Brett Favre thinks he sustained 'thousands of concussions' during NFL career



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Brett Favre thinks he sustained 'thousands of concussions' during NFL career

Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre said he feels he suffered "thousands of concussions" during his NFL career. Favre, who came to the league in 1991 and played for 20 seasons, said 10 years ago he would probably said that he sustained three concussions during his NFL.

But now that more details have emerged regarding concussions, Favre feels that number is way bigger. "The thing about concussions is we still don't know a lot about them," Favre said during an interview with Bubba the Love Sponge,.

"If you had asked me this 10 years ago, how many concussions I had, I would've said three. The reason I would have said three, I thought concussions were where you get knocked out, where you black out for a period of time you don't know where you are, memory loss, dizzy.

A boxer gets knocked and tries to get up, his legs are rubber, that's a concussion."

Favre: I probably sustained thousands of concussions

"What we now know is concussions happen all the time," Favre said. "You get tackled and your head hits the turf, you see the flashes of light or ringing in your ears, but you're able to play.

Based on that, thousands, had to be, because every time my head hit the turf, there was ringing or stars going, flash bulbs, but I was still able to play." During Favre's era, an NFL regular season had 16 games plus not more than four playoff games.

During his career, Favre set to record that hasn't been broken to this day - he played 297 consecutive games. Regarding concussions, Favre suggested there were probably many times when he sustained a concussion but kept playing because he felt he was okay.

"That's what's kind of frightening about the concussion thing," Favre said. "It's the ones that seem minor that do the damage, because you're able to play and keep going, and still today, there's probably guys that have them, and they're like 'I'm not going out.'

" In recent years, the NFL has been trying to help players by introducing the concussion protocol. Now, a player has to clear the concussion protocol before being allowed to re-enter the game or play the next game. Even if a player wants to return to the game, he can't if he is not first allowed by the doctor.