Brett Favre

Brett Favre at NFL.com Brett Lorenzo Favre, pronounced "Farv," (born October 10, 1969 in Gulfport, Mississippi) has been the starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers American football team in the National Football League since 1992.

Kiln

Favre went to Hancock North Central High School in Kiln, Mississippi (pronounced Kill). Kiln, a tiny town (population 50) had no stop lights or paved roads. He played quarterback, strong safety, kicker and punter in a primarily option, run-oriented offense coached by his father, Irvin Favre. Irvin Favre coached his son's high school football team. Irvin Favre said that he knew his son had a great arm but also knew that the school was blessed with good running backs. So, for the three years Brett was on the team, Irvin Favre lead a run-oriented offense, called the wishbone.

"If I had wanted to showcase my son, I could have let him throw," Irvin Favre said later. "But I thought I did a good job in that what I was doing was in the best interest of the team."

Irvin Favre would later consider his son's Super Bowl victory in New Orleans against the New England Patriots among the best events of his life. Brett Favre suffers from avascular necrosis.

College

Favre received only one scholarship offer after high school. It was from nearby Southern Miss—which wanted him to play defensive back. Favre wanted to play under center instead and clawed his way up from the seventh string to the backup job and then to the starting position just three games into his freshman year. He took over in the second half against Tulane on September 19, 1987 and led USM to a comeback victory with two touchdown passes. Favre led the Golden Eagles to a big upset of Florida State, then ranked sixth in the nation, September 2, 1989. Favre capped off a six-and-a-half-minute drive with the game-winning touchdown pass with 23 seconds remaining. Favre's college career was turned upside down on July 14, 1990, when he was in a near-fatal car accident. Going around a bend a few tenths of a mile from his parents' house, Favre was going quite a bit over the speed limit when his car went out of control. It flipped three times in the air, crashed into a tree and got stuck there. Only after his brother smashed the window with a golf club could he be evacuated to the hospital. On the way there, inside of the ambulance, his mother was sitting with him. “All I kept asking [her] was ‘Will I be able to play football again?’” Favre recalled later. Doctors would later remove 30 inches of Favre's small intestine. On September 8, Favre led Southern Miss to a comeback victory over Alabama. Alabama coach Gene Stallings said, “You can call it a miracle or a legend or whatever you want to. I just know that on that day, Brett Favre was larger than life.”

Coincidentally, on Sunday, December 21, 2003 Irvin Favre ran into a ditch near Kiln, where years earlier Brett Favre nearly killed himself. Said Sgt. Joe Gazzo of the Mississippi State Highway Patrol: "It didn't appear that the accident was serious enough to cause him to be unconscious, so that leads us to believe that a medical condition was what caused him to go off the road." Irvin Favre went off the road at 5:23 p.m., according to eye-witness reports, and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m.

An autopsy done the following day showed that Irvin Favre died of a sudden heart attack.

"It's going to be a great loss to the community," said Gazzo. "He [Irvin] was a great guy."

Atlanta

Favre was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in the second round, 33rd overall in the 1991 NFL Draft. In Atlanta, he was a third-string quarterback with unremarkable numbers and an affinity for partying. He got into repeated clashes with head coach Jerry Glanville. His most notable accomplishments, aside from going 0 for 5 passing with two interceptions that year, were missing the team photo (he'd been out the night before), for which he was fined, and making a $100 bet with Jerry Glanville that he could throw the ball into the upperdeck of Fulton County Stadium. Favre won the bet and Jerry Glanville paid him the money. The Packers general manager Ron Wolf traded a first round pick (17th overall) for Favre during the following offseason. (Wolf, while general manager of the New York Jets, had intended to take Favre in the 1991 NFL draft, but Favre was taken by the Falcons on the pick previous to the Jets.)

The trade is regarded as one of the most lopsided in NFL history, but nearly didn't happen. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and other sources, during the physical after the trade, Favre was diagnosed with avascular necrosis, the same degenerative hip condition that ended Bo Jackson's career, and doctors recommended he be failed. Wolf overruled them and the Packers would never be the same.

