Brett Favre would rather see grandsons play golf over football, talks concussions

Tom Schad | USA TODAY

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Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre said in a radio interview earlier this week that he would rather see his grandchildren play golf than football due to the dangers of concussions.

Favre, who produced a documentary on concussions that will premiere Thursday night, told The Rich Eisen Show that he dealt with the effects of head trauma regularly during his playing career and called it "a scary issue" for the future of the sport.

"I got three grandsons. I'm not going to encourage them to play football, I'm not going to discourage them, but I would much rather be a caddie for them in golf than watch them play football," Favre said on Tuesday's show. "And that's crazy. People say, 'I can't believe he would say that.' But you know, head injuries are going to continue. The quality of player is only going to go up, and that means concussions are not going to go down. So it's a scary issue."

In a separate conference call Wednesday to promote the short documentary, which is titled "Shocked: A Hidden Factor in the Sports Concussion Crisis," Favre revealed that he played through a concussion in the 2009 NFC championship game against the New Orleans Saints while he was a member of the Minnesota Vikings.

"In that game, there was some head ringing. There was some fogginess," Favre said in response to a question from a Minnesota radio station. "There were two times in which I was hit by Darren Sharper late — he lunged at my head — and both of them were pretty devastating hits, but I stayed in the game. One they threw a flag, one they didn’t.

"But yeah, if head ringing or fireworks going off is a concussion, yeah, I did have that. The game itself is violent. Things are going to happen. But that game in particular was probably the most violent that I've ever experienced."

Favre's documentary, in which he is both one of the subjects and the executive producer, looks in part at concussions that result from head-to-turf collisions. It will premiere Thursday night at 6:30 ET on Stadium, a multi-platform sports network.

Favre, who starred for the Green Bay Packers among stints with three other teams, is now 48 and has not played since 2010. He said he deals with occasional forgetfulness but isn't sure whether to attribute that to old age, lingering effects of head injuries or a combination of the two.

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"I couldn't even tell you how many times my ears were ringing, I saw stars, a little fogginess," Favre told The Rich Eisen Show. "That was pretty much every time I got hit, or my head hit the turf. And I'm sure most players could say that.

"What we're finding out is that's as bad, if not worse, than the knockout blow."

Favre said earlier this year that he's considered trying to become a coach or general manager in the NFL. He has also served as a high school assistant coach in Mississippi since retiring.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.

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