Seconds earlier, Sharpe—toe brutalized, play designed for Clayton—had begun to jog. “I was supposed to run an out, but I ran a fade because the corner was in position,” he said. “But I’m not really running, because [Lions free safety Harry Colon] is standing right there.” Suddenly, however, Ed West’s route took him toward an unmanned spot in the middle of the field, and strong safety William White charged toward the tight end. “I’m now all alone,” said Sharpe. “Like, all alone.”
Favre let go of the football with exactly one minute on the clock, and threw what may well be the most awe-inspiring pass to ever grace the inside of an NFL stadium. His body lurched forward violently with the follow-through of a shot-putter, then gravity somehow jerked him backward. The football departed Favre’s right hand, soared through the air, and found Sharpe in stride just as he reached the heart of the blue-painted end zone, four steps in front of cornerback Tim McKyer. Sharpe looked up and snuggled the ball against the green No. 4 on his white jersey. Two years earlier, in a game against the Lions, he uncharacteristically dropped an easy score and was haunted by it. Not this time. “Brett’s feel for the game was unreal,” Sharpe said. “If I had been healthy I would have run out the back of the end zone by the time the ball gets there. But Brett knew I was slowed, and he threw it perfectly.”
When Favre saw Sharpe catch the ball, he yanked the helmet off his head and sprinted toward the sideline, where he jumped into a teammate’s arms before tackling him to the ground. He then bumped into Bob Noel, the team’s equipment man, who was so busy packing gear he missed the play. Noel hugged Favre and said, “That’s OK, kid, we’ll get them next time.”
What?
“Hell, Bob,” Favre said. “We just won the damn game!”
“Redemption, revenge,” said Musburger. “Call it what you will, but this can be a defining day for Brett Favre.”
Indeed. The Packers won, 28–24, and afterward Favre looked at the assembled reporters and said, with a straight face, “It was all planned.”
“Really?”
A grin. “No.”
A week later the Packers fell to the Dallas Cowboys, who would go on to win Super Bowl XXVIII. They were a good team playing a great team, and the setback was expected. “We weren’t ready,” said Sharpe. “Not yet.”
It mattered not.
The Green Bay Packers were back.
14
The Wheels Fall Off
* * *
IN THE SUMMER of 1994, on the same week the Indianapolis Colts waived Don Majkowski in favor of signing Browning Nagle, Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers agreed to a five-year, $19 million deal that included a $2.5 million signing bonus, a $500,000 reporting bonus, and a $1.6 million base salary for the upcoming season.
“I’m thrilled,” Favre said. “This is where I want to be.”
The quarterback was happy.
The franchise was happy.
The fans were happy.
Then everything went to crap.
First, a report from, of all places, the San Jose Mercury News’s wire service suggested that, as Favre was throwing 24 interceptions in 1993, he was “on cocaine or had become an alcoholic.” No sources were cited, and the Packers’ director of corporate security, Jerry Parins, said he never had reason to believe Favre was a drug user. But the drinking had, indeed, become an issue that worried many in the front office. Green Bay is a small city with a handful of bars and a rumor-generating machine that never quits. Favre imbibed—a lot.
Second, one day before the Packers were set to open the season against the Vikings at Lambeau Field, Sterling Sharpe walked into Mike Holmgren’s office and said, simply, “I’m going home.” The player and the team had been engaged in a summer-long contract dispute, and Sharpe was both fed up and—in hindsight—wickedly intelligent. “We were playing the Vikings, a team everyone really wanted to beat,” said Sharpe. “Mike and [Vikings coach] Denny Green were on the same staff in San Francisco, and Mike had never beaten Denny. The game plan featured a lot of me. So I walked in, told Mike I was leaving, and left.”
Favre learned of the news and was abnormally apoplectic. Generally, the ins and outs of team politics interested him little. But Sharpe was also, in Favre’s view, a selfish, me-first baby. “My opinion,” Favre said, “was if you sign a contract, you honor it.”