On September 5, 2005, in an episode of The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame... series, ESPN Classic examined why the Falcons cannot be blamed for trading Favre. The hip condition was not listed among the reasons, which were:

5. Favre was a little-known player from a little-known college, whose preseason bragging about soon becoming the starter quickly wore thin.
4. Favre didn't fit in. He was a casual person on a flashy Falcons team, with a flashy coach, and Favre and Glanville never got along.
3. Favre was a party animal who drank too much, though he later quit drinking as part of treatment for an addiction to painkillers in 1996.
2. Favre was terrible when the Falcons actually put him into one exhibition game and one regular-season game.
1. Favre wanted a trade, and it could be argued that former Packers coach Mike Holmgren, himself a former quarterback, turned Favre from a good college quarterback without much of a pro future into a Hall of Fame pro quarterback.

Green Bay

Favre's first NFL completion was to himself on September 13, 1992, in a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Starting the game in the second half, Favre's pass attempt was deflected by Ray Seals. Favre caught the deflection, but went down for a loss of 7 yards. He has started every Green Bay Packers game after September 20, 1992, when Don Majkowski went down injured against the Cincinnati Bengals. Favre was summoned from the bench and proceeded to lead the team to a comeback victory, throwing the game-winning touchdown pass to Kitrick Taylor with 13 seconds remaining. Favre was so thrilled that he nearly forgot that he was supposed to be the holder on the extra point try. The next week's game against the Pittsburgh Steelers began the longest consecutive starts streak for quarterbacks in NFL history, a number that continues to grow despite numerous injuries, including a broken thumb on his right (throwing) hand that he suffered in week 7 against the Rams during the 2003 season. At the time the Packers were holding a record of 3-4 going into the bye week. After the bye week, in spite of the fracture in his throwing thumb, he led the Packers to a 10-6 record in the regular season and a victory over the Seattle Seahawks in the playoffs. Even more impressive was the fact that he tossed a league leading 32 touchdown passes. The 2003 season was just one chapter in the story of Favre's toughness.

In the early years under head coach Mike Holmgren, Favre struggled to keep his game under control, often making high-risk, high-reward throws that ended in too many interceptions. Eventually he learned Holmgren's system and became one of the league's best quarterbacks, winning the first of three MVP awards in 1995, a season in which the Packers made it to the NFC Championship Game, upsetting the San Francisco 49ers to go further in the playoffs than any Packer team since the Vince Lombardi era.

While being treated for various injuries, Brett Favre developed an addiction to painkillers. He went public with his problem in May 1996, and immediately sought rehabilitation after a press conference admitting his problem. He remained in rehab for 46 days. Favre then led the Packers to their greatest season in 30 years in the 1996-7 season, winning his second consecutive MVP award in the process. Green Bay compiled an NFL-best regular season record of 13-3, dispatched San Francisco and Carolina at Lambeau Field in the playoffs, and advanced to Super Bowl XXXI at the Louisiana Superdome, a short drive from Kiln.

Favre threw two touchdown passes over 50 yards and scored another touchdown rushing, and the Packers won the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Super Bowl XXXI over the New England Patriots, 35-21.

Favre and the Packers continued their dominance of the NFC the next season. Favre was named co-MVP of the league with Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders, his third straight award. Green Bay fought their way to Super Bowl XXXII but lost to John Elway and the Denver Broncos by the score of 31-24 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Favre took the loss to the Broncos hard, and considered retirement in the offseason.

However, Favre and the Packers continued posting positive results through the next few seasons. Through the 2004 season, the Packers had the longest streak of non-losing seasons (13) in the NFL, despite an 8-8 record under coach Ray Rhodes, a 9-7 season under coach Mike Sherman, and no playoff berths in either 1999 or 2000. This streak is over as the Packers are now 3-12 with one game remaining.

Favre was the target of controversy at the end of 2001 when, in the regular-season finale against the New York Giants at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Favre rolled to his right and slid down at the feet of hard-charging Giants defensive end Michael Strahan. It was Strahan's lone sack of the game and gave him the NFL's single-season sack record of 22.5, which topped Mark Gastineau's record of 22 set in 1984. Favre claimed he'd changed the play at the line of scrimmage, but the rest of the team appeared to run a different play than Favre's. The Packers were winning the game handily—and did win 34-25—and Favre's offensive line had relegated Strahan to a non-factor for most of the game. Players and fans from around the league were highly critical of the play, and comedian Jimmy Kimmel even lampooned the episode in a skit during FOX NFL Sunday shortly after, depicting a "Strahan" and a "Favre" in an elegant ballet that culminated in "Strahan" sweeping "Favre" up off his feet and gently laying him on the ground. Some Packer fans even half-jokingly blamed the 9/11 terrorist attacks for putting Favre in that position in the first place, as the Packers-Giants contest had originally been scheduled for the Sunday following the attacks but was rescheduled for the end of the year.

