First Person: Legendary NFL Quarterback Brett Favre on the Truth About Concussions in Football | Ep. 873
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Football is America's most popular sport by far. And the NFL comes back next week. But a dangerous element of the game continues plaguing this sport. A brand new documentary is detailing the horrors of CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, through the life of one former NFL player who tragically died of an overdose, accidental, after struggling with CTE.

The documentary is called Concussed the American Dream, and it's out right now on Apple TV and Amazon prime. And it's also available at concussedfilm.com legendary NFL quarterback. Brett Favre is an executive producer of concussed and he is the man behind this film, which I'll show you a preview of right here.

Former Hawkeye football star Tyler Sash diagnosed with CTE. I guess if my son was Tom Brady or Brett Favre or some of those guys, it would get a lot more attention from our country. Atlanta has selected Brett Favre, quarterback, Southern Mississippi. Would I have done it different had I known? I don't know that. Tyler just had kind of this magnetic personality.

I can't tell you how many times my head hit the turf. Concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury. The Giants rookie suffered a concussion in the NFC Championship game. Player down for the Giants. That's Sash. Well, I don't think he ever recovered from that. I unequivocally think there's a link between playing football and CTE. The stress and the trauma.

Players will not help themselves. They're brought up in a culture of denial. And that's scary. Tyler Sash's story is just absolutely heart-wrenching. And we meet his mom, we meet his sister, we meet his niece, his former coaches. You fall in love with this guy.

And it's tough because you know what's coming his way. You just don't know exactly how, but it's an important film. And there's a reason that Brett Favre is its executive producer. He's dealt with concussions firsthand, many of them, as one of the greatest football stars to ever play the game. And he joins us now.

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GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private, Christian, affordable. Visit gcu.edu. Brett, great to see you again. Welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me, Megan. It's always good to see you and visit with you. Yeah, all the best to you. And I know this is personal for you.

And the first time we spoke was back in 2018 when I was at NBC and you came on and talked very openly about your own experience with concussions in the NFL. And you put the number at just thousands. You just said you thought you'd had thousands of concussions over the course of your career. Well, I wouldn't have said that maybe a few years before you and I discussed it. And I think 18 years.

But I had a conversation with Dr. Benjamin Amalu, who in the movie Concussion many years ago, Will Smith portrayed Dr. Amalu, who actually discovered CTE when he was a coroner, I believe, in the city of Pittsburgh. And he had done these autopsies on what turns out to be four or five, maybe Steeler players, former Steeler players and players.

discovered CTE, but in my conversation with him, I said, when is a good time to play tackle football? And he said, never, which I thought was, you know, I thought maybe he would say 21, 20. He said, there's never a good time for the human to play tackle football. But he said, I know that's not, you know, that's never going to happen. But we got to the discussion. He said, how many concussions do you think you've had? And I said, I

three, maybe four. And he sort of chuckled and said, more like hundreds, maybe thousands. And I said, no, three, three or four. And he said, well, how many times do you think you were tackled or you fell, you hit your head on the turf and maybe your ears were ringing or you saw stars or fireworks or

You maybe were a little fuzzy, but you were able to play. You didn't come out of the game. You kind of shook it off. And I said, almost every time I was tackled or I failed. And so he said, well, that is a concussion. Everyone relates concussions to, you see a boxer get hit and his knees are buckling or they look rubbery, his legs are,

you know, a player gets tackled, he gets up and he stumbles back to the ground. We all know that's a concussion. And that's what I was relating, relaying my, what I thought concussions from a numbers perspective was exactly that, where I may have blacked out for a period of time. And he said, yeah, that's a concussion. But we know that

the fireworks or the ringing in the ears or the fuzziness is also a concussion. And he said, in the long run, the small minor concussions, if you will, and I don't think there is such a thing as a minor concussion, but he said those do the most damage over time. And that really was a wake-up call for me.

to think that I've had hundreds, maybe thousands of concussions, which would be very accurate based on what he said. Honestly, it's scary. Right. In the film...

