicago Bears, working methodically down the field and throwing a game-tying touchdown with 16 seconds left in the fourth quarter, only to lose in overtime.
North America's love affair with Favre is beginning to fade, and media types are beginning to rip him again. But the antipathy will likely dissolve over time.
Somebody somewhere will immortalize Favre in film or the written word, likely both.
He's an ideal protagonist because he's deeply flawed, a hero who is prone to screwing up who often succeeds anyway.
His story is nearly perfect because it has as many peaks as valleys, and short of disaster, it will end on a high note: a place in the professional football hall of fame.
It's easy to grow weary of Brett Favre these days, but it's equally easy to root for the guy. That's perhaps the most important thing about a good story – a main character you care about, on a journey people are apt to become emotionally invested in.
Production studios should expect a bidding war. Quaid should expect a call from his agent.