Brett Favre once drowned a deer on a hunting trip

Brett Favre’s former backup recounted a story of the quarterback as a boy on an illegal hunting expedition that went horribly wrong.

Fair warning: if you’re an animal lover and/or not a fan of Favre, this story might not make you happy with him.

The gunslinger and Wrangler jeans peddler has been in the news a lot lately, as he recently returned to Lambeau Field to have his number retired on Thanksgiving Day. The Packers great also made headlines earlier this season when he congratulated Peyton Manning on breaking his record for career regular season passing yards, and he did so from a tree stand on a hunting trip.

Favre may be a bit eccentric, but his passion for hunting apparently dates well back into his childhood. According to current ESPN analyst and former Favre backup Mark Brunell, No. 4 wasn’t always as skilled with a gun as he was with a football.

When he was growing up in Mississippi, Favre and some boyhood friends were apparently trespassing on private property when they encountered a deer. Favre shot the animal with a .22 rifle, which is way too small a weapon for game of that size. The deer was wounded but not fatally, so according to Brunell in the report: “they drag it over to a puddle, a stream, a small pond, I don’t know what it was, but they basically held this deer underwater until the bubbles stopped coming out of its nose.”

The story doesn’t do wonders for Favre’s character, as he basically tortured an animal that wasn’t given a sporting chance, and many avid hunters would undoubtedly be quick to distance their sport from this anecdote. It’s also worth noting that while young Brett’s actions were condemnable, they were still the actions of young Brett, a boy just beginning to learn the ropes of a sport he would grow to love almost as much – if not more – than football.

Nevertheless, it’s another bizarre and fascinating addition to the lore of Brett Favre.