Since retiring, Brett Favre has repeatedly said he believes he suffered hundreds, if not thousands, of concussions during his football career.
Favre reiterated that 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 Favre’s most infamous concussions occurred in 2004, when The Packers played the The New York Giants and Favre suffered a 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 has not admitted how many concussions he believes he had during or shortly after his playing career, but he has become more aware of the effect the sport has had on his brain in recent years.
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Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre #4 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 research into brain health after his career even led him to meet the renowned 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 portrayed by Will Smith in the 2015 film “Concussion.”
Favre’s conversation with Omalu provided the former quarterback with a thought-provoking answer to a question that had been puzzling him.
“I had a conversation with him, we were on a conference call many years ago and we had a brief discussion afterwards,” Favre told Cobb. “I asked him, ‘When is a good time to play American football?’ and he laughed and said, ‘I know Americans don’t want to hear this, but there’s never a good time for humans to play American football.’”
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Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre heads toward the sideline after throwing a pass intercepted by Chicago Bears’ Julius Peppers during the first quarter of their NFC, NFL football game at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on December 20, 2010. (REUTERS/Eric Miller)
In 2002, Omalu performed a famous autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer Mike Webster, which led to the re-emergence of awareness of a neurological condition associated with chronic head trauma called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
However, in January 2020, the Washington Post reported that Omalu regularly exaggerated his accomplishments and significantly overstated the known risks of CTE and contact sports, fueling misconceptions about the disease, according to interviews with more than 50 experts in neurodegenerative diseases and brain injuries, and a review of more than 100 peer-reviewed medical journal articles.
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Brett Favre #4 of the Green Bay Packers injured his leg on this play after throwing the ball while Dwight Freeney #93 of the Indianapolis Colts was chasing him during a game at the RCA Dome on September 26, 2004 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Yet Favre has spoken about the dangers of football several times in recent years.
In 2021, Favre appeared on the “TODAY” show and revealed a public service announcement for the Concussion Legacy Foundation. He urged parents to keep their children away from American football until they are 14 years old.
“I don’t know how many concussions I had or what the impact was, there’s no answer,” he said in 2021. “I wasn’t the best student, but I still remember things that make me say, ‘Why do you remember that?’ But I don’t remember someone I played with for six years in Green Bay … but his face looks familiar. Those kinds of issues make me think.”
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