Playboy Interview: Brett Favre

a candid conversation with green bay's mvp about his cajun image, his troubled family, his battle with pills and the art of well-timed flatulence

The National Football League's most valuable player is a freckle-faced prankster. "Just a regular-type guy who can throw a ball," he calls himself. No golden boy like the Cowboys' Troy Aikman or the Broncos' John Elway, Brett Favre (rhymes with carve) is a scrambling improv artist. Last year he was the league's most valuable player for the second straight year. He led the Green Bay Packers to victory in Super Bowl XXXI and celebrated with pranks like putting red-hot ointment in teammates' jockstraps.

Favre, 28, is a throwback to the days when pro football was 22 men beating up one another with 500 people in the stands. From tiny Kiln, Mississippi, this son of a high school football coach would fit right in with Bronko Nagurski and Ray Nitschke. He wrestles teammates and plays practical jokes like the rowdy country boy he is.

Excusing himself to go to the bathroom, he announces, "'Scuse me--gotta go drain the old pipe."

After the Packers' Super Bowl win, Favre went to the White House to meet President Clinton. He wrote a book ("Favre: For the Record" was published by Doubleday in October) and opened a restaurant. He signed a seven-year, $47 million contract with a $12 million signing bonus. But he spent most days relaxing, enjoying a round of golf and a beer with friends back home in Mississippi. Still, he calls it "the worst time ever."

Before the 1996 season Favre announced he was addicted to Vicodin, a potent painkiller used by many NFL players. The league's MVP spent 46 days at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and the NFL put him on probation for drugs and alcohol. Next came news that Brett's sister, Brandi, a Mississippi beauty queen, had been involved in a drive-by shooting. She was sentenced to a year's probation. Soon their older brother, Scott, was in trouble, convicted of felony DUI. Scott Favre had driven into a railroad crossing; a train killed his passenger, a family friend. Scott was placed under house arrest. As the result of some bureaucratic confusion, Scott was picked up earlier this year for probation violation and served 67 days in jail. "Trouble never seems to be far away," Brett says.

Despite all this, he never appears to lose his humor. Outwardly, at least, Favre is still the cocky rifleman from Hancock North Central High School. In 1987 he chose the University of Southern Mississippi because it was the only Division IA school to offer him a scholarship--as a defensive back. As the Golden Eagles' seventh-string quarterback, he played defense and even tried punting. No one considered him a top talent. But soon he was starting, pulling off upsets of Alabama and Auburn and, in 1989, top-ranked Florida State. Then came his own car crash. Driving home one night he flipped his vehicle and suffered a concussion, deep cuts and a "mildly" broken back. Five weeks later he pulled off a 27-24 stunner over Alabama.

Drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in 1991, Favre was a backup QB again, a clipboard jockey. "Hated it," he says. But he liked Atlanta. Suddenly rich beyond his dreams, a 22-year-old making $660,000 a year, he spent his nights partying and soon wore out his welcome with the Falcons' coaching staff. In 1992 Atlanta traded him to Green Bay for a draft choice.

Packer general manager Ron Wolf and coach Mike Holmgren loved Favre's raw talent. They wanted to bring him along slowly, to ease his transition to Green Bay's complex offense, which forces a quarterback to make dozens of snap judgments on every play. When starter Don Majkowski got hurt in 1992, Favre trotted in and led the Pack to a 24-23 win. He completed a club record 64.1 percent of his passes that year. At 23, he was the youngest QB ever selected for the Pro Bowl.

His unpredictability drove fans wild, but nothing worried Favre. "My game is getting flipped at the line of scrimmage--running the ball, getting up limping and throwing the next pass for a touchdown," he says.

In 1995 he passed for 38 touchdowns, the third-best total of all time. Last season he topped himself, passing for 39 touchdowns while leading the Packers to their Super Bowl win. It was Green Bay's first title since Super Bowl II in 1967.

We sent Contributing Editor Kevin Cook to huddle with Favre. Cook reports:

"We met at a golf course in New Jersey. I also spoke with him at a private airport, a hotel and at his humongous new home in Green Bay. Favre lives like a jet-setter, but he's still as down-home as it gets. One night I bought him an Amstel Light and he almost threw his arm out wrestling with the bottle cap. For all his fame and money, he remains a twist-top kind of guy.

"During football season he lives in a mansion by a creek in southwest Green Bay, where Brittany Favre, 9, answered the door and ran away. I also met Brett's wife, Deanna, who is as petite and angular as he is big and meaty.

"We sat in his den and talked for hours. His big-screen TV was blank, but there were reminders of NFL action all around: game balls, player-of-the-week citations, a big photo of a Favre touchdown pass to his buddy Mark Chmura, the Packers tight end.

"His keen eye for detail surprised me until I remembered his history. Favre was nobody until he learned to read NFL defenses, to read the future in the twitch of a corner-back's leg. It is a task he often performs with 280-pound Lions and Bears in his face. How tuned to detail is Favre? He says that he sometimes sees a play unfold in the instant between the snap and his receivers' first steps.