Sharpe and the Packers secretly worked out a new deal before kickoff, and he caught seven passes for 53 yards and a touchdown in the win. But the quarterback–wide receiver relationship was strained, and would be throughout the season. Which is how it concluded, because against Atlanta in Week 16, Sharpe suffered a neck injury that would end his career. “Holding out brought me the money I needed to survive after retirement,” Sharpe said. “So anyone who hated me for doing it—they should understand it was nothing personal. Just business.”
Third, Mark Brunell.
Yes, Mark Brunell—the second-year quarterback from the University of Washington; the 23-year-old third-stringer who, having been born and raised in Southern California, approached the 1993 draft with a singular wish: anywhere but Green Bay. Brunell was close friends with Orlando McKay, a wide receiver selected by the Packers one year earlier, and his pal repeatedly issued warnings about the city’s awfulness. “It’s cold, it’s miserable,” McKay told Brunell. “Don’t come here. Trust me.”
Brunell had no choice, however, and he impressed Holmgren with his speed, smarts, and instinctiveness. Favre, on the other hand, was his frustratingly erratic self, kicking off the ’94 run by alternating good games with awful games, good throws with awful throws. The thing that most irked Holmgren was his quarterback’s stubborn refusal to listen. Favre seemed to think he knew everything about the sport and needed no assistance from anyone on the sideline. He ignored instruction, laughed off advice. “Brett told some reporter that he wasn’t going to change his style, that the offense was good but he was the kind of playmaker, some riverboat gambler who had to take crazy chances sometimes and that’s just how it was,” Holmgren said. “The gist of his remarks was that we were a better team because he went winging it on his own a lot of the time instead of sticking with what the coaching staff wanted to do. Oh, I was hot.” In the first quarter of a Week 8 matchup at Minnesota, Favre exited with a hip injury and Holmgren wasn’t entirely disappointed. He looked toward Brunell and told him to start warming up. “Ty [Detmer] and I alternated as the backups, and it was my turn,” Brunell said. “I thought, You’ve gotta be kidding me. I have to go into a game in the Metrodome and play against Warren Moon? I’m not ready for this.” With their new (albeit terrified) quarterback at the helm, the Packers led until the final seconds of regulation before suffering a 13–10 overtime loss. Holmgren was demoralized by the defeat, but delighted by the experience. There was no backtalk from Brunell; no tough-guy machismo nonsense. He got rid of the ball when under duress, communicated openly, played smart and selflessly. “Mark was shitting in his pants out there,” said John Jurkovic, the defensive lineman. “But he didn’t make too many mistakes.”
On the sidelines, Favre internally applauded the defeat. He hated sitting, and rightly viewed Brunell as a threat. “Good,” he thought. “We lose the rest of the games this year, that’s fine with me.”
The days that followed were awful. Favre threw a fit in Steve Mariucci’s office over trying to master an impossible offense. Irv Favre called Mariucci and begged him to ask Holmgren to ease up. “I know my son,” he told the team’s quarterbacks coach, “and if Mike hadn’t stopped butchering him after he made a mistake, Brett would have dwindled to nothing.”
A few days after the Packers returned to Green Bay, Holmgren gathered his coaching staff for a meeting. “OK,” he said, “So I’m thinking of making a change and I wanna have a vote. How many of you guys think Brett should stay the starter, how many of you guys think I should bench him?”
A moment for thought, then the hands were raised. There were 13 men in the room.
Three—including Steve
Mariucci—voted for Favre to remain the starting quarterback.
Ten voted for the Mark Brunell era to begin.
Holmgren wasn’t shocked. The defensive coaches, in particular, were fed up with having their exhausted players return to the field on short rest after yet another moronic interception. He was, however, at a loss. He felt loyal to Favre, in the way a master feels loyal to his dog—even when the mutt urinates on the floor. They arrived in Green Bay together; inspired hope together; reached the playoffs together. On the other hand, Favre was not improving. Holmgren’s two San Francisco quarterbacks, Joe Montana and Steve Young, seemed to take progressive steps by the week. But Favre either stood still or drifted backward. He wasn’t stupid, but he was a stupid quarterback.