It's very powerful, by the way. I watched it and it was gripping. The whole thing was gripping. It's an hour and a half. It's like you can watch it in a decent amount of time. It's not going to take your whole afternoon, but you will not turn it off and walk away. You will sit there and watch beginning to end. And it juxtaposes your story, Brett,

with the story of Tyler Sash, who, you know me, I don't know that much about sports and I didn't know Tyler's story, even though he played for the giants, which is our team families. Well, my, not my current family, my husband's an Eagle fan, but my family of origin. And it's absolutely heartbreaking because he had an experience that I think

So many American families, so many American boys have, which is you go into peewee football, you play tackle, you move up the ranks. He was a star athlete. He was a star runner. He was a star baseball player, basketball player and football player.

But really stood out on the football field and was breaking records and so on and so forth. And then amazingly winds up getting drafted to the NFL, playing for the. This is like so many little boys dream. That's their dream. And he didn't know the first thing about CTE, Brett. But unlike you, where, you know, you're in your 50s. Right. And you're like starting to realize signs of like, gee, I can't remember where my car keys are.

He didn't really have somebody to make clear to him what was going on. Things started to deteriorate in terms of his behavior. Yes, memory, but also emotional regulation to the point where his family around him was just utterly confused. Right. Well, he he became something that no one was familiar with. He was everybody's all American, certainly in Iowa. He was.

He grew up as the most popular athlete maybe in town, went to the University of Iowa, was heralded there and was loved, goes to the Giants and plays. I think he played three or four years. But the thing about concussions that we do know, and by no means am I a doctor, but I think I can speak for most doctors relating to this field, there's –

They don't know a whole lot about concussions. But one thing that I've learned by being a part of this film, being an activist for concussions and safety, is that it only takes one concussion. You don't have to have multiple or thousands or hundreds of concussions to concussion.

for lack of a better term, go off the deep end. It can happen after one concussion and that should scare a lot of people. So, you know, I mean, I think at one time the thought was you have hundreds of concussions, you're likely to have something neurologically go wrong, short circuit at some point. But what we now know is

That may be true with multiple or hundreds of concussions, but it also may be true for the person who had one. And so, you know, as I've talked to people about this, you know, I'd like to see the NFL. I think they've done a good job with rule changes. They've sunk a lot of money into equipment, helmets. But the thing about the human head that Dr. Amalu really is about as simple as he could explain it.

He used a woodpecker as an example. And I really didn't know where he was going with it. I sort of laughed. But he said a woodpecker hits a pole or a tree constantly, never gets a concussion. Why? He said because when the head hits the tree or the pole, the brain stops with the head. And he said that's very important. And he said it stops because it's sort of built in this cocoon or cork type enclosure. And he said the human head, on the other hand,

When the head stops, the brain keeps going. And he said, and then when the brain hits, you know, the skull, that's when bruising occurs. And up until that point, I never thought about it. He said, so helmets, no matter how good they are, they don't stop the brain from moving. So when you, like my concussions, all were, I would say, from hitting my head on the turf, I call it the whiplash effect.

You fall down, your head slingshots back, you hit the turf, the head stops immediately, the brain keeps moving. And he said, helmets will not stop the brain from moving. He said, the human brain is sloshing around in fluid. And when you hit something, a high impact helmet,

The head stops. The brain keeps going. We got big problems. So that was explaining that the woodpecker has a tongue that goes back and wraps around the brain, which is crazy. I don't totally understand it, but whatever. They have a protection that we don't have. And we say that about hitting the turf. It makes sense. It's like being in a moving car. It makes perfect sense. And it's frightening. Like the car, the car.

will stop, but if you don't have your seatbelt on, you will not stop. And your brain does not have a seatbelt to stop it from hitting your skull. Absolutely. The effects of this in your own life. So you're 54 now, I think. So when we spoke, it was six years ago. So you were 48 and you told me in 2018, some of the memory loss, you talked a little bit about the symptoms that you'd been having. I'm just going to play that clip now. Here it is at 32.

One of the things I think that helped me throughout my career was I was able to, I can't say that I was the best player, but I remembered defenses and names and plays. And in fact, I could go back and call the high school plays that I had ran. And to a certain degree, I can still do that. But I find that more short-term memory, someone I met six months ago has helped

In other words, it has gotten a lot worse in regards to short term, simple words that normally would come out easy in a conversation. I'll stammer. So how are you doing now, six years after that?

