The National Football League's most valuable player is a freckle-faced prankster. "Just a regular-type guy who can throw a ball," he calls himself. No golden boy like the Cowboys' Troy Aikman or the Broncos' John Elway, Brett Favre (rhymes with carve) is a scrambling improv artist. Last year he was the league's most valuable player for the second straight year. He led the Green Bay Packers to victory in Super Bowl XXXI and celebrated with pranks like putting red-hot ointment in teammates' jockstraps.

Favre, 28, is a throwback to the days when pro football was 22 men beating up one another with 500 people in the stands. From tiny Kiln, Mississippi, this son of a high school football coach would fit right in with Bronko Nagurski and Ray Nitschke. He wrestles teammates and plays practical jokes like the rowdy country boy he is.

Excusing himself to go to the bathroom, he announces, "'Scuse me -- gotta go drain the old pipe."

After the Packers' Super Bowl win, Favre went to the White House to meet President Clinton. He wrote a book (Favre: For the Record was published by Doubleday in October) and opened a restaurant. He signed a seven-year, $47 million contract with a $12 million signing bonus. But he spent most days relaxing, enjoying a round of golf and a beer with friends back home in Mississippi. Still, he calls it "the worst time ever."

Before the 1996 season Favre announced he was addicted to Vicodin, a potent painkiller used by many NFL players. The league's MVP spent 46 days at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and the NFL put him on probation for drugs and alcohol. Next came news that Brett's sister, Brandi, a Mississippi beauty queen, had been involved in a drive-by shooting. She was sentenced to a year's probation. Soon their older brother, Scott, was in trouble, convicted of felony DUI. Scott Favre had driven into a railroad crossing; a train killed his passenger, a family friend. Scott was placed under house arrest. As the result of some bureaucratic confusion, Scott was picked up earlier this year for probation violation and served 67 days in jail. "Trouble never seems to be far away," Brett says.

Despite all this, he never appears to lose his humor. Outwardly, at least, Favre is still the cocky rifleman from Hancock North Central High School. In 1987 he chose the University of Southern Mississippi because it was the only Division 1A school to offer him a scholarship -- as a defensive back. As the Golden Eagles' seventh-string quarterback, he played defense and even tried punting. No one considered him a top talent. But soon he was starting, pulling off upsets of Alabama and Auburn and, in 1989, top-ranked Florida State. Then came his own car crash. Driving home one night he flipped his vehicle and suffered a concussion, deep cuts and a "mildly" broken back. Five weeks later he pulled off a 27-24 stunner over Alabama.

Drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in 1991, Favre was a backup QB again, a clipboard jockey. "Hated it," he says. But he liked Atlanta. Suddenly rich beyond his dreams, a 22-year-old making $660,000 a year, he spent his nights partying and soon wore out his welcome with the Falcons' coaching staff. In 1992 Atlanta traded him to Green Bay for a draft choice.

Packer general manager Ron Wolf and coach Mike Holmgren loved Favre's raw talent. They wanted to bring him along slowly, to ease his transition to Green Bay's complex offense, which forces a quarterback to make dozens of snap judgments on every play. When starter Don Majkowski got hurt in 1992, Favre trotted in and led the Pack to a 24-23 win. He completed a club record 64.1 percent of his passes that year. At 23, he was the youngest QB ever selected for the Pro Bowl.

His unpredictability drove fans wild, but nothing worried Favre. "My game is getting flipped at the line of scrimmage -- running the ball, getting up limping and throwing the next pass for a touchdown," he says.

In 1995 he passed for 38 touchdowns, the third-best total of all time. Last season he topped himself, passing for 39 touchdowns while leading the Packers to their Super Bowl win. It was Green Bay's first title since Super Bowl II in 1967.

We sent Contributing Editor Kevin Cook to huddle with Favre. Cook reports:

"We met at a golf course in New Jersey. I also spoke with him at a private airport, a hotel and at his humongous new home in Green Bay. Favre lives like a jet-setter, but he's still as down-home as it gets. One night I bought him an Amstel Light and he almost threw his arm out wrestling with the bottle cap. For all his fame and money, he remains a twist-top kind of guy.

"During football season he lives in a mansion by a creek in southwest Green Bay, where Brittany Favre, 9, answered the door and ran away. I also met Brett's wife, Deanna, who is as petite and angular as he is big and meaty.

"We sat in his den and talked for hours. His big-screen TV was blank, but there were reminders of NFL action all around: game balls, player-of-the-week citations, a big photo of a Favre touchdown pass to his buddy Mark Chmura, the Packers tight end.

"His keen eye for detail surprised me until I remembered his history. Favre was nobody until he learned to read NFL defenses, to read the future in the twitch of a cornerback's leg. It is a task he often performs with 280-pound Lions and Bears in his face. How tