Brett Favre is a certified NFL legend for many reasons. For some, it was his ability to ball for 20 seasons straight. For others, it was his 3× NFL MVP honors and being the first quarterback to breach the 70,000 passing yards barrier.
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However, what truly made Favre an all-time NFL icon was his ability to take every hit, extend every play, and the fact that he didn’t miss a game as a starter — 297 of them in a row. That kind of toughness turned him into a legend.
But nearly 5 years after he hung up his cleats, the Packers legend started to question what it all cost. In a 2015 interview with Graham Bensinger, Favre opened up about how football took a toll on his body by recalling a moment with his wife that caught him off guard.
Favre was telling his wife Deanna a story — one he’d told her many times before. But this time, something was off. “She goes, ‘That’s not the way it went.’ And I said, ‘Surely it is. I’m the one the story’s about,’” Favre recalled. “But I couldn’t remember. I can remember, but it’s not right.”
That moment hit differently for Favre. “Is that age? Is that concussions? Is that both? Or is that just… I’m a terrible storyteller?” he asked. “I say- all of the above.”
Favre, who played most of his career before modern concussion protocols, has long been open about the hits he took. “If you’ve never had a concussion, you take [a baseline] test, and you’ve got a pretty good starting point,” he explained. “But they started this when I was in my 15th year. So there’s 15 years of wear and tear that we don’t know.”
Intriguingly enough, until 2015, he maintained his stance of not feeling any physical pain. “There isn’t any obvious memory loss or pain,” he told Bensinger.
But the subtle cognitive shifts, stories that come out wrong, moments that blur, were starting to add up. This became such a big concern for Favre that he once said that if he ever had a son, he’d not be pleased with his progeny continuing his NFL legacy.
When asked by Bensinger as to why he said that, Favre bluntly admitted that it’d be hard to see his son suffer the way he did on the field.
“I’d also be worried sick watching him… Hate for him to get hit… not getting up… the cumulative effect of that.”
Unfortunately for Brett Favre, since this interview in ‘15, the picture has only gotten more serious.
In 2024, Favre publicly revealed he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s after years of symptoms and doctor consultations. And if the NFL legend is to be believed, the “thousands” of concussions he suffered during his playing career might have contributed to his diagnosis.
“I wrote the book on head trauma,” he told TMZ. “If it’s not in your family… the first thing we looked at is head trauma.”
All said and done, it’s truly sad how football gave its worst to a man who gave his all to the sport. For a man who once feared missing a down, Brett Favre is now facing the one opponent you can’t shake off: the aftermath. And that’s heartbreaking.