I look a little skinnier today than I did then, first of all. You do look skinnier. You look good. Well, thank you. I look like I was eating well at the time. But, you know, there are a couple of things that right now, let me back up. I'm very thankful for a lot of reasons. I'm very blessed. That's not to say that I don't have issues because I do.

There are a couple of things that I have that I'm dealing with. One is, has nothing to do with concussions. It's back related issues that started about two years ago and have been a thorn in my side. I've had two surgeries and a hip replacement really in the last almost two years. But mentally, yeah,

From that time in our last interview to now, not a lot has changed, I don't think, in regards to just the overall mental makeup or where I am at this point today as opposed to then. But there are a couple of things that I can't talk about yet. And there are reasons for that, but things that I'm trying to work through and

that are related to maybe maybe related to concussions maybe not um and uh i'd love to completely talk about it today but but i can't and i think you'll understand at some point when i do okay but uh we're here when i can but it but it's uh i'll just say this i can speak volumes about where i am

and what I've done and how that has affected me from a concussion or head trauma point of view. So I'm not just, it's just not hot air that I'm, you know, I'm not doing this. Did I expect to make any money by doing this documentary? Honestly, if it makes money, great. If it doesn't and affects people in a positive way somewhere down the road,

Great. Do I expect this to be a blockbuster hit? No. Most people will probably just write it off as another documentary. I've seen them all. But I do have a personal experience that's, you know, I think will be an eye opening. You know, I don't know. It will paint my life.

for, you know, a treatment or a solution to concussions somewhere down the road, it, you know, it will justify that at some point. Yeah. Because there is, there isn't one, there isn't a cure. No, there's not. There's really even an official way of diagnosing somebody with CTE until they've died. They have to dissect your brain. That's the only way. Yeah. When you came on, we had on, uh, Kurt Warner, uh,

who of course is a star player as well. Robbie Wambach, who's a soccer player. David Ross, who's a star baseball catcher. All of whom were talking about this and believed they had CTE but couldn't be diagnosed because you have to pass in order for that to happen. She is donating her brain to science.

But it's just another reminder that it's, well, football is definitely the highest, you know, they seem to have the highest likelihood of causing this problem. You can get it in baseball from all the balls to your head. You can get it in soccer from all the heading of the ball. And there are other sports where you can get hit in the head a lot. And that football is just, you know, a repeat type sport. So now,

Here you are, you believe you have it. I understand why you're doing this documentary about poor Tyler and just how much pain he was in. It was an accidental drug overdose that took his life with pain medications, but he was really suffering with headaches and bad symptoms.

um you look back brett and just for those of you listening brett played 16 seasons for green bay he led the team to 11 playoff appearances he remains the first and only player to win three consecutive mvp awards he helped the team appear in two super bowls was it worth it i guess uh at this point i would say yes there i'll be honest with you there's

There is a certain amount of fear that not all the time, but there's probably not a day that goes by. And if there is, you know, a day or two that goes by, it's not, you know, at least several times a week, there's this fear of what tomorrow will bring. And that wasn't the case when I was playing, first of all, because...

At that point, concussions were not looked at as just a minor bump. Get your butt back in the game. Go play. And I don't blame anybody because then no one thought concussions were a major issue, including me. Now you see Tyler Satch, Junior Sehau, Dave Dorsen, and I could go on and on. Guys that love life like Junior Sehau was a great player and

If there was a person that I would have said that person will live forever and will love every day that he's living, that would have been Junior Seau. And boom, he kills himself. And, you know, so I see those. I hear about those. And I think I would never be that that way.

And I'm sure Junior Sehout would have said the same thing. Tyler Satch would have said the same thing. Dave Dorsen, as an example, would have said the same thing. But yet it happened to them. And, you know, ALS, excuse me, for example, they don't know a lot about ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. But one thing they do know is that head trauma, the more head trauma you have, concussions, it ups your blood pressure.

chances of having a neurological disease and doesn't guarantee it, but it certainly doesn't help. So that being said, I often, you know, I don't pinch myself, but I think, boy, I probably haven't done myself many favors. Would I do it over, do it the same way over again if I had the chance? Or would I change the way I played or how long I played? I don't know.