A few nights later Holmgren summoned Favre into his office for a talk. This, the quarterback thought, isn’t a good sign . . .
Favre was nervous. Holmgren was nervous, too. But he was also steadfast in his beliefs. “Look,” the coach said, “you’re too stubborn, you don’t listen, you play dumb. But you’re my quarterback, and we’re in this together. So let’s figure this out. We’re taking it all the way or we’re flaming out. I’m putting all my chips in with you. We’re joined at the hip. Either we get to the top of the mountain together, or we’re gonna wind up in the dumpster.”
In the official Brett Favre narrative, sanctioned by the NFL and its merry band of half-fictionalized legend-creators, this is the moment where everything changes. The belief of a coach is a powerful force, after all, and knowing that Holmgren trusted him was all Favre needed to take the next step in his life and career.
Nonsense.
The ’94 season was, on the surface, a near replica of 1993—a 9-7 record, a second-place finish, a first-round playoff win over the Lions, a second-round loss to the Dallas Cowboys, lots of Brett Favre moments of brilliance mixed with fewer Brett Favre moments of idiocy. His statistics were eye-catching—33 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, 3,882 yards—as was his continued growth as a leader. “Someone else could probably describe my leadership style better, but I think it’s all action and very few words,” he told ESPN. “When I say ‘action,’ that means practices, meetings and, of course, games. When it comes to giving inspirational speeches, I clam up. That’s just not me. I just feel like the only way to lead is to do things right.” But beneath it all, in a dark place where few witnesses were welcomed, something awful was brewing. And, even with the faith Mike Holmgren placed in Brett Favre, it couldn’t be stopped.
The first time Brett Favre had unlimited access to pain medication was before his senior year at Southern Mississippi, when—while lying in a bed at Gulfport Memorial, recovering from the car accident that nearly took his life—he kept his finger glued to the button that controlled the morphine drip.
Nobody thought much of it. This is how pain was treated. Tylenol and Advil were wonderful, but not strong enough. Surgery hurts. Recovery hurts even more. Post–car accident, morphine was what the local hero needed, and morphine was what he received.
“When Brett learned about that pump, he rarely let go,” said Bonita Favre, his mother. “He was in very bad shape, you have to remember. But I’ve always thought maybe that gave him a taste for it . . .”
Two and a half years later, in the game against Philadelphia when Eagles pass rushers Reggie White and Andy Harmon had given him the greatest thumping of his young career, dislocating his shoulder with a brutal sack, Favre played through the pain, steadfastly refusing to let Majkowski replace him. “If he’d gotten back in there, I may never have gotten my spot back,” he said. After an injection of Xylocaine at halftime, Favre returned to being his old self, slinging the football (and his body) all over the field.
Later on, with the victory sealed and the pain returning, Favre asked Clarence Novotny, the team doctor, for medication. “He knew I had a separated shoulder, so he didn’t even question it,” Favre recalled. “He prescribed Vicodin and it eased the pain, which is the whole point of painkillers. It made me feel 100 percent better.” There was nothing unusual. Dating back to the 1960s, NFL teams distributed opioids to their players as if they were M&Ms on Halloween. There were no available studies on long-term impact, and no concerns over addiction and dependency. It was about one thing: having players play. “Novotny would hand them out on the plane,” said Jurkovic. “He’d just come by and hand you some. No problem, no real limit.” It was, many Packer players confirm, accepted and approved by the organization. Pain, schlaim—take some drugs and get back on the damn field.
“In the later part of my career Vicodin was aspirin,” said Darius Holland, a Packers defensive tackle. “You’d use Vicodin for practice, then Percocet for the games. We all knew what we were getting paid to do. There were guys—myself included—who would smoke marijuana between two-a-day practices, just to get through. And you can’t blame them. I used it all—alcohol, Vicodin, marijuana, Percocet. Through the season I’d get shots in my knees and toes. People don’t understand—there’s no protocol to survive football. You do what you have to do to survive.”