"Favre isn't as famous as he probably should be. Green Bay, population 96,000, is the league's smallest media market. His family's legal problems haven't helped his image, and his own rehab stint surely cost him endorsements. With so much to celebrate and regret, he is a sadder but wiser young man these days.

"Of course, he'll still spray you with shaving cream.

"Shortly before his triumphal visit to the White House, Brett told me he planned to give Bill Clinton 'a few choice words' about taxes. That's where we picked up the next time we met."

Playboy: Did you straighten out the president on taxes?

Favre: Aw, what do I know? I let it go. And whoever's in the president's seat, Republican or Democrat, it works out the same. The more you make, the more they take. I know I wouldn't want Bill Clinton's job. Us athletes think we don't have any privacy--that man can't pee without 30 people watching.

Playboy: What did you think of the White House?

Favre: Awesome security. It's like an airport; it takes 20 minutes to get the team through the metal detectors. We're getting checked over by security while a crowd of Packers fans is cheering us.

Playboy: Cheeseheads in D.C.?

Favre: They're everywhere now. I'll go to New Jersey and see more Packers fans than Giants fans. I try to enjoy it because it could all be out the window next year. When a guy says, "You're my favorite quarterback," sometimes I want to say, "Yeah, right. Where were you two years ago?"

Playboy: Did you hang out with President Clinton?

Favre: The team waited around for an hour. Then the handlers showed me and Reggie White, Mike Holmgren and our team president, Bob Harlan, what to do when Clinton came in. Where to stand, how to present him with a Packers jacket. That's when I saw him on the putting green. I looked through the trees and saw the president out there in his suit and tie, with his security guys all around, putting. I'd never seen a man play golf in a suit.

Playboy: Had you met him before?

Favre: Last season he gave a talk in Green Bay, then came to Lambeau Field to see us. We had a little take-your-guard-down moment. He called me off to the side and said, "I've kept up with you. I know what you've been through." I'd had some troubles: my brother going to jail, me going to rehab. He said he wished me well. So it was nice going to the White House as Super Bowl winners. I said, "Good seeing you again." He said, "You had a great year, Brett. I was pulling for you."

Playboy: Packers tight end Mark Chmura, a rabid conservative, boycotted the White House trip.

Favre: Mark was pissing into the wind. We all got on him for it. We all said, "Right, Chmura, like the White House gives a shit. The president is losing sleep because he won't get to meet Mark Chmura." I think Mark missed something good. We got to see where the president works and putts.

Playboy: What other perks do you get for two MVP awards and a Super Bowl?

Favre: Getting treated better by guys I look up to. Now when I meet guys like Dan Marino and Jim Kelly, they treat me like one of them. If I'm in a restaurant with my wife, they'll come over and sit by me. We'll have a drink together. Three years ago those guys probably wouldn't have talked to me. Before 1995 no one really gave a shit. Now it's, "Brett, great year, good to see you."

Playboy: Are they phonies?

Favre: That's just how the league works. To have a guy like Marino or John Elway or Steve Young or Joe Montana talk to you, you have to earn it. Now I've done it. It's nice to fit in.

Playboy: Who do you think is the next great quarterback?

Favre: I hope I am for a while. I would say that the best young quarterback is still in college: Peyton Manning. In the pros, Drew Bledsoe can be a great one, Mark Brunell, too. Trent Dilfer is a good quarterback. And Ty Detmer--he's my sleeper.

Playboy: Last year's Super Bowl clinched your status. Were you nervous before the game?

Favre: I was sick. I caught the flu on Thursday, three days before the game. That night was the worst. Had the hotel room up to 80 degrees, but I was freezing under the covers. Finally the fever broke, though I was still weak on Friday. But I said, "Shit, I am not going to let this flu kill me." Took my brother Scott and some friends to Bourbon Street. We ate oysters and shrimp, drank a few beers and had a big time. It was what I needed. Got up the next day ready to play football.

Playboy: It would have made news if people had seen you with a beer. You were reportedly not allowed to drink as a condition of your rehab.

Favre: We had a private room. It cost a few thousand dollars, but it was cheap for the fun I had. Those are the times you realize how much the spotlight takes away from you. You'll pay $5000 for a room where you can be yourself for a while.

Playboy: What was your pulse rate an hour before the Super Bowl?

Favre: My heart was going a mile a minute. Then [backup quarterback] Jim McMahon said, "I've got an idea." Mc-Mahon had already won his Super Bowl with the Bears and he knows how to stay loose. People say Jim is a dick, but we're similar; we're both who-gives-a-shit guys. I had his poster on my wall when I was little. Before the Super Bowl McMahon starts throwing footballs at the nameplates on the lockers, knocking guys' names off. Pretty soon we're all doing it. Me, McMahon and a bunch of other guys. Balls are flying all over the room. Holmgren comes in and says, "What the hell is this?"

Playboy: When did you know you'd won Super Bowl XXXI?

Favre: Second play of the game. After that touchdown pass, I threw the way I wanted all day. The strange thing was how it wasn't as vivid as I expected. No disrespect to New England, but I knew we were better and would win. So the Super Bowl was anticlimactic. I tried to work up some emotion, but I guess I'd let it all out during the season. Now it was just phew!--relief.

Playboy: Did you dream about Super Bowls as a kid?

Favre: My brothers and I did. Sundays we'd watch pro football on TV, then go out and pretend we were Archie Manning or Roger Staubach. My dad was the high school football and baseball coach. We'd go see his teams play, and those guys were my heroes. I saw the catcher adjusting his cup, so I'd reach down and play with my balls, too. I tried chewing tobacco, since Dad and all his players did it. I got sicker than dog shit. My little brother, though--that son of a bitch could chew and spit when he was three years old.

Playboy: Did your dad punish you for it?

Favre: He's a tough guy, Irvin Favre. He looks like Sergeant Carter on Gomer Pyle. But he let us sow our wild oats a little. When I dipped tobacco and threw up he said, "That'll teach you."

Playboy: Is it true you never cried when he spanked you?

Favre: My dad would whip my ass with anything from a yardstick to a black rubber hose. I deserved it. Once I shot one of my brothers with a BB gun. Then I hit him on the head with a brick. I hit the other brother with a baseball bat. It hurt, getting whipped, but I wasn't a crier. I faked it. I didn't want more spanking, so I would fake crying when my dad tore up my ass. Then he'd go away and I would laugh.

Playboy: Were you always good at sports?

Favre: I could always throw. Even as a kid I could break a window from 50 yards. My brothers and I slept in the same room. This was way down on the river in Mississippi. It got so dark you couldn't see the brother next to you. We'd lie there and talk about the home run we were going to hit or the football game we were going to have. There was a little weight set by the bed, and I would pump weights in the dark. Scott and Jeff laughed at me.

Playboy: Your bayou background made people see you as a hillbilly. Deion Sanders called you Country Time.

Favre: I brought some of that on myself. Coming from college at little old Southern Mississippi, I wanted to get noticed. Even if I wasn't from Alabama or Notre Dame, I felt I was the best quarterback in college football. But, then, who doesn't think that?

Playboy: Actually, it's unusual.

Favre: I thought I needed something to get me over the top. That's why I told reporters I wrestled alligators. But it wasn't true and it made me look like a goofy redneck. I was like Terry Bradshaw when he came out of college, supposedly this dumb hillbilly. Bradshaw had to win four Super Bowls before people finally figured out that he was a bright guy.

Playboy: How smart are you?

Favre: Probably brighter than a lot of people think. I am smart and hardnosed and hardworking enough to play the game. I think I'm a hell of a football player. It's getting to where guys on other teams say, "Shoot, you're not so dumb after all."

Playboy: You always had the arm for the job.

Favre: In high school I used to bet the other guys five dollars they couldn't catch a ball I threw. They went to the far end of the hallway, I threw my hardest and they couldn't catch it. That really got my rocks off.

Playboy: Did you play other sports?

Favre: My first thought as a kid was to be a major-league pitcher. I threw hard, in the low 90s, but nobody knew where it was going. I played basketball and was awful. Couldn't shoot at all. Couldn't dribble without watching the ball. But with football I found my calling. It's a good game for someone who will go out and knock himself silly to get a win.

Playboy: Take us back to your youth in Kiln, Mississippi. You didn't really wrestle alligators--

Favre: They were around, though. We had four dogs eaten by alligators. We lost a Labrador just last year. Lucky was his name. A 13-footer got him.

Playboy: One big chomp and Lucky was gone?

Favre: Alligators don't eat a dog right away. First they roll it around and let it writhe awhile before they take it down. Our family was always familiar with alligators. One time three of them were in the backyard. My brother Scott and I got a pack of Oreo cookies. We threw it in the river and watched them tear it up. After that they'd be there when we came home from school. If we didn't have Oreos we'd throw hot dogs and bread. Then one day Daddy comes home and the alligators are up on the bank by the house, waiting for their cookies. My dad went berserk. He shot all three of them.

Playboy: You fatten them up, and he kills them.

Favre: I doubt that he killed them. It's hard as hell to kill an alligator with two or three shots. But they did go back in the water.

Playboy: You definitely have an unusual family history.

Favre: One of my grandfathers was a full-blooded Indian. The other grandfather, Benny French, was 27 years older than his second wife. In fact she went to the school prom with old Benny's son, but she ended up marrying Benny.

Playboy: Making her the stepmother of your uncle, her prom date. Did it make for tense family reunions?

Favre: Oh, no. Everyone gets along great.

Playboy: You and your wife, Deanna, were childhood sweethearts.

Favre: Deanna and I went to catechism together when we were seven. We started dating when I was an eighth grader. She was my prom date all three years in high school.

