Sometimes, meeting your heroes isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You go through childhood, and perhaps your adult years, holding a celebrity, an athlete, a political figure perhaps, in high esteem, and then you meet them, and you wonder what all the fuss was about. So while watching a one hour documentary about your hero isn’t exactly like meeting him or her, you are subject to learning more than you bargained for.
That’s probably how Green Bay Packer fans felt watching the recently released The Fall of Favre documentary on Netflix, a 63 minute gutting of the Packers legend, which delved deep into his active nightlife, his creepy harassment of at least one woman with his NFL employer, and the allegations of his role in misappropriating welfare funds in his home state of Mississippi.
Every football fan knows of the legend of Brett Favre, what he meant to the resurgence of the Green Bay Packers, and just how “gunslinger” his overall vibe was, when he was in the league. Unfortunately, there were times he took “gunslinger” a little too far. Just ask Jenn Sterger, the former New York Jets employee that Favre would not leave alone, with harassing texts and phone calls, trying like hell to get her to come to his hotel room, for months.
If you’re a football fan, watching the doc is a useful hour you’ll spend, as Favre’s off field life clearly fell under the category of “protected information” while he played in Green Bay. Outwardly, Favre was a happily married man, who ruled the small town of Green Bay. In actuality, he was a partier extraordinaire, a heavy drinker, who clearly wasn’t afraid to lunge outside the boundaries of his marriage.
This is one of those documentaries where very few come off looking good. The one person for whom I was most sympathetic was indeed Sterger, who rose to national fame when she was caught on camera in the crowd at a Florida Stat football game in 2005. She was a student at the time and built a cult following through the rise of social media, and photo shoots for Playboy and Maxim.
From there, Sterger found herself in the NFL, working for the Jets as a game day hostess. Unfortunately, she also found herself on the wrong end of months worth of Favre advances. She reported it to the Jets multiple times, and the team never did anything. In fact, after one year under contract, the Jets let Sterger’s contract run out without renewal.
Beyond Sterger, this was largely the story of several unsavory characters, with Favre being the biggest figure of all. For what it’s worth, here is my power ranking of the villains in this documentary:
5. PREVACUS
This is the drug company that Favre was involved with, the company that made a concussion treatment drug that may or may not have been adept at treating actual concussions. This we do know — they took over $2 million of welfare money from the state of Mississippi, and we have the arrests to prove it!
4. NEW YORK JETS
The Jets were Sterger’s employer when Favre, who was the team’s starting quarterback at the time, made several unwanted advances toward her. She reported the incidents, and nothing ever happened, aside from Sterger’s contract not getting renewed after one year. The team also had two massage therapists that were reportedly harassed by Favre. They reported it, and were ultimately let go by the team. Nice culture.
3. IRV FAVRE
Favre’s father gets a few mentions in this production, none of which are flattering. Peter King sums it up best when he says that you could talk to Irv after one of Brett’s games, and Brett could throw for 325 yards, three touchdowns and one interception, and Irv would dwell on the interception. Not a real positive influence.
2. AJ DAULERIO
Daulerio was the editor of quasi-journalistic website Deadspin back in 2010. At that time, Sterger was working for Deadspin, and in an off the record conversation, she shared the story of Favre’s harassment of her, including telling Daulerio about the picture of Favre’s penis that the QB sent her. Daulerio ran with this conversation, and broke the story about Favre’s penis pic, violating Sterger’s confidence and essentially ending her career.
1. BRETT FAVRE
Everything that would make Favre kind of scummy while he was a member of the Packers is sort of implied or assumed. Bottom line is that the dude was a party animal, who, while married, may have left a trail of female Wisconsin mistresses a mile long. We just don’t have the data. What we do know is that, once outside the Green Bay cocoon, he unraveled. He harassed Sterger endlessly, to the extent that, even without the penis picture he sent via email, it would have been a creepy story. Favre denies knowingly diverting the welfare funds in Mississippi to causes that were near and dear to him (and not at all charitable), and will sue anyone who says otherwise. That said, there sure does seem to be a lot of smoke that he knew something.
Again, the Fall of Favre documentary can be viewed on Netflix. Here is the trailer:
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