A few months following the first taste, Favre popped some Vicodin while nursing yet another hangover, and the discomfort vanished. The next season, after opening with a loss to the Rams, Favre and some teammates made a two-hour drive from Milwaukee to Green Bay, downing Vicodins en route. “My headache was gone,” Favre recalled, “and I felt like a new man.”
Favre liked Vicodin with water. He enjoyed Vicodin with beer even more. Whenever one of his players was experiencing pain, Holmgren inevitably asked, “Are you hurt or are you injured? Because if you’re hurt, you can play.” The message was clear—find a way. With increased frequency, Favre’s games would be followed by the ingestion of multiple pills. “If I saw a teammate who was injured getting six pills,” Favre recalled, “I’d stop him in the locker room and tell him I was really hurting and I wondered if I could borrow a couple.” On Wednesdays and Thursdays Favre might pop a couple of Vicodins to, in his words, “just pass the time.” It was, truly, no big deal. He didn’t think about it as a problem. Nobody else thought of it as a problem. Because nearly all of the Packers were taking Vicodin in one dosage or another, the behavior never felt abnormal or particularly unhealthy. “It’s not what people want to hear,” said Jurkovic, “but with the painkillers you could kill the pain and practice and be a functioning human being. Playing football isn’t a natural physical thing to do.”
Late in the 1994 season, without warning, bad things began to happen to Favre. Want turned to need. Desire turned to craving. “He would routinely run stop signs in Green Bay just because he was so high and he felt so entitled,” said Roy Firestone, who interviewed Favre on his ESPN show multiple times. “He was Brett Favre and they wouldn’t stop him. I asked if he realized he could have killed people. He said he was so high, it didn’t matter to him.” Though it has never been formally diagnosed, family members believe addiction, in the form of alcoholism, probably runs deep in the Favre family veins. There are many photographs that tell the story, dating back decades upon decades, to bars and bar fights and drunken nights extending into mornings. Almost all of them seem to include a can or bottle of something cold and wet. Once, when Brett’s addictions were coming into focus, Tom Silverstein, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel scribe, asked Irv Favre whether his son was an alcoholic. “He paused for a really long time,” Silverstein recalled. “And then he said, ‘I don’t know. But it’s possible.’”
“If you dig far enough, every family has something they don’t really want out,” said Bonita. “Is it drinking with us? Maybe.”
“We have to be realistic,” said Brandi Favre, Brett’s sister. “Addiction has been an issue.”
The 1994 season was the beginning. The 1995 season was the explosion. Which is confusing, because it coincides with, arguably, the best run of Brett Favre’s football career. But he was a mess, and any on-field success only helped hide the demons eating away at his innards.
In the summer mo
nths of ’94, when he was back in Mississippi, spending an increased amount of time with Deanna and Brittany, Brett decided it was time to take a maturation leap. He asked his girlfriend to relocate with him to Green Bay so that they could try being a family and raising their daughter together. Deanna was overwhelmed—she knew Brett was no saint, but she also always felt the love and warmth he semiregularly offered. “I was actually excited about moving up there and becoming a family,” Deanna said. “We had been dating on and off for 11 years, so we saw the coming season as a make it or break it time for us.”
Brett went to Green Bay first for minicamp, and Deanna and Brittany followed in August. The girl was enrolled in first grade at the nearby elementary school, and—on the surface—everything seemed wonderful. Brett spoke with the media about the steadying influence of family; how having his girls around would only serve to keep him grounded and together in pressure-packed times. “[Brittany] was in heaven,” recalled Deanna. “[She was] thrilled to be living with her daddy.”
The honeymoon lasted for, oh, two days.
Deanna Tynes wanted Brett Favre to be the shy boy who’d kissed her at her front door. She wanted the courteous, caring person who looked at her as if she were the most beautiful being in the world. In short, she wanted the Brett Favre she fell in love with all those years ago.
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