Reply to “Open Letter to Brett Favre”

Dear Nate,

Thank you for your kind words. I truly do love football and I always tried to act tough. Truth be told, brother, most of the time I was just scared shitless one of those gigantic linemen was gonna rip my head right outta my shoulder pads. When I was launching myself in front of defenders, I was very often just trying to save my ass.

I appreciate your belief in me, and what I do on the field. I respect the money you pay at the gate or to DirecTV to watch boys in men’s bodies play a game. I know you mean well, Nate, but you do not understand the addiction I—and many of other poor, deluded souls, you mentioned—have had to cope with during a Hall-of-Fame NFL career.

And stop pretending you know how to get the shit-throwin’ monkey on my back to stop torturing me. Believe me, I’ve tried. He doesn’t listen to reason.

You gotta understand, the withdrawal symptoms are awful, Nate.

You will never know what it is like to receive special treatment, even playing Pop Warner. I was barely eight years old and can still remember the other kids’ fathers tell my Dad how great I was. As I grew up and realized I was stronger than most kids were, I knew I could pick on the scrawny little shit heads and never get in trouble. In fact, one time, some little punk’s father came over to our house and thanked me for kicking his son’s ass.

Talk about a great childhood…

It started to feel too good, like the time I got addicted to painkillers. By the way, thank you for not mentioning that. (See what I mean about special treatment?) In fact, it felt so great; I started to believe the bullshit stories about how tough I was, you know, the stories the media would recycle after every great game I played. John Madden tells the most famous one: where a rookie marveled at how I “dove over four linemen to get the first punch in on some college kids” during a bar fight.

Lemme clue you in on something, Nate, if I had to dive over four figure-skating dwarves to throw a punch at Kimbo Slice that would have been brave. Diving over five 300-pound linemen to throw a punch is not tough. It’s like following hose-wielding firemen into a burning house and taking credit for putting out the fire by emptying your squirt gun.

It’s so easy for you to sit and write about how you hope I just up and chuck away the worship of total strangers, offers of unsolicited oral sex from cover girls, the free use of a decked out Dodge Ram 4×4s, and all the Gatorade I can drink?

You worry about your addictions; I’LL HANDLE MINE!

I’m sorry Nate. I’m sorry… But you don’t know how damn strong the monkey’s grip can be. Sometimes life is a sad process of simply changing the monkey on your back.

We can only hope they don’t evolve into apes and crush us.

I went shopping with Deanna the other day and only two kids and three adults begged me to sign a jersey or a hat. Hell, last year in New York, a Vatican Cardinal made me sign his collar. Ain’t nothin’ compared to the young, hot women who often corner me privately and beg me to sign their breasts. Many of the little darlin’s insist I hold each knocker as I sign it, so as not to smudge the tender little nipple.

Talk about pressure. When the fate of the worlds’ finest breasts are literally, in your hands, a man’s character is revealed. Certainly, you will never be entrusted with such a burden, but take it from me—it wears you down.

Truth is, Nate, none of my certain HOF career concerned my teammates, my family, my profession, or my legacy. My entire life as a professional —my ill-advised passes, late over the middle, my NFL interception and touchdown records, my self-created retirement soap operas—has been about one thing—ME.

More accurately, feeding the insatiable beast planted firmly on my back.

That gorilla’s appetite for approval, worship, and celebrity has made the past 17 years a magnificent, unbearable, joyous, pathetic, hell.

Honestly, the reason for my endless whiffwaffling is very simple: I am terribly frightened how empty my existence will be when it ends, when the soulless, starved, penny-eyed simian falls to the floor and I have nothing to remember but the shit he threw on my wall.

I just don’t know if I can take it.

Sincerely,

Brett Favre

• May 7, 2009 -- Open Letter to Brett Favre (2)
• November 25, 2008 -- EnEfElquality (0)
• January 29, 2009 -- Chicken Little Wears Purple (5)
• January 12, 2009 -- Divisional Round Dish (0)
• December 14, 2008 -- Playoff Picture Still Murky (0)