MILWAUKEE – Brett Favre plans to skip the Green Bay Packers’ mandatory minicamp this weekend, saying the move is not related to his frustration with the team’s unwillingness to complete a trade for wide receiver Randy Moss.

Favre told the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun-Herald that because he is unable to practice while recovering from offseason ankle surgery, he is going to stay home with his family in Mississippi.

“They were going to have me sit out anyway,” Favre said, in a story that appeared on the paper’s Web site on Tuesday. “To be honest, we have (daughter) Brittany graduating in two weeks. Instead of going up there and not doing anything, I will be better off being at home because of graduation parties and banquets.”

Favre said he isn’t skipping the minicamp as a protest with the team’s front office.

“I am frustrated,” Favre told the paper. “But being frustrated and not going are not related.”

Johnson scheduled to meet with Goodell

CHICAGO – Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson could become the third player suspended by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell when they meet today, three days after Johnson was released from jail.

The meeting in New York comes two days before the Bears hold a mandatory mini-camp that Johnson is expected to attend.

Johnson served two months in the Cook County Jail for violating his probation on weapons charges. His detention stemmed from a Dec. 14 police raid on his Gurnee home, where authorities found six unregistered firearms. He already was on probation on an earlier charge.

Goodell has been cracking down on personal conduct off the field. In April, the commissioner suspended Tennessee Titans defensive back Adam “Pacman” Jones for the entire 2007 season and Chris Henry of the Cincinnati Bengals for eight games.

Ticket crunch beginning for game at Wembley

NEW YORK – The grousing by some NFL fans over the first regular-season game to be played overseas might not be limited to this side of the Atlantic.

More than half a million ticket requests poured in soon after commissioner Roger Goodell announced the New York Giants would play the Miami Dolphins at the new Wembley Stadium in London.

That outpouring of interest for the Oct. 28 contest means many die-hard fans – not to mention the curious observers the game is intended to reach – will be stuck watching on TV.

“This is a game for Europe and a game for hardcore fans of both teams,” said Alistair Kirkwood, managing director of NFL UK.

“The challenge we’ve got is to keep all the various stakeholders happy.”

Ticket preference will go to season ticket holders and members of fan clubs, particularly in the United Kingdom. About 10,000 fans are expected to travel from the United States, only a fraction of the anticipated sellout crowd of 90,000.

Tickets go on sale in Europe on Monday and within the next week in the United States, but fewer than half will be immediately available.

After jet-setting , Bush refocuses on football

NEW ORLEANS – Reggie Bush wanted to get away from football for a while to – as he put it – relax and be normal.

Of course, when talking about a rising NFL star who has the looks, charisma and wealth to complement his mesmerizing talent, normal is a relative term.

For Bush, it meant appearing in one of R&B singer Ciara’s music videos, dining with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a White House correspondent’s dinner, filming a commercial with David Beckham in Spain, an appearance in Las Vegas during NBA All-Star weekend, partying at the Playboy mansion and otherwise enjoying life in his $5 million Hollywood home.

On Tuesday, the native Californian was back in New Orleans, where most of his teammates have been working out together for over a month.

The Saints gave their young star some leeway to enjoy the trappings of his first offseason as a pro, and Bush confidently predicted they wouldn’t regret it.

“I expect to improve on last year,” Bush said. “I don’t have a number, but I definitely expect to be a lot better than last year and help my team get to the Super Bowl.”

The Saints came one victory shy of reaching the Super Bowl last season, appearing in an NFC championship game for the first time in the franchise’s four-decade history.

Bush played no small part in that. As both a running back and receiver, he gained over 1,300 yards from scrimmage in his rookie season. As he adapted to the speed and complexity of the NFL, the uncanny quickness and agility that helped him win the Heisman Trophy at Southern California began to show itself.

There was the 65-yard touchdown on a punt return against Tampa Bay in midseason, the 65-yard score on a screen pass at Dallas in December. And in the playoffs, there was the 88-yard touchdown in Chicago, during which he grabbed a short pass, outran numerous pursuers while cutting across the entire width of the field, pointed back triumphantly at linebacker Brian Urlacher, and then launched into a forward somersault across the goal line.

Performances like that only increased the attention he received during the past few months, and it wasn’t always to his liking.

He said he enjoyed attending a party at the Playboy mansion, where it seemed to him that he was asked to be in more photos than many of the women there. Soon after, however, a Los Angeles publication reported he had been banned from the mansion for an unspecified conduct violation, which Bush denied.

“I don’t even know where or what happened or why somebody would even … write a story like that,” Bush said. “I was at the Playboy mansion … I had a great time and that’s really all it was.”

Bush chalked it up as a lesson of how difficult it can be for celebrities to control rumors.

“The story’s already out there, so what are you going to do?” Bush said. “It’s the way of the world and I’ve learned to just grow thick skin toward it and not play into it and just live my life the way I have been.”

Bush, who first returned to New Orleans late last weekend, said he had one more short trip out of town planned this week before rejoining teammates here on Monday for offseason workouts leading up to minicamp in June.

It will mark the end of a lot of recent traveling. His trip to Spain also was his first trip to Europe.

Scheduling preventing him from seeing a soccer game, but he did catch a bull fight, which gave him a new perspective on showmanship and contact sports.

“Just seeing how close the bulls come to almost killing these guys, you know, it’s a different type of sport,” Bush said.

With a self-effacing laugh, Bush acknowledged the matadors, “didn’t point at the bull.”

As for the rest of his offseason, Bush said being in a music video is something he’s glad he tried once, but won’t be inclined to do again.

“That was a great experience but it’s just something that’s not for me,” Bush said.

“I’m done with basketball, too,” he added, a reference to his appearance in a celebrity game in Las Vegas, during which he twisted his ankle.

Bush said the ankle is fine now and he is in excellent shape because of a new workout regimen he began in Los Angeles last February. It’s called fre flo do (pronounced FREE-flow-doe), which Bush described as a Chinese-inspired type of training that builds strength with exercises focused on flexibility, quickness and endurance.

Like a number of new-age physical fitness genres that seem to thrive in California, fre flo do also has a meditative and spiritual component.

Bush said he likes it because it plays to his strengths as an athlete.

“You know, some of my plays last longer than the average play, so I’m trying to simulate that … going beyond the average time within a workout,” he said.

Going into his second season, Bush already plays well beyond the level of an average running back. But when addressing his expectations for this season, he didn’t want to talk about yardage and touchdowns.

“I’ve never been big on setting personal goals. The only thing I care about is Super Bowls,” Bush said. “Your legacy is based on championships – how many championships you win – and you remember guys like Michael Jordan and Walter Payton and even a Tom Brady. That’s the kind of caliber athlete I want to be remembered as. So that’s what I shoot for when I’m training.”

AP-ES-05-15-07 1834EDT