Brett Favre estimates he suffered 'thousands' of concussions

Brett Favre made a wild claim about his playing days.

Favre famously played 20 seasons in the NFL, retiring and unretiring many times along the way. He was an iron man and made 321 consecutive starts. Officially, Favre believes he had three concussions during his playing career. But the 52-year-old now believes he unofficially was concussed many more times than that.

Favre was a guest on “Bubba the Love Sponge Show” for an episode published on Tuesday. The conversation turned to concussions, which led Bubba to ask Favre how many times he was concussed. Bubba asked if that happened 100 times.

“Oh, way more than that,” Favre said. “The thing about concussions is we still don’t know a lot about them. If you had asked me this 10 years ago, I would have said three. The reason I would have said three, I thought concussions were when you get knocked out, or you black out for a period of time you don’t know where you are, memory loss, dizzy … that’s a concussion.

“What we now know is concussions happen all the time. You get tackled, your head hits the turf, you see flashes of light or ringing in your ears, but you’re able to play. That’s a concussion. So, based on that, thousands. Had to be. Because every time my head hit the turf, there was ringing or stars going, flashbulbs, but I was still able to play. That’s what’s kind of frightening about the concussion thing. It’s the ones that seem minor that do the damage because you’re able to play, keep going.”

That is concerning.

Favre has become an advocate regarding concussions in sports. He has advised parents against putting their children in tackle football until they are at least 14 because of concussion concerns. Favre has also wondered whether all the hits to his head led to any long-term damage and memory loss.

During his extraordinary career, Favre won one Super Bowl, and three straight MVP Awards from 1995-97. The Hall of Famer also made 11 Pro Bowls.