I don't know. Maybe I would have been more cautious. Like my last play in history from fifth grade to my last year of retirement just happened to be a major concussion where I was out for a minute or two. When I woke up on the field, I was snoring and had no clue what the Chicago Bears were doing in my living room as I thought I was in. And there's no good time to have a concussion. There's certainly...

you know, a major concussion, having it at 40 years old. I remember walking off the field. I said, I'm done. Now, did I do it a little too late? I hope that I did. And so that's that fear of what tomorrow will bring. Again, I'm very blessed. I'm able to do a lot of the things I enjoy doing. I think there's some memory issues. I think sometimes my speech is affected.

is that a result of the concussions in football or just being over 50? And maybe the answer is a little bit of both. But if I'm able to proceed like I am now, that would be okay. But I certainly don't want to progress into something like Tyler Sash or Junior St. Al or Dave Dorsen or those examples. So there's that fear. What's your message then, Brett, to...

moms and dads who have eight-year-olds who want to join peewee tackle football who are going through high school who want to play tackle football they don't know how but they they look forward to doing it what's your what's your advice first of all there should not be tackle football for peewee

Even junior high, they should play flag football. Now, I have thought hell from a lot of people for saying that in the past. Oh, how dare you? You know, the quote-unquote toughest man in football is saying play flag football. Well, if there was anyone you should listen to, I'm not saying I'm the expert, but there's no reason for an 8 to 10 to 12 to 14-year-old kid to play tag football.

Teach the fundamentals. Let them play flag football. Let their head mature just a little bit more. Keep in mind what Dr. Malouf said. There's never a good time to play tackle football. But if you can protect the youth just a little bit from head injuries, isn't that a good thing? And that's what I try to get across to parents. I have three grandsons. The oldest is a ninth grader. The next is a sixth grader. And then a third grader. They...

The three combined have never once said they wanted to play football. And I will never encourage them to play football. I'm not knocking football, but if they said they wanted to play, I would support them. But I can't go to the Pee Wee League and say, no tackle, play flag, unless everybody does it. I just think that...

It's our responsibility to protect our youth, and this is one good way of doing it. But you've got to do it. One state can't do it, and the other will do it. We all need to do it. And this fear of, well, they're going to lose their toughness. I think it's a bunch of baloney. If you're tough, you're tough, and so be it. But if you can't have an opportunity – I mean, you've got some kids that go out and play tackle that are twice as big as the other kids.

They don't know anything about form or fundamentals. And yes, one kid. So we need to be the one to protect them. Yeah, that is so true. Even, even our son, they had to play it in school and he spent just a couple of months on the team. Like, Oh my God, because it was seventh and eighth grade combined. And so you got kids, you know, eighth grade, by the time you finished eighth grade, some of these kids are like,

almost 15 in some circumstances, especially because people are starting their kids later now. They look like men versus the beginning of seventh grade when the kids were late bloomers. They're scrawny and small. And we were like, what's happening? It was scary. So you're absolutely right about that's a little young to be doing tackle football. But where does this lead us, Brett? Because as we kicked it off by saying, and I don't have to tell you this, Americans love football.

Football, they love the NFL. I mean, it seems like to me, if I'm queen for a day and I can do whatever I want, I should get rid of this. I should stop. I don't want to see these players get hurt. We saw that, I can't pronounce his name, but it's Taglio Viola of the Dolphins. Just call him Tua. Tua. He got hurt so badly and we were all watching like, oh no, Tua.

I mean, does NFL football need to go away? Does it need to continue but be softer somehow? It seems like they kind of tried that, but it hasn't really... Yeah. Well, you and I know this. And this we know for a fact. Football is not going away. NFL football is not going away. People love it. There's tremendous amounts of money involved in the teams, the owners, what they make, what the players are making.

