Providing Protection For Favre? Packers Dispute Book That Says Teammates Supplied Pain Pills
Some of quarterback Brett Favre’s Green Bay Packer teammates supplied him with pain pills, unaware of his growing addiction to the painkiller Vicodin, according to a new book.
“If my quarterback comes to me and says, ‘Hey, tighten me up,’ it’s a no-brainer. You give him the Vike,” former Packers defensive lineman John Jurkovic is quoted as saying in “Return to Glory.”
The book, published this week by Krause Publications, chronicles the rise of the Packers from NFL doormat to Super Bowl contender under general manager Ron Wolf and coach Mike Holmgren.
The book, written by former Green Bay Press-Gazette sports editor Kevin Isaacson and Oshkosh Northwestern sports writer Tom Kessenich, contains a chapter on the addiction that landed Favre in a drug rehabilitation clinic in May.
The book says Jurkovic admitted supplying Favre with about 50 pain pills during their four playing seasons together.
Jurkovic, who now plays for the Jacksonville Jaguars, spoke to WTLV-TV in Jacksonville, Fla.
“If I would get two pills and somebody’d come and ask me for one, I would say here,” Jurkovic told WTLV. “For me at that time, looking back now, in retrospect, knowing what Vicodin can do and what it can cause … I probably wouldn’t do it again.
“But back then, with the way it was and with the way things were handled it didn’t seem to be a big deal to any of us. But when something happens to a friend of yours like this, you wish you could take a lot of things back.”
Favre, the NFL’s Most Valuable Player last season, “will not discuss it,” Packers spokesman Lee Remmel said Wednesday. “Nobody else here will either.”
But in an interview published Wednesday by the Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wis., Favre denied Jurkovic had supplied him with a quantity of painkillers.
“It’s totally untrue. And even if it were true, Jurko would never say that,” Favre told the newspaper.
Isaacson, who now serves as Krause’s sports editor, stood by what he wrote in the book.
“It’s true. I’m covered on it,” Isaacson said. “There are people inside the organization who knew what went on. John was willing to go on the record… . He’s the only one on the record.”
Favre completed a 46-day stay at the Menninger Clinic, an NFL-sanctioned drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Topeka, Kan., on June 28. He returned to the Packers in July, predicting the team would finally dethrone Dallas and win its first Super Bowl since Vince Lombardi.
Favre has endured six operations in the last five years. The book says Packers executives discovered Favre’s teammates, knowing how battered and bruised he was, occasionally would slip him painkillers they had requested.
But Wolf told the Wisconsin State Journal of Madison that “might be a little bit of what you might call literary license.”
“But the only guy who can answer that is John Jurkovic,” Wolf said.
The book says Favre also received Vicodin from doctors outside the organization.
It also says Packers players, including those who wanted a boost before practice, regularly swapped medication without the knowledge of team doctors.
Wolf says he didn’t know if such activity was taking place, but acknowledged it would be difficult to control.
In the book, Jurkovic said easy access to painkillers stopped shortly after he entered the league in 1990. Wolf, who came to Green Bay late in the 1991 season, agreed, but declined to give specifics on how access to team-prescribed painkillers was reduced.