Since his retirement, Brett Favre has gone on record now multiple times saying he believes he suffered hundreds if not thousands of concussions during his football career.
Favre reiterated this belief during an interview with OutKick’s Ricky Cobb this week. The full interview will air Friday morning at 11 a.m. ET.
One of the more infamous Favre concussions occurred in 2004, when the Packers played the New York Giants and Favre suffered the head injury. He threw a 28-yard touchdown pass to Javon Walker, but it was later reported that Favre did not remember throwing the pass due to the concussion.
Favre would not have admitted to how many concussions he believes he had during or shortly after his playing career, but he’s become more aware of the affect the sport had on his brain in recent years.
Quarterback Brett Favre #4 of the Green Bay Packers attempts a pass against the New York Giants on October 3, 2004 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
Favre’s post-career brain health explorations even brought him face to face with the famed Dr. Bennet Omalu. Omalu is a forensic pathologist, and neuropathologist who was the first to discover and publish findings on chronic traumatic encephalopathy in American football.
Omalu was famously depicted by Will Smith in the 2015 film ‘Concussion.’
Favre’s conversation with Omalu provided the former quarterback with a sobering answer to a question he was curious about.
“I had a conversation with him, we were in a conference call many years ago and afterward we had a brief discussion,” Favre told Cobb. “I said ‘when’s a good time to play tackle football’ and he kind of chuckled and said ‘I know that Americans don’t want to hear this, but never is there a good time for humans to play tackle football.”
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Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre heads to the sidelines after he throws a pass intercepted by Chicago Bears’ Julius Peppers during the first quarter of their NFC, NFL football game at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, December 20, 2010. (REUTERS/Eric Miller)
Omalu performed a famous autopsy of former Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers player Mike Webster in 2002, which led to the re-emergence of awareness of a neurologic condition associated with chronic head trauma called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
However, in January 2020, The Washington Post reported that Omalu routinely exaggerated his accomplishments and dramatically overstates the known risks of CTE and contact sports, fueling misconceptions about the disease, according to interviews with more than 50 experts in neurodegenerative disease and brain injuries, and a review of more than 100 papers from peer-reviewed medical journals
Brett Favre #4 of the the Green Bay Packers injured his leg on this play after throwing the ball as Dwight Freeney #93 the Indianapolis Colts purses him during a game at the RCA Dome on September 26, 2004 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Still, Favre has spoken out about the dangers of football now multiple times in recent years.
In 2021, Favre appeared on the “TODAY” show and revealed a PSA for the Concussion Legacy Foundation. He urged parents to keep their children away from tackle football until they are 14.
“(There’s) no telling how many concussions I’ve had, and what are the repercussions of that, there’s no answer,” he said in 2021. “I wasn’t the best student, but I still can remember certain things that you would go, ‘Why would you even remember that?’ But I can’t remember someone that I played six years with in Green Bay … but the face looks familiar. Those type of issues that make me wonder.”
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