Qb Favre Cashes In With Pack New Contract Will Make Him Nfl’s Highest-Paid Player

On the day he became one of the NFL’s highest-paid players, Brett Favre skipped the Green Bay Packers’ morning practice because of a stomach ache.

By noon, he was feeling well enough to play a round of golf - though not very well.

“Maybe I can afford some lessons now,” Favre said Friday.

He certainly can, especially after signing a seven-year contract extension reportedly worth between $42 million and $48 million, including a $12 million signing bonus.

General manager Ron Wolf says the contract makes the 27-year-old quarterback “the highest-paid player in the history of professional football.” But the Super Bowl champion Packers and Favre’s agent, James “Bus” Cook, would not give financial details and comparing the worth of NFL contracts is difficult because of their complexity.

Favre’s deal comes just days after Detroit’s Barry Sanders signed a reported six-year, $34 million contract.

“I’ve proven over the last couple of years that I have been the best player in the league,” said Favre, a two-time MVP. “This just shows me that the Packers and Ron felt the same way.”

Favre’s new deal replaced the last two years of the five-year, $19 million contract he signed in 1994.

The deal is comparable to the one signed two years ago by Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman, who agreed to a $50 million, eight-year package. That contract has since been extended and renegotiated to keep the Cowboys under the salary cap, something that is common in the NFL and could also apply to Favre.

Aikman also has reportedly taken up-front money over richer deferred payments, reducing the average value of his contract.

Favre’s package, which runs through the 2003 season, when he will be 34, is worth between $6 million and $6.8 million a year, according to published reports.

“I feel very strongly he’s the best player in the National Football League,” Wolf said. “What better way to acknowledge that than the way we’ve just done?”

Favre said it was important to get the richest deal in NFL history - no matter how long he’ll end up holding that honor.

“If the highest-paid player in the league was getting $50,000, I’d want $51,000,” Favre said. “But there’s going to be guys that pass me up. That’s just the way it goes.”

Favre has been nonchalant throughout negotiations, and on Friday he had trouble naming one aspect of his contract that most concerned him.

“I didn’t really even care,” he said. “Bus gets mad at me because he’d call me and say, ‘Look, we’re negotiating this and that.’ I’d say, ‘Look, I got a $30 bet on this golf game today.’ That was more important to me.”

Favre’s teammate and friend Mark Chmura, who has had to spring for more lunches than he can remember, said the quarterback has never been overly concerned about money.

“He’ll still have his three-shirt wardrobe, his flip-flops and ripped up jeans,” Chmura said.