Playboy: Few fans know how bumpy your road to stardom was. You've had family troubles of one sort or another since you were a teenager.

Favre: I was 18 and Deanna was 19 when she got pregnant. People say, "You damn ass, making her look bad. Why didn't you marry her?" But we weren't ready for that. We never would have made it. Five years later we'd be like 90 percent of the people who get married for that reason--divorced and hating each other.

Playboy: How did you handle being teen parents?

Favre: We agreed to love our daughter and take care of her without getting married. When I was at Southern Miss I went out partying with the guys, then drove all night to see Deanna and Brittany. Here I was, 20 years old, changing diapers in the middle of the night and playing football the next day. When I got to the Falcons I would drive down the old back roads after midnight to see Deanna and Brittany, then drive back and play on Sunday. Sometimes Deanna and I couldn't stand each other. We dated other people. We didn't get married till last year, after Brittany, who's now nine, kept asking us to do it.

Playboy: Are you a fun dad?

Favre: I let Brittany wear my Pro Bowl jersey. It hangs down to her ankles like a dress. She also rides on my back when I do push-ups. Try doing 30 or 40 of those with 80 pounds on your back. It will get you in shape.

Playboy: How worried will you be when she starts dating?

Favre: I have thought about that. I know my daughter could get pregnant someday. I just don't want it to happen until ... well, ever! [Laughs]

Playboy: At the age of 28, you have already suffered almost half a dozen concussions. You have had numerous surgeries in addition to the usual aches and pains.

Favre: My pain threshold is pretty high.

Playboy: NFL players are supposed to ignore pain.

Favre: Football demands that more than any other sport. It's so violent it is unbelievable. But we choose to play, so I don't bitch and complain if I wake up sore the next day. It pisses me off when guys sue the NFL after their careers are over, saying it's the league's fault they got hurt. It's a risky game. If you can't accept that, don't play.

Playboy: Some blame NFL doctors for handing out pain pills like candy.

Favre: I don't blame football one bit. My trouble with painkillers was my own problem.

Playboy: How did you become addicted to Vicodin?

Favre: You want to play. You don't want to give the other quarterback a shot at your job. I also have a streak going. I have played 80-some games in a row, the most in the league. The record is 118 and I plan on breaking it. I never took painkillers on game day. People think I was playing on them. I would like to see anyone take a couple Vicodin and try to play football. Shoot, you can't walk a straight line.

Playboy: What do they do?

Favre: Numb you. Plus they made me a little goofy. I took a fancy to them. There were times when I wasn't hurting but I took them anyway. And got them from other guys on the team. That's when I realized it was getting out of hand. I was taking them because I liked them.

Playboy: Last year you were recovering from ankle surgery when you had a seizure. Brittany said, "Is Daddy dying?" What happened?

Favre: Now, people have seizures all the time. By then I was off the Vicodin. The team doctors knew I'd taken a fancy to those. They gave me Demerol for the ankle. The Demerol kept me from sleeping. I wouldn't sleep all night, and finally the lack of sleep caused a seizure.

Playboy: In any case the league sent you to a rehab center in Topeka, Kansas after you admitted your Vicodin addiction.

Favre: That was not my idea. I thought I could stop on my own.

Playboy: Did you go to meetings? Did you say, "My name is Brett and I'm a pill popper"?

Favre: I sat there and never talked. But I did meet some good people in rehab. Bank presidents, CEOs. I learned that a lot of people who have trouble with drugs are bright. They have money and intelligence. Other people might put them on a pedestal, and they want a way to get down. To get lost. Me, maybe I wanted to hide from celebrity status. I still wasn't used to it. Maybe that's why I took pain pills and sat up all night watching TV, escaping everything. I don't know. They had a gym at the rehab center. I had nothing to do but work out, so I got in the best shape of my career.

Playboy: You were strong enough to knock a hole in a wall.

Favre: I thought they should have let me out sooner.

Playboy: After 46 days your Vicodin addiction was supposedly under control. Yet the NFL announced that you could no longer drink alcohol. Why?

Favre: League policy. They think drinking will make you want painkillers again.

Playboy: True?

Favre: Maybe for some people, but not me. I could drink ten beers with you and I still wouldn't want a pain pill. Trust me, I've had enough of them.

Playboy: Was it galling to be put through urine tests? Were you tempted to sneak a beer?

Favre: Sure, it pissed me off. And every once in a while I did have a beer. I knew how the test worked. Drugs stay in your system forever, but not beer. If you drink a beer tonight, it won't show up on the test at nine tomorrow morning.

Playboy: Any other rehab war stories?

Favre: They couldn't believe how much gas I had. I have been known to fart, and with the good fruit diet we got in Topeka I was fully loaded. I was killing them. They tried to stop me. They gave me some Beano, but it didn't work. They had to give up and open the windows.

Playboy: Suppose you jam your shoulder this year. Do you take aspirin?