And quite frankly, the fans are still paying top dollar for whether it be a streaming service for a game or an in-stadium experience. People are still paying it. So it's not going away. I think the easiest in regards to coming up with a

you know, a cure for that, that may be a little more complicated, but I think that's what we need is that we have to find something that will treat a concussion on the sidelines, on the playground, immediately after a car wreck, slipping on the basketball court, hitting your head on, you know, an elderly person slipping on the ice, hitting their head. There's endless ways you can get a concussion, but having a concussion,

a treatment that can alleviate the swelling because for lack of a better term, concussion is swelling of the brain, bruising of the brain. If you had a way to alleviate that swelling or stop that swelling, I would think that that would do wonders for

the lack or progression of a concussion. What about that, Brett? Because I, forgive me, I don't remember the name of the medication, but I remember when you guys were on in 2018, there was some sort of nasal spray that you were promoting, saying this is a possibility. Did that ever go anywhere? No, it's been bought by a couple of different companies and still...

As I've learned about the medical field, which I don't know a lot, but there's a lot of red tape you got to get through, a lot of red tape. And to get through the clinical trials, it's not easy. And even if it keeps and continues to pass, you would think, yes, well, the bureaucracy and politics plays a part in it. But I think at this point, there needs to be a...

a medical solution, not a helmet. Helmets are not going to deter. I mean, it may protect a bruise to the head, but not a bruise to the brain, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. We got to find a medical solution that can stop the swelling in his tracks on the sideline. Yeah, they used to say that...

I'm having the cast of Reagan come on the show on Thursday, and we're going to talk about the new movie Reagan. There's a scene in there of Reagan playing football when he was super young, and they had these soft little helmets. It was basically fabric, leather. And fewer guys got head trauma back then because they understood very well playing like that to protect their heads and that they shouldn't be hitting each other's heads and that their brain was very much exposed. It's like the stronger we've made the helmets, the more in danger the guys have gotten.

That's a great point, Megan. And I really didn't think about that until you said that because it makes me think about rugby. No equipment as violent, if not more violent than NFL football seems to be. And I don't know, like I've never looked at the exact numbers, but it seems to me that the injuries that you see a lot of in professional football, you don't see in rugby.

mainly concussions and they don't wear helmets. But I think that's a great point that you make that maybe you are more cautious, more protective, not that you don't play as hard or as reckless, but there's a certain amount of you that says, I don't have the protection that I would have with NFL football. So I have to be a little more cautious and maybe fundamentally more sound in how I play.

Mm hmm. Everyone out there understands the risks and they behave accordingly. Right. You're very brave to come talk about this. Honestly, I think this takes a lot of guts and I know you're not doing it for yourself at this point. You're doing it for my boys and everyone's sons. I guess there's girls out there, too. And I really appreciate you've always been so honest and honest.

vulnerable about your own struggles. And I hope, I hope they are, they have maxed out and that the rest is gravy and you get to enjoy. I can't believe you're old. You're my age and you got three grandkids. You got started early. Yeah. I got one now. I have to pick him up at high school, you know, and I'm like, I'm picking up my grandson in high school. What in the hell is going on here? I started as a young man. Yeah, I did. I did.

Well, it's all good. Many, many years of enjoyment and fun on the football field. And now you're helping us out in a different way. It's great to see you. Stay well, my friend. You too, Megan. Thanks for having me. Wow. What a guy. What a guy. What a story. Again, that's Brett Favre and the new documentary. Well worth your time against 90 minutes. It's called Concussed.

the American dream. You can get it at concussedfilm.com or as I said on Apple or Amazon Prime, do it. Okay. Especially if you are thinking about playing your kid in football, what's happening now

is more and more wealthy families are not playing their kids in football and less privileged families are, you know, it's like the shot, the shot at like improving their lives. And that could lead to a very dark situation where those who are most vulnerable when it comes to finances and economic security wind up taking all the risks. It's not, we don't want any kids taking unnecessary risks, but the system we have right now is not working.

It's not working. Kids are endangered. And these young men are endangered. You know, they want a shot at something better in their life. But why have we settled for this, that they have to risk their lives, their adulthood, their senior years, their brain health in order to do it? It needs more attention. Concussed the American Dream, available now. Concusseddevelopment.com. We'll see you soon.

Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment. Know the real cost of vapes. Brought to you by the FDA.

Why are there ridges on Reese's peanut butter cups? Probably so they never slip from her hands. Could you imagine? I'd lose it. Luckily, Reese's thought about that. Wonder what else they think about. Probably chocolate and peanut butter.