Remembering Brett Favre

St. Louis Rams QB Sam Bradford went down with a season-ending knee injury and the Rams contacted 44-year-old Brett Favre to see if he might come out of retirement to help them out for a while? Favre turned them down, but it raises a couple interesting points.

First, it doesn't say much for the Rams' 2nd string QB if they'd rather go with a 44-year-old that's totally unfamiliar with their system.

And second, Favre recently admitted he's suffering from some sort of memory loss. He can remember some things, but not others. Over his illustrious two decade career in the NFL, Favre was known for a lot of things -- but especially toughness. In spite of all the brutal hits he took over the years, Favre would always find a way to play on game day. Indeed, he set the all-time record for most consecutive games played by an NFL QB, which will likely never be broken. That's a good thing. But over the course of those years, Favre also suffered a lot of concussions. Number unknown, even to Favre. And that might be a bad thing.

Like fighting in hockey, opinions certainly vary when it comes to any sort of helmet/head contact in football. There are those that say it's part of the game, and if you don't like it, don't watch it, much less play it. Yet the voice of the dissenters is growing louder. Neuropathologists that have studied the brains of many deceased NFL players are almost unanimous in their opinions that too many hits to the head (concussions) causes some very bad long-term side effects, which are irreversible. Once the damage is done -- there's no cure.

The scary part is -- in recent years, the brain dissectors are getting more and more samples to study. And this is only from the families of deceased players that donate their late beloved's gray matter. Likely many more opt not to. And look around. Former NFL players are dying right and left in what would normally be considered "middle age". A few have even committed suicide. Yes, such things sometimes occur in the general public as well, but the stats with the NFL players seem to be abnormally high.

To their credit, the NFL itself has acknowledged the problem and continues to try to make things safer for their players. Besides their continuing quest for better helmets, protective padding, etc., they've instituted rule changes on how one player can "legally" hit another, complete with penalty flags and fines/suspensions if a player runs afoul of the "law". They've also ponied up almost a billion dollars to settle a lawsuit filed by former players suffering from various maladies -- but I won't get into that here.

Nonetheless, there's only so much they can do. As long as there's an NFL, it's going to be fast, brutal, and lot of hard hits are going to happen. Yours truly seriously doubts the NFL is going to disappear any time soon just because players get hurt -- sometimes even tragically. It's the nature of the game, and thousands of guys are standing in line right now just hoping for a chance to play it.

But back to Brett Favre.

Many rooted for him, and others against over the years for different reasons. Personally, I respected him. Nobody left it all out there on the field more than #4. And even his TV commercials weren't dopey like Peyton's. Wrangler -- cool. Cut that meat -- not cool.

Regardless, I can sympathize with Favre's recent statement about his memory loss. He can't remember a whole summer of his daughter's soccer games.

Got your back, Brett. I once tried to get into watching soccer for a while too. The only thing I remember is it was incredibly boring. Other than that -- a complete blank.