What is wrong with Brett Favre?

To set the table:

I never liked Brett Favre to begin with.

I'm not a colossal fan of professional football. But even though I generally cast a cold eye on the NFL, I do glance over occasionally. And as teams go, I've always had a bit of a fond spot for the Green Bay Packers, where Favre was the star quarterback for years. But I never liked Brett Favre.

And he did nothing to further enamor himself when he decamped to the Jets, where he got caught up in a sexting scandal with a Jets sideline reporter.

Not to mention that he's a lunkhead in general, and a Trumpist lunkhead in particular.

So, patooey on Brett Favre.

And now it's capital-P-Patooey on Brett Favre. What. A. Putz.

NFL star Brett Favre must return $828,000 he received from welfare funds that should have gone to needy families, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White said in a statement today. The famed quarterback and Mississippi native received $1.1 million in funds from two non-profits whose founder has since been indicted on state and federal charges for their alleged role in the largest embezzlement scheme in state history.

White said Favre accepted the money for speaking engagements that he never attended for Families First For Mississippi, one of the non-profits involved in the alleged scheme. The football star has said he did not know the funds were illegal when he accepted them. (Source: Mississippi Free Press)

So Favre claims he didn't know the funds were illegal. But, but, but...

This afternoon, Mississippi Today’s Anna Wolfe reported that the letter Favre received from White said the “illegal expenditures and unlawful dispositions were made when you knew or had reason to know through the exercise of reasonable diligence that the expenditures were illegal and/or the dispositions were unlawful.” 

Maybe old Brett just isn't that into reasonable diligence. After all, reasonable diligence sounds harder to do than send an unsolicited dick pic to a young woman you're trying to get to know better.

Anyway, the claim is that Favre never made the speeches he was paid to give. What, pray tell, did he think the money was coming his way for? Just a little walking around pocket change, courtesy of a jock-worshipping friend?

Favre wasn't the only ath-a-lete caught up in this scandal.

Others who received letters from the auditor today include:

Former WWE wrestler Ted Dibiase, Sr., known as “The Million Dollar Man,” who White said must pay back $722,299 that his Christian ministry, Heart of David Ministries, received

DiBiase’s son, Ted DiBiase, Jr., a retired WWE wrestler who White said owes $3.9 million

DiBiase’s other retired WWE wrestler son, Brett DiBiase, who White said owes $225,950 

The Marcus DuPree Foundation, owned by the former NFL player of the same name, which White said owes $789,534

The money was funneled their way by one John Davis, who misspent $77 million in funds earmarked for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. And Mississippi, which is the poorest state in the U.S., has plenty of families in need of temporary assistance. 

Favre is from Mississippi. Surely, he knows how sorely needed this money is. Not so surely - he is, after all, a lunkhead - he must have asked himself why two nonprofits established to help impoverished families in desperately poor communities were paying him a boatload for no-show speeches. 

For his part, Favre denies that he ever got paid for a speech he didn't give. 

Favre said the payments were actually for public service announcements that ran in his home state of Mississippi: "I did ads that ran for three years, was paid for it, no different than any other time that I've done endorsements for other people, and I went about my way. For [the auditor] to say I took $1.1 million and didn't show up for speaking engagements is absolutely, 100 percent not true." (Source: Bleacher Report)

So it's okay in Favre's universe to cadge all that money to do PSA's for organizations that are supposed to be helping poor people? It's "no different" than the types of paid endorsements he's done for Wrangler Jeans?

What is wrong with Brett Favre? Do top-of-the-line professional athletes just get so used to people kissing up to them, sprinkling gold dust on them, comping them on everything, that they just don't ask any questions? Or are they just so blinded by greed that, whatever wealth they've accrued - and Favre accrued plenty over the course of his illustrious career - it's never enough.

Sheesh.