Tom Hoffarth / FartherOffTheWall.com
Brett Favre wasn’t the first or second choice for that Hail Mary/NFL quarterback cameo role in the 1994 flick “There’s Something About Mary.”
In 2014, speaking to the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen, writers/directors/producers Peter and Bobby Farrelly explained how New England Patriots QB Drew Bledsoe was their No. 1 overall pick for the ultimate part for a celebrity love interest with Cameron Diaz. Including a near-kiss scene. But yikes – Bledsoe and a teammate apparently had just injured a woman in a mosh pit at an Everclear concert, and he was worried about how doing the flick might affect his name, image and likeness. He knows now he blew his shot.
Pass.
The Farrellys next sought out San Francisco 49ers QB Steve Young, at the height of his NFL career. But the Mormon King turned them down. He wasn’t keen on children seeing him in an R-rated movie.
Pass.
And then came Favre. He had no baggage. Then.
If asked today, the Farrellys might admit they goofed by casting him. All things considered.
But the reason isn’t what you think.
Forget the third choice for “Mary,” he should have been first choice a couple years earlier when they made “Dumb and Dumber.”
And all he had to do was act naturally.
Just Google “Favre” and “stupid,” and stuff happily pops up from hibernation. Written in 2008. Or in 2009. Written in 2010. Or in 2017. Or 2021.
Favre’s IMDb.com profile, which will never be confused with Jon Favreau, includes not just five acting credits, but also as the executive producer on the 2021 documentary, “Concussed: The American Dream.”
Favre may have to use that as Exhibit A when he appears before a judge when trying to explain how his head just wasn’t in the game when buried himself in his latest legal entanglement.
We may be a little slow on this, but apparently Favre got some Mississippi lawmakers engaged in diverting some $5 million in state welfare funds into help him get a new volleyball athletic facility at his alma mater, Southern Miss.
Credit FrontOfficeSports.com for heading this garbage off at the pass with stories here and here. We gleaned from the Associated Press’ latest report that Mississippi’s largest-ever public corruption case has ensnared several people, including a pro wrestler whose drug rehab was funded with welfare money.
But it’s getting dumb and …
Does that make him an accomplished accomplice? In the meantime, the court of public opinion, Favre should be wearing a cheese head made of real limburger.
Here is the NFL’s answer to Curt Schilling.
There was that running joke in “Something About Mary,” where Ben Stiller’s character couldn’t pronounce his name. He mangled it into “Far-vra.” Or “Fav-ruh.” Favre was a known commodity – a three-time AP MVP from ’95 through ’97 as the Green Bay Packers burgeoning star when this movie emerged. It was a name John Madden couldn’t stop repeating in every sentence for about 10-straight years.
But now there’s something about anyone even trying to defend Farve’s name. The Notorious No. 4 is a wanted man.
Yahoo!Sports columnist Charles Robinson calls this a cautionary tale about hero worship? Even O.J. Simpson is laughing at that headline.
But not Jenn Sterger.
Favre can’t deny culpability, because we know which playbook he’s working from now.
Jeff Pearlman wants people to stop buying the bio he did on Favre a few years back: “So, sincerely, don’t buy the book, don’t take it out from the library. Leave it. There are sooooo many better people worthy of your reading hours. Of your time. I prefer crumbs like Brett Favre shuffle off into the abyss, shamed by greed and selfishness.”
Do us all a favor, Favre. Stop trying to scramble out of this.
Even if this all isn’t really on you.
By the way, if there is any playbook to get out of this mess down the road — way, way down the road — to repair whatever image he has left, see what Tom Brady did.
In the 2015 Seth MacFarlane movie, “Ted 2,” the sequel to “Ted,” Mark Wahlberg and a stuffed teddy bear are in a scene where they’re trying to break into Brady’s house and decide to dupe him into signing off on a broken air condition order.
Brady plays himself as a straight man.
“If you could just write … to John and Ted, from Number 12 … and you’re not a cheater. I mean, I think you’re balls are perfect,” says Walhberg.
Brady sighs.
The reference was to Deflate-gate. Everyone can laugh it off, apparently.
Here, it’s different.
Favre has balls, too, just very imperfect ones. And, at the moment, what he did doesn’t look all that ballsy.
Maybe just use this as a new mantra … or the Farrellys might consider a new casting idea:
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 