PLAYBOY: Your bayou background made people see you as a hillbilly. Deion Sanders called you Country Time.

FAVRE: I brought some of that on myself. Coming from college at little old Southern Mississippi, I wanted to get noticed. Even if I wasn't from Alabama or Notre Dame, I felt I was the best quarterback in college football. But, then, who doesn't think that?

PLAYBOY: Actually, it's unusual.

FAVRE: I thought I needed something to get me over the top. That's why I told reporters I wrestled alligators. But it wasn't true and it made me look like a goofy redneck. I was like Terry Bradshaw when he came out of college, supposedly this dumb hillbilly. Bradshaw had to win four Super Bowls before people finally figured out that he was a bright guy.


PLAYBOY: Take us back to your youth in Kiln, Mississippi. You didn't really wrestle alligators----

FAVRE: They were around, though. We had four dogs eaten by alligators. We lost a Labrador just last year. Lucky was his name. A 13-footer got him.


PLAYBOY: How did you become addicted to Vicodin?

FAVRE: You want to play. You don't want to give the other quarterback a shot at your job. I also have a streak going. I have played 80-some games in a row, the most in the league. The record is 118 and I plan on breaking it. I never took painkillers on game day. People think I was playing on them. I would like to see anyone take a couple Vicodin and try to play football. Shoot, you can't walk a straight line.

PLAYBOY: Any other rehab war stories?

FAVRE: They couldn't believe how much gas I had. I have been known to fart, and with the good fruit diet we got in Topeka I was fully loaded. I was killing them. They tried to stop me. They gave me some Beano, but it didn't work. They had to give up and open the windows.