One of the defining moments of Favre's career, and his greatest game ever, took place on December 22, 2003, in a Monday Night Football game against the Oakland Raiders. The day before, his father, Irvin Favre, died suddenly of a heart attack. Favre elected to play and passed for four touchdowns in the first half, and 399 yards in a 41-7 destruction of the Raiders on international television (receiving applause from the highly partisan "Raider Nation"). Afterwards, Favre said, "I knew that my dad would have wanted me to play. I love him so much and I love this game. It's meant a great deal to me, to my dad, to my family, and I didn't expect this kind of performance. But I know he was watching tonight." He was named NFC Offensive Player of the Week. He then went to his father's funeral in Pass Christian, Mississippi and returned in time to lead the Packers to a dominant 31-3 victory over the Denver Broncos, which resulted in the 2003 NFC North championship when the division-leading Minnesota Vikings dropped a heartbreaking 18-17 game to the Arizona Cardinals that same day. Favre won an ESPY Award for his Monday Night Football performance.

With a 17-yard pass to running back Ahman Green on September 18, 2005, in a game against the Cleveland Browns, Favre became only the third quarterback in NFL history to throw for 50,000 yards or more, along with Dan Marino and John Elway. Green Bay would go on to lose that game 26-24.

Since March 2001, Favre has been signed to a "lifetime" contract with the Packers, the first in team history. The deal made Favre the first $100 million player in NFL history. However, it is not yet known if he will continue to play after the 2005-06 season.

Green Bay's 2005 season was a disappointment right from the beginning. All-Pro wide receiver Javon Walker, Favre's favorite target, went down with a season-ending knee injury in the first game. This bad luck was followed by the loss of running back Ahman Green, and rookie wide receiver Terrence Murphy. The Packers' misfortunes didn't end there. Second running back Najeh Davenport was lost for the season after breaking his ankle. Third-string running back Tony Fisher, slot receiver Robert Ferguson and starting tight end Bubba Franks also missed playing time. With all of the team's injury problems, a few unknown players rose up to try and help Favre lead the team. Rookie, Nigeria-native Samkon Gado rushed for over a hundred yards three times before being lost for the rest of the season in game 14 due to a torn MCL, and veteran receiver Donald Driver excelled in the flanker position after replacing the injured Javon Walker. Third-year wideout Antonio Chatman saw some major playing time along with his normal special teams duties. Brett Favre had an average season with over 3,000 yards for a record fourteenth consecutive time, but he also led the league in interceptions with nearly 30.

Beginning in 2001 and continuing through the 2005 season, questions have arisen as to whether Favre was going to retire. In 2004, he discussed the idea of retiring with his family but decided to come back for 2005 because his wife's battle with breast cancer was going well and her health had improved, and also his belief that he could do much better with the improvements to the Green Bay team and his own long-term work during the off season in losing weight and increasing his mobility. However, 2005 proved to be even worse; in fact, the worst season in Favre's career in which the Packers through 15 games are 3-12 and among the worst teams in the NFL. Most of this cannot be blamed on Favre, although he has thrown 28 interceptions, as Green Bay suffered the loss of many of its key players to injury and Favre is having to play with third-string and lower players in a number of skill positions.

Were Favre to retire after this season, the quarterback position would be taken by first-round draft pick Aaron Rodgers. No matter what Brett Favre decides he will be known in the NFL as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, and is considered a shoo-in first ballot selection for the Hall of Fame.

Recent events

Several family crises followed Irvin Favre's death. Favre's brother-in-law, Casey Tynes, was killed in an all-terrain vehicle accident on Favre's Mississippi property. Soon after, Brett's wife, Deanna, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Following aggressive treatment, she made progress and appears to be recovering well. (She is expected to make a complete recovery.) After much speculation regarding the possibility of retirement, Favre announced his intention of playing the 2005-2006 season on March 10, 2005.

