Legendary New York Jets defensive end Mark Gastineau still holds a 20+ year grudge against Brett Favre and it was on full display during an upcoming ESPN documentary about “The New York Sack Exchange”, a documentary about the dominant 1980s defensive line that featured Gastineau, Marty Lyons, Joe Klecko and the late Abdul Salaam.
Gastineau is shown confronting Favre at a Chicago sports memorabilia show last year and accusing him of giving New York Giants pass rusher Michael Strahan an easy sack in January of 2002 to break Gastineau’s single-season NFL record.
Favre and Gastineau shook hands and Favre mentioned how the two had met in the past.
“Yeah, right — when you fell down for him [Strahan],” Gastineau said. “I’m going to get my sack back. I’m going to get my sack back, dude.”
A surprised Favre replied, “You probably would hurt me,” to which Gastineau shot back, “Well, I don’t care. You hurt me. You hurt me! You hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Favre said.
“You really hurt me. You really hurt me, Brett,” Gastineau said as Favre was led away by one of his peoples.
Gastineau came onto the field at Giants Stadium in 2002 to congratulate Strahan for breaking the record. But in February 2020, he admitted to ESPN’s Rich Cimini that he wasn’t happy with what he believes was Favre taking a dive that day.
“It’s my record, and I want it to be known that it’s my record,” Gastineau said nearly five years ago. “I’m not going to say, ‘I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.’ It’s my record. … Being nice and being a good sport, that’s good, but it’s not real. In fact, I’m kind of a liar in a way. I feel like there’s just something wrong.”
Responding to accusations that he gave Strahan an easy sack, Favre said after that game in 2002, “We didn’t lay down for him.”
“Anybody will tell you that Brett Favre took a dive,” Gastineau says in the documentary.
Favre addressed the confrontation on his Twitter/X account, calling Gastineau a great player who should be in the Hall of Fame one day.
The documentary will air on December 13th on ESPN.
