As backup QB, Favre wished for starter's injury

CANTON, Ohio - Brett Favre let out a secret Friday afternoon: When he was a backup quarterback, he hoped the starter would get hurt.

Favre wasn’t a backup often — early in the season of his freshman year in college at Southern Mississippi, then his first NFL season, when he was Atlanta’s No. 3 quarterback, and then the start of his first season with the Packers in 1992.

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“I’m not afraid to say it now,” Favre said during a 44-minute press conference the day before the ceremony for his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “Every time the quarterback got tackled I was always hoping he got hurt. Call it what it is. I wanted to play. However I got in the game, so be it. I was never going to lose my spot. So every time I got tackled I thought, ‘I wonder if (the backups) are over there like (clapping half-heartedly), ‘He got up, damn.’”

When Favre got his chance with the Packers after Don Majkowski injured his ankle in Week 3 of the 1992 season against Cincinnati, he never gave it up. He started 253 straight regular-season games for the Packers and holds the NFL record with 297 straight starts for his career.