More recently, in late August 2005, Favre's family suffered another setback. Hurricane Katrina blew through Mississippi, destroying his family's home there. However, none of his family members were injured. Brett and Deanna's home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi was also damaged by the storm.

On December 13th, 2005 Brett's grandmother, Izella French, suffered a stroke. She is currently in stable condition.

Honors and awards

Favre has won the National Football League's Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award a record three times, all in consecutive years (1995, 1996, and 1997; the last was shared with Barry Sanders). He is the only person in the history of football to do this.

Favre has been selected to play in the Pro Bowl eight times in his career.

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle declared November 29, 2004 as Brett Favre Day to honor Favre's 200th consecutive NFL regular season start. That night, the Packers defeated the St. Louis Rams on Monday Night Football.

According to Sports Illustrated, he was named a sports enemy of four states: North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota (each of them home mainly to Minnesota Vikings fans), and Illinois (home mainly to Chicago Bears fans).

Men's Health Magazine voted Favre the "Toughest Person in America" in 2003.

His high school, Hancock North Central (Kiln, Miss.), honored him in May 2004 by renaming its field, ‘Brett Favre Field,’ and unveiling a life-sized statue of the quarterback at the stadium’s entrance. The school previously had retired his jersey (No. 10) in 1993.

Established the 'Brett Favre Fourward Foundation’ in 1996; in conjunction with his annual golf tournament, celebrity softball game and fundraising dinners, foundation has donated more than $2 million to charities in his home state of Mississippi as well as to those in his adopted state of Wisconsin.

Is a partner in a Green Bay restaurant, 'Brett Favre's Steakhouse'; operation has a sister location, 'Brett Favre's Two Minute Grill,' in the Lambeau Field Atrium.

Appeared as himself in the 1998 comedy film There's Something About Mary.

Records

Favre currently possesses a number of NFL records:

Most seasons with 30 or more touchdown passes: 8 (1994-1998, 2001, 2003-2004)
Most consecutive seasons with 20 or more touchdown passes: 11 (1994-2004)
Most consecutive 3,000-yard passing seasons: 14 (1992-2005)
Most 3,000-yard passing seasons: 14
Most consecutive NFL MVP awards: 3 (1995-1996; co-MVP with Barry Sanders, 1997)
Most NFL MVP awards: 3
Most consecutive starts by a quarterback: 222 (242 including playoffs)
Most consecutive games on active status by a quarterback: 222 (242 including playoffs)
Longest touchdown pass: 99 yards (to Robert Brooks, 1995) (tied with several others)

Favre's consecutive-starts streak is considered by many to be his most impressive record. Favre is the only professional athlete in any sport to have started every game his team has played over the past 14-season period. He is currently in sole possession of fourth place for all-time NFL starting streaks of players in any position. During the first 200 straight games started by Favre, 178 other quarterbacks started in the NFL. In that time, the St. Louis Rams alone have played 13 different quarterbacks.

The enormity of his accomplishments can be illustrated by the fact that only five other quarterbacks in NFL history have ever achieved two consecutive 30-touchdown passing seasons at least one time in their careers: Steve Bartkowski, Dan Fouts, Dan Marino, Jeff Garcia and Y.A. Tittle. And while several quarterbacks have achieved the legendary feat of the 99-yard touchdown pass, Favre's pass remained airborne longer than any of the others.

Favre is closing in on a number of other NFL records and milestones. As an active player, these numbers are subject to change. (Last update: 28 December 2005) They include:

Second all-time in Passing Touchdowns: 395 (Marino holds the record of 420)
Second all-time in Passing yards, with 53,356 (Marino holds the record with 61,361)
Victories by Starting Quarterback: 138-84 in 222 consecutive starts (Elway holds the record of 148-82-1).
Second all-time in pass completions, with 4,657 (Marino holds the record at 4,967).
Second all-time in pass attempts, with 7,573 (Marino holds the record at 8,358).
Third all-time in career wins as a starting QB, with 138 (John Elway holds the record with 148, and Marino is 2nd with 147).
Interceptions: 254 {George Blanda Holds the Record of 277}

In addition, Favre owns a number of team records, having printed his name into almost every passing category in the annals of Green Bay Packers history.

External links