Favre: Motrin. Three or four Motrin.

Playboy: Long-term plans?

Favre: I wonder how many more years I should play. It might take only one hit to mess you up. I want to be able to run around and toss a baseball with my kids when I'm 40.

Playboy:How does a concussion feel?

Favre: It doesn't hurt. You just don't know who you are for a minute. I have had three or four concussions, and maybe a couple more I don't know about. Sometimes you get hit and knocked silly, but it might not be a concussion. I might be concerned if I had three or four more. Or if they started happening easier. But that hasn't been the case so far. Every concussion I've had, I really got the shit knocked out of me. So I'm not worried.

Playboy: Your first major injury happened off the field. In 1990 you nearly died in a car crash.

Favre: I had my seat belt on but still wound up in the back seat. My brother Scott was in the car behind me. He said it looked like a plane wreck, glass and pieces of trees all around. Scott had his golf clubs with him. He got out his putter and broke the car window to get to me. I had one of those concussions where you don't know who or where you are, but I was talking. I kept asking him if I could ever play football again.

Playboy: Your injuries soon got worse.

Favre: After a week in the hospital I had terrible stomach pains. They did emergency surgery. The doctor went in and found 30 inches of my intestine had died. They took it out and sewed me up. I played five weeks later.

Playboy: By then you were 30 pounds underweight, yet you led the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles to a last-minute upset of Alabama. The Alabama coach called it "a miracle" and you an instant "legend." Since then you've made a habit of pulling off miracle plays, yet you often poor-mouth yourself.

Favre: I'm scared people will think I have a big head. Sure, I claim I don't give a shit what anybody says, but I actually hope they'll say I'm still just a good old guy like I was in high school. It's the truth.

Playboy: Ever find yourself scratching your butt just to prove it?

Favre: [Laughs] No, that comes natural. If I'm on a golf outing with Marino and Kelly and they're getting ready to hit, I'll rip a big fart. They say, "That's awful!" But why? Everybody does it. Just because you're a professional athlete or a politician doesn't mean you stop taking dumps and scratching your ass. Of course, there's a time and place for humor like that. I don't go to corporate events, where everyone is in a suit and tie, and start cutting farts. Not loud ones, anyway.

Playboy: You were once the only NFL star who still lived with his parents.

Favre: That was my first two years in the league. I remember my dad and I wore the same kind of underwear: BVDs. We called them grippers because they grip your balls real good. So to keep from getting them mixed up I would write BF or my number, four, on mine, and Irvin wrote DAD on his. Then one day I'm in the locker room when somebody sees the word DAD written on my briefs. Picked up the wrong ones at home. It's bad enough to fit into your dad's underwear; you don't want the whole team to see it.

Playboy: When Atlanta drafted you in 1991, the Jets were poised to take you on the next pick. Would you have liked being Broadway Brett?

Favre: I didn't want to be. You can own New York if you do great, but if you screw up the media and fans will disown you. Atlanta was closer to home. I was relieved to hear, "Atlanta takes Favre with the 33rd pick."

Playboy: How did you spend your bonus?

Favre: I put about 70 percent of it in stocks and bonds, conservative stuff, and bought a $30,000 maroon Acura. I'm pretty tight with money. Today I have a small house in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, near where I grew up, plus a house in Green Bay and some land back home. Deanna drives a Lexus and I drive a truck. I wasn't so conservative off the field. I was immature. Being third string was no fun, so I said what the hell and went partying. Which I don't regret. It probably helped get me out of Atlanta, where they weren't going to play me.

Playboy: Did you fail in Atlanta?

Favre: No. They didn't give me that chance. If I had had the chance, would I have done the job for the Falcons? I don't know. I still didn't know how to read defenses, how to drop back and look around and see the defense unfold.

Playboy: Did the Falcons veterans put you through the usual rookie hazing?

Favre: I fought it. I was the only rookie that year who didn't get his head shaved. They got me back by putting all my clothes in the shower. On rookie day you had to stand up and sing your school song. Southern Miss didn't have a school song, so I sang a country song. The whole team was yelling Yee-ha! at me. It was embarrassing.

Playboy: Yet you bravely fought them off when they tried to shave your head.

Favre: I hid in my room.

Playboy: How do the Packers haze their rookies?

Favre: We don't, Mike's policy is, we're one team from the first day you get here.

Playboy: What was your quarterback rating as a rookie?

Favre: Zero. That year I was 0--5, with two interceptions. Want to know how bad that is? Today I am the third- or fourth-highest rated passer in history. I'd be one spot better without those five passes.

Playboy: How do you read a defense?

Favre: It takes years to learn. First you need to keep thinking while Bruce Smith or Charles Haley or Leon Lett or Kevin Greene chases you all over the field. You don't see defensive players so much as feel their presence. All I'm looking at is the receiver coming across. We have a three-step drop, a five-step and a seven-step. With a seven-step drop you can really sit back and read what's happening out there, wait for it all to unfold. With a shorter drop, you have to think faster. But now, after five years in our offense, I can tell if a receiver's going to be open even before he makes his move.

Playboy: What makes a great scrambler?

Favre: Take someone off the street and throw him out there with the pocket breaking down, and he would be scared to death. That's when I feel comfortable. It's a seventh sense--you feel someone coming behind you and you dodge him. Awesome, isn't it? I love watching those plays on film. "Damn, how'd I do that?" It makes you kind of ejaculate on yourself.

Playboy: Like your shovel pass against Carolina--

Favre: Kevin Greene had me tackled. He was bringing me down with my arms pinned, but I shoveled it out for a touchdown. And Greene says, "Wow." That meant a lot to me, hearing that from him.

Playboy: Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve?

Favre: Throwing a touchdown left-handed. I'm waiting for the right moment.

Playboy: You are also a noted clubhouse prankster.

Favre: I pull guys' pants down in front of everyone. I'll put Heet ointment in your jock. Shaving cream in your helmet. If a guy's taking a dump, I like to go over the top of the stall and pour a five-gallon bucket of ice water on him. Oh, that's miserable. I got my buddy Frank Winters that way. He was halfway through a good dump when I poured the ice. Stopped him cold. He said he couldn't finish.

Playboy: Do your victims ever manage to exact any revenge?

Favre: They ain't sneaky enough. There was one time: We're sitting in a meeting when I feel my balls start to burn. They got me with Heet in the jock. But I wouldn't react. Imagine that burning, man--20 minutes of it, but I never let on. Meeting ended and I ran for a wet towel.

Playboy: In the NFL grown men not only play pranks, they room together. That was once an economy move, now it's just tradition. Why not room by yourself? You can afford it.

Favre: Winters and me, we've roomed on the road for six years now. He's my center. We're like brothers. Some guys room alone, but I need people around me. Guys, mostly. My wife gets mad because I can't go off on a business trip without asking four or five buddies along.

Playboy: Are men more pack oriented?

Favre: Women don't understand us. When guys play golf we'll sit in the clubhouse afterward for hours. Have some beers, go over our scores, laugh and joke. Nobody wants to go home. It's like that with a football team on the road. Frank and I are typical roomies. We watch movies in the hotel room, talk about the game, fart and burp and throw our clothes on the floor. I have just started to think about retiring someday. When football is over I'll probably miss the jokes and locker room bullshit more than the games.

Playboy: You and center Winters have an odd partnership.

Favre: I have to put my hand on his ass a hundred times a day. And he'll fart, too. I can't do anything about it. You can't call a time-out. You have to go through with the play.

Playboy: Do Green Bay's cold winters bother you?

Favre: It gets so cold it's funny. One game, Mike Holmgren called a time-out. He was yelling instructions, but I burst out laughing. Mike had a big snot bubble frozen to his mustache.

Playboy: Ever meet your fellow Southerner and Green Bay hero Bart Starr?

Favre: Bart is a friend. I would take any advice I could get from him, but that's not his way. All he has said about football is, "Brett, you brought back the Packers tradition."

Playboy: A big part of that tradition is Reggie White. You helped to persuade him to sign with the Packers in 1993.

Favre: Shit, I was tired of him chasing my ass.

Playboy: In his Philadelphia Eagles days White once slammed you to the turf, separating your shoulder. He was trying to hurt you, wasn't he? To knock you out of the game--

Favre: That's his job. I tried to get loose, but there was no way. Yes, he did it on purpose. He'll tell you that. But it's perfectly legal. In football you try to win.

Playboy: What if he had gouged your eye?

Favre: Now, when you start poking eyeballs and ripping people's teeth out, that's pushing it a little.

Playboy: How did you woo Reggie White?

Favre: All I said was, "Reggie, this is small-town America. There's no better place to play football. Come play with us and you'll see." Every team wanted Reggie, but we got him. We got the best defensive player ever, by far.

Playboy: Better than Lawrence Taylor?

Favre: Oh yeah. Maybe the best player, period. Certainly in the top five. I was blown away when Reggie came to Green Bay and said we would win the Super Bowl. That helped me believe it. And now when Saturday rolls around and we all jump on the team plane, I feel like we could take on Iran or Russia and win. We're the Green Bay Packers! Want to hear something weird? When I fly commercial by myself, I get scared. But I feel safe on the team plane. Like we could all rescue one another if the plane went down.

Playboy: What does the Reverend Reggie White think of your clubhouse pranks?

Favre: He likes them. I curse and drink beer around him. You can tell Reggie a dirty joke, too, as long as it's not about him. He told me he'd drive me home if I ever went out and drank too much.

Playboy: Can you win another Super Bowl?

Favre: We've built something good here in Green Bay. We've kept getting better and better, and now we are on a plateau where we can't get any better. Now we have to maintain. If I can maintain my performance we'll win again. One day I might be seen as the best quarterback ever.

Playboy: Do you worry about your health?

Favre: If we were to win three Super Bowls I might think about retiring. Going out on top. The older I get, the less elusive I'll be. I have to think about Deanna and our little girl.

Playboy: Is that why you finally got married last year?

Favre: I couldn't keep Deanna and Brittany waiting forever. Little Brittany kept asking why mommy and daddy weren't married. I said I didn't know if I was ready. Finally I was at the rehab center with 46 days to think, and I realized something. I was always waiting to wake up someday and be grown up. That was never going to happen.

Playboy: Has marriage changed your life?

Favre: It's better, but there are surprises. Living in a house full of women I can't walk around like an old slob. I thought Deanna and I would do everything together once we got married. I would (continued on page 170) Brett Favre(continued from page 68) come home and find dinner cooked, everything rosy. But we hardly do anything together. Before you live with someone you're always trying to get together. After, you're always going different directions. She goes to work out, I go play golf. So when guys say they can't wait to be married, I tell them it's not what they think. You might be all over each other the first year, but there will be times when you can't stand each other, and more times when you go your separate ways. And this is a marriage I love. Wearing this ring ... it makes me feel like I've arrived a little bit as a man. I'm more of a grown man now.

Playboy: Do you want more kids? Are you thinking of raising a little QB of your own?

Favre: I want to have a couple of boys. We've been trying, but Deanna got sick and the doctor said that if we want more children we'd better have them fast. She may have to have surgery, have her ovaries out. That was a blow to us, hearing that. Brittany wants a little brother. She wrote us a note the other day. I want a baby brother. With a picture of her holding the baby. I will take care of it, she wrote. And your heart just [he touches his chest]. I told her, "Brittany, we're working on it."

Playboy: Have you told your daughter where babies come from?

Favre: No way. I couldn't. Of course Deanna says, "I'm not telling her, you tell her."

Playboy: Back in Mississippi, your family had a terrible time last year. Your sister, Brandi, a former Miss Teen Mississippi, was involved in a drive-by shooting.

Favre: She was giving another girl and the girl's boyfriend a ride home. The boyfriend had had an argument with another guy at a party, and the boyfriend shot at him from the car. Brandi told the truth and she was fine.

Playboy: Your older brother, Scott, had more serious trouble.

Favre: Scott and Mark Haverty, my best friend, were in the same car. Scott was driving. They stopped on a train track.

Playboy: A train hit them. Mark Haverty died. Your brother recovered from his injuries, but the police said he was driving drunk. He was convicted and sentenced for causing Mark's death.

Favre: But Mark's family testified on Scott's behalf. That's unusual in a vehicular manslaughter case. They felt Scott had suffered enough. It could have happened to a lot of guys. So Scott was sentenced to 15 years, with 14 of it suspended. He got a year of house arrest. He had to wear an ankle bracelet that told the cops where he was.

Playboy: Should Scott have arranged for a designated driver?

Favre: This was a mistake between two buddies. I mean, there's nothing good about drinking and driving, but who hasn't done it? They were unlucky. It could just as easily have been Scott who was killed. If I had been home that night it could have been me.

Playboy: Then, last May, Scott was arrested again. He was charged with violating his probation. What happened?

Favre: Hell, Scott didn't do anything wrong. It was Memorial Day. His probation officer said he could visit the family. He was going over there to help my dad fix the fishing boat. It's only two and a half miles, but there was a roadblock. Now, whoever heard of a roadblock at 7:30 in the morning? But there it was. The police told him he was driving with a suspended license. He had been notified by mail, like they said, but we get so much mail at my parents' house, and most of it's for me. My mom got the letter but didn't open it. So that morning they arrested Scott. Handcuffed him. He called me in Green Bay. Said they were sending him to prison. He was crying on the phone. He said he wanted to kill himself. I said, "Bullshit. It's a misunderstanding." But the next afternoon, my brother was gone. The judge says he's going to prison for 13 years. Thirteen years! That's like death. We're hoping the judge will hear our side. There's a glimmer of hope he'll give Scott a lesser sentence. I can imagine what he's thinking in a prison cell right now. He's thinking about Mark. If they'd taken a different turn that night, everything would be OK. Our mom's doing bad. Seeing your son go to prison, that's hard to take.

Playboy: She had one son in prison and one in the Super Bowl.

Favre: I feel guilty about that. Maybe I should just sit instead of playing, show more remorse and compassion. But that won't help Scott. So I occupy myself. I played golf most days until training camp started. Now here I am in my fairy-tale world playing football while Scott sits in prison, and I have done more bad things than he's ever dreamed of. I just wish I had my brother back. I wish I had my best friend Mark back, too. When I'm thinking about that and people talk about the Super Bowl, I want to slap them. I would give up my ring in a heartbeat to trade places with my brother. [In early August Scott Favre was released from the Hancock County jail after a hearing determined he had been wrongfully jailed.]

Playboy: Was it difficult for Scott, being your older brother?

