“Fall of Favre” Netflix Doc is set to drop on May 20th.

My brain when I saw the title of the doc before the trailer: ‘Maybe it’s fall, as in, FALL, the season! This will be an uplifting doc about the resurrection of the greatest franchise in NFL history in the early 90’s! Yeah! That’s it!”

Oh, Jonathan. You buffoon.

Welp, I’ve got to say, this doesn’t look like it’s going to present the good ol’ boy in the best light. Now look, at this point it’s no secret that Favre isn’t he best guy in the world. He was probably fortunate to be a mega-star in an era where there was no social media, there weren’t cell phones everywhere, whatever happened in the dark corners stayed in the dark corners as far as the general public was concerned. If you were in his position, it was an easy time period to present yourself the way you wanted to be viewed.

That said: I DO think that a lot of Favre’s personality, especially in the mid-to-late 90’s, is who he was. As Packer fans, we all loved his child-like enthusiasm on the field, we loved that he would slug beers after a game, loved that he was a hunter/fisher, loved that he would bust balls with anyone, loved that he would throw 110 mph rocket balls into triple coverage, etc. He was a superstar that would have been beloved on whatever team he played for, but he was the PERFECT fit for Green Bay and Packer fans.

But yes, some accounts seem to indicate that as the years went by, that ‘good ol’ boy’ persona might have been a tad more manufactured than authentic. I think he was genuinely stunned that the Packer hierarchy didn’t welcome him back when he decided to unretire in 2008, and he was even more shocked when they actually traded him to the Jets. The Jenn Sterger chapter doesn’t reflect well, the more recent welfare story from Mississippi looks pretty bad. And it looks like that’s what the producers of this particular documentary want to focus on.

Now if  you’re a diehard Packer fan that was raised during the renaissance-era in Green Bay, I think it’s hard not to feel affection for Favre, even with some of the unsavory stories that have come to light in the last 10-15 years. I’m always going to remember Packer Sunday’s with my family in that time frame, high-fives with my dad after Favre touchdown passes, playoff games, the Super Bowl, all of it. He was the star player on a team that wasn’t just a team, it was religion, it was cultural glue for a lot of people in our state.

So I’ll probably watch this thing when it drops, but if its goal is to make me start a hate fire for Favre, I’m not sure I have that in me.

PS: I know we live in a world where we all want to be able to say that, ‘this person is GOOD,’ or ‘this person is BAD,’ with no middle ground. But that’s not true of anyone (other than Betty White, universally regarded as GOOD). Yes, this welfare scandal with Favre is bad, but it’s also worth noting he raised HUNDREDS of thousands (probably millions) of dollars for different foundations during his time in Green Bay, not to mention Make-A-Wish, breast cancer awareness, etc. That doesn’t make the welfare scandal right, just like the welfare scandal doesn’t mean those good things didn’t happen either.

Double PS: This picture will never not make me laugh. “Is this a prank? Am I getting punked?? Where’s Ashton?!”