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Green Bay Packers legend Brett Favre was no stranger to pulling pranks during his NFL days. Favre was known as a serial prankster in every locker room he was apart of during his pro career. Most of his pranks were all in good fun, but one seemingly harmless stunt nearly killed Hall-of-Fame head coach John Madden.

Brett Favre was the NFL prank king

Brett Favre was a famous prankster during his time with the Packers, but one prank went so wrong that Favre almost killed John Madden.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre and defensive end Reggie White talk with John Madden | James V. Biever/Getty Images

When Brett Favre wasn’t tossing dimes on the football field in the NFL, he was most likely playing pranks on his teammates. Every player who ever shared a locker room with Favre knew to always keep their head on a swivel. If they lost concentration for just a second, that’s when he would strike.

During his time in Green Bay, Favre would prank his Packers teammates by driving their unlocked cars to the back of the team parking lot. He would turn on the air conditioning, cover the cars with water, and let the frigid Green Bay air do the rest. When his teammates got back to their cars after practice, they were sealed shut by the ice.

Favre also carried the nickname “shower bandit” because of the hijinks he pulled in the team bathroom. He would drop buckets of cold water on unsuspecting players just trying to enjoy a hot shower.

“I can’t say I was the best passer, I can’t say that I was the most mobile, I can’t say I was tough, I can’t say all that,” Favre said during a conference call in 2016. “But what I can say, in my opinion, is that I had the most fun.”

Favre once used a stink bomb to prank John Madden

After John Madden retired from coaching and joined the broadcast booth in 1979, he became good friends with Favre through their pre-game meetings. Favre liked to have fun with Madden during those meetings, but one time he took it too far.

Earlier this month, Favre appeared on an episode of Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take and told the full story.

“[Madden] did a lot of my games, but I know that our production meetings the day before the games was always fun,” Favre said. “It hardly had football at all involved in the conversation. We just talked about stuff and we had tons of those meetings, you can imagine all the games we did. 

“So yeah, this one particular time on this one particular year, I kind of got on the stink bomb. You know, it kind of looks like an ammonia cap that you break, and it’s got just a terrible odor of rotten eggs and it’s made of sulfur. And I found all this out after the fact. I just knew they stunk and I thought it’d be a cool joke. I would just slip it under the table, step on it, and then watch everyone kind of cringe. And part of the reason that I picked that setting was Lee Remmel, our head of PR. Lee Remmel had been with the Packers over 50 years, and at the time, was probably in his 70s. So he was getting up in age, still sharp, but he had a tendency in those production meetings to fall asleep. So I was going to really kind of play a joke on Lee, but with the whole group. 

“I figured when I busted the ammonia cap, the odor got terrible, that someone would think that Lee farted in his sleep. And that may have been true, had it not been for John Madden, as I ease it under the table, step on it, no one has a clue. Within seconds, I mean it reeked of just rotten eggs, but John Madden was not the reaction I was thinking. And Jeff Long and Mark Schiefelbein, when they were with us, and they were the younger PR guys, same age as me. And they encouraged me not to do it before I went it. I don’t know exactly why, none of us could foresee what was going to happen.”

Favre “almost killed” Madden with stink bomb prank

Stink bombs are typically harmless prank devices, but not when the target of said prank happens to be allergic to the contents of the stink bomb itself. Whoops!

“So, John starts kind of choking a little bit and he starts turning red, and now he can sense with each second, it’s getting worse and worse, and to a point where this is not funny anymore,” Favre continued. “And he kind of puts his hand up around his chest, in his throat. And long story short, they take him out of the room, come to find out he’s allergic to sulfur.

“I almost killed John Madden.”

Thankfully, Madden recovered from the allergic reaction and is still alive to tell the story today.

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Staff Writer

Jack Dougherty

Writing professionally since 2015, Jack Dougherty spent six years as a sportswriter with publications such as GoPSUSports.com, the Centre Daily Times, and the Associated Press before joining Sportscasting in 2020. He covers the NBA, the NFL, and the world of golf extensively and has added expertise on any team located in or around his hometown of Philadelphia. Yes, that includes the Philadelphia Eagles, the Philadelphia 76ers, and Philadelphia Phillies.

When Jack isn’t writing about sports, he’s watching them or playing them as he regularly heads to the gym for some pickup basketball or the golf course to hit the links. He’s also an avid participant in the sports betting scene who worked at a casino sportsbook for a year and learned the ins and outs of the industry before bringing his expertise to Sportscasting with one excellent gambling recommendation after another.