Favre: We never talked about it. Back when he was the high school quarterback, I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to be him. Later on, maybe it was the other way. I'm sure we all wish we could be a Super Bowl quarterback. Sometimes I felt bad when people asked him how it felt to be my brother, like it was some honor. He told them that he beat me at golf.

Playboy: How have you managed to win two MVPs and a Super Bowl with so much on your mind?

Favre: Sometimes when I'm alone in my truck I ask myself that question. I think I have had to grow up more than most 28-year-olds. I'm still cheerful and happy in the locker room or when Deanna and I have guests over. But sometimes it feels like I'm faking it. At our team meeting today I looked around at the guys laughing. That was me a few years ago, when the worst thing that could happen was an interception. The games are still great. Playing football on Sunday, I'm gone. That might be why I perform so well. It's so good to get lost in the game for three hours.

Playboy: Football is your escape?

Favre: Maybe that's how I got in trouble with pain pills. When the game ends you have to go back to thinking about all the damn things in your life. The pills help you not think.

Playboy: Do you have phobias?

Favre: I'm a little scared of the dark. It was so pitch black at night where I grew up, I like a little light on when I sleep.

Playboy: The two-time MVP sleeps with a night light?

Favre: I'll leave the TV on. I usually watch TV until it watches me.

Playboy: Anything funny about being a football hero?

Favre: People send you strange things. My second year in Green Bay I started getting hate mail and love mail. I really felt I'd arrived when girls started sending naked pictures. One was wearing nothing but a cowboy hat.

Playboy: No nude cheeseheads?

Favre: Actors are funny, too. Charlie Sheen and David Spade are friends of mine. Darius Rucker from Hootie ? the Blowfish, too. The athletes all wish they could sing and dance, and the singers and actors wish they could play sports.

Playboy: Can you dance?

Favre: I can moonwalk a bit. I watch MTV and dance to the videos. It's pretty awful.

Playboy: Your childhood home is now a tourist attraction.

Favre: Things are changing. My mom redid the room my brothers and I grew up in. She took down all our sports posters, even my poster of McMahon and Walter Payton. At least she didn't throw it away. She got all our old stuff laminated. Fans drive up and down our little road nonstop. We finally paved it. I never thought we'd have a real road. The county wouldn't do it, so we paid for it: half a mile of paved road for $40,000.

Playboy: What do you and Irv talk about? He must have popped his lid when you won the Super Bowl.

Favre: He never said so. My dad and I were never big talkers. He never gave me the birds-and-the-bees talk.

Playboy: Mom did that?

Favre: No, I got by on hearsay.

Playboy: Do you and your dad talk only about football?

Favre: We're both hardheaded. Not very sentimental. My father and I have never sat down and had a long talk like you and I are doing. But we get along. It's a great relationship. Last year after we won the NFC championship game--we're going to the Super Bowl!--Irv came to the locker room. He was crying. I was still on a high from the game, laughing and hollering, but he had tears in his eyes and I remember he hit me. Kind of punched me and said, "Good job, good job."

Playboy: How was he after the Super Bowl?

Favre: Back to form. He told me, "Next year you've got to be even better."

Playboy: Whom did you root for in the Super Bowls you didn't make?

Favre: I haven't watched one since I got to the NFL. If I'm not playing, I don't want to see it.

Playboy: You called Reggie White one of the top five players ever. Who are the other four?

Favre: Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Bart Starr, Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke.

Playboy: That's five. Want to keep going?

Favre: Deion Sanders. Lynn Swann, Roger Staubach, Archie Manning, Mike Singletary. Ray Guy, the great punter. Let's see, who else? Johnny Unitas, George Blanda, Deacon Jones, L. C. Greenwood, Walter Payton.

Playboy: Does Deion belong in that group?

Favre: Yes. I don't attack Deion's ass when we play. He's too good. Is he a showboat? No, because it isn't showboating when you can get the job done. It's style. Deion has style and he'll do anything for a teammate. He bought clothes for me in Atlanta. I was a complete unknown. Deion takes one look at my clothes and says, "I'll show you how to dress." He bought me two tailored suits.

Playboy: Turning you into the clothes-horse you are today.

Favre: I prefer walking around in my underwear, but I can wear a tuxedo. And I still have those two tailored suits.

Playboy: Do you have any good memories of the rehab center?

Favre: I learned to play piano. Started off with one hand, then put them together. Just trying to do it makes you look at real musicians with amazement. Football is easy, that shit is hard.

Playboy: What did you play?

Favre: I learned to play Ode to Joy.

Playboy: How much more can you achieve in the NFL?

Favre: Winning another Super Bowl. Going into the Hall of Fame. I expect to be in the Hall of Fame. But mostly I hope that in 20 or 30 years people will say, "That goddamn Favre, you had to watch yourself around him. He'd throw ice or put something in your jock, but on Sunday that son of a bitch was ready to play."

Football is so violent it is unbelievable. But we choose to play, so I don't bitch if I'm sore the next day.