Brett Favre is an example of NFL hero worship gone wrong
For the better part of his 20 years in the NFL, the story of Brett Favre was tailor-made for a middle America that swoons over blue-collar football heroes.
We learned about his formative years in tiny Kiln, Mississippi, a town defined by the boom of the timber industry, decimated by the
Great Depression, then sustained by decades of illegal moonshining ingenuity. We heard tales about Favre being raised by a pair of
schoolteachers, then his serendipitous discovery as a high school football player while being coached by his dad, Irvin Favre. And of
course, we heard about the football hurdles, with Favre lucking into a single scholarship offer from Southern Mississippi despite
running an ill-fitting wishbone offense that rarely showcased the massive arm that would eventually deliver him to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
All of this would be part of Favre's tapestry as he carved out his illustrious two-decade NFL career, which included a Super Bowl win,
three straight league MVPs, countless passing records at his retirement, an iron man streak for consecutive starts that is unlikely to
ever be broken, and a ceaseless high tide of “gunslinger” compliments from John Madden and seemingly every other football analyst who ever laid eyes on him.