Packers: A special look back at the career of Brett Favre

Not one to shy away from controversial viewpoints, Brett Favre still knows how to make a headline. The retired icon played for a whopping 20 seasons in the NFL—a major bulk of that time, he played for the Green Bay Packers.

Born in the fall of 1969, Favre grew up in Gulfport, Mississippi. He played his high school football at Hancock North Central.

He would go on to have quite an impressive career at the University of Southern Mississippi—the team there known as the Southern Miss Golden Eagles.

He was drafted back in 1991…the 33rd pick of the second round, and his career with the NFL would start with the Atlanta Falcons.

Back in an interview last year with Tucker Carlson, Favre looked back on his childhood.

"There was a lot of hard work, a lot of spankings, yellings. But that was the way we grew up. My dad was coaching high school football since I was a little kid,” he said.

“He never felt sorry for me. No. I was probably treated the worst on the whole team. And you know, strangely, I got that. I didn't particularly like it, but I got it," Favre went on to say. 

Once he played with Green Bay, that same mentality was in play as far as his father was concerned, he said. "While I'm in Green Bay… when I really was playing exceptionally well, he would come to games. And after the game, he'd ride to the game with me in my truck, and he would ride back home after the game with me in the truck. And he would critique the way I played."

About his career with the Packers, he played with them from 1991 all the way until 2007. He would go on to become a Super Bowl champion with the Packers for the 1996 season. The Packers defeated the New England Patriots on that day.

Other accolades for Favre include: three-time MVP, an NFL offensive player of the year award, a four-time passing touchdown leader, and they retired his number 4 with the Packers.

The Packers were the ones to decide it was time for him to go in 2007, and as he told Sports Illustrated back in 2015, it was a source of frustration and anxiety for him; he didn't want to leave the team he'd spent so much time playing for.

He would go on to have seasons with the New York Jets (2008), and ultimately with the Minnesota Vikings (2009-2010) and would soon after call it a quits for his career, ultimately retiring in 2011 officially.

About the decision to retire, he stated: “No one's invincible…Things do catch up with you. There is a price to be paid. What that will be is yet to be seen. It may be from one violent hit. I don't know, but it's scary. Because you wonder, you can't help but wonder, what is that going to do to me?”

After his football career ended, he backtracked or went full circle, as the expression goes, returning to high school to coach the football team over at Oak Grove High School in Hattiesburg, Mississippi…mirroring his father in a sense.

Brett Favre was the very first NFL QB to garner for himself 10,000 passes, 6,000 completions, 500 touchdowns and an impressive number of victories over all 32 NFL teams during his storied career.

He suffered many concussions in his career and even played with said concussions on a number of occasions; he has spoken out about his own issues with memory loss because of said concussions, and even spoken about a need for awareness and has even stated that perhaps it's best not to allow children under 14 to play aggressive tackle football.

In the end, Favre can be called one of the greatest to ever play with the Green Bay Packers. And as we embark on a new season with a whole roster of young rookies ready to take on the rest of the NFL, it's great to look back on these legends that came before and see just what these youngsters can aspire to one day become.

And for Packers fans, hopefully that means becoming Super Bowl champs once again somewhere in the near future. Fingers crossed, folks.

More Packers news and analysis