Netflix documentary shows 'The Fall of Favre' is a scandal in motion

Netflix's "Untold" series has taken a closer look at a variety of sports and sports-adjacent stories since its 2021 debut. While some entires in the anthology series are firmly in the past, the saga of Brett Favre feels as though it is still playing out.

Favre hasn't thrown a pass in the NFL since 2010, but his time in the spotlight since then has been extensive and unflattering. Last September, speaking before a congressional committee in a hearing on states' misuse of welfare funds, Favre revealed he had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

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Favre was not in Washington, D.C. to discuss his health. He was there because of his connection to about $8 million in misappropriated TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) funds in his native Mississippi. The fallout from the Mississippi Welfare Scandal is still being revealed.

Favre, who's still a defendant in one lawsuit resulting from the scandal, has not yet been prosecuted let alone sentenced. But he'll get another day in the court of public opinion when Netflix drops "Untold: The Fall of Favre" at midnight.

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Executive producer A.J. Perez, who reported extensively on the welfare scandal for Front Office Sports, doesn't expect Favre will spend a day behind bars. The portrait of Favre that emerges in Netflix's latest "Untold" entry suggests he's, at best, trading on his celebrity with little knowledge of his victims; at worst, he's a white-collar criminal and serial womanizer.

"He was held to a lower standard because he was a star," Perez said in an interview with The Big Lead.

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Those who followed Favre's career closely knew the man behind his "gunslinger" image wasn't without his foibles.

Former USA Today Wisconsin Packers beat writer Dylan Tomlinson did a series of on-camera interviews for the documentary. In one, he says, “my editor pulled me aside and said, ‘I want you to write the story of Brett Favre as a family man.’ I said, ‘I don’t write fiction.’ ”

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The main focus of the story is Jenn Sterger. The former New York Jets Gameday host has never been in the same room as Favre, yet has an extensive story to tell.

After she (and Favre) moved on from the Jets, she briefly hosted a sports-talk format show on Versus, The Daily Line. The show was cancelled after Deadspin — critically, without her permission — published explicit text messages and blind invitations from Favre to meet her away from the field.

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As Sterger explains in multiple interviews, she's still living with the fallout from her show's cancellation, while Favre's post-Jets career effectively carried on with little consequence.

"In the mainstream media, (the story) went away. She had to live with it," Perez said.

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While it's great that Sterger's side of the story gets the context it deserves, it's a shame more victims (especially from the underprivileged communities in Mississippi who didn't get the money they deserved under the law) did not get theirs. To his credit, Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson recognizes the gravity of Favre's influence in the scandal and spoke at length to Netflix on behalf of the victims he represents.

"Untold" is at its core a sports anthology. Favre is still trading on his legacy in football, which serves as the premise for most of the storytelling here. But his post-football legacy is still very much a story in progress, one whose victims still deserve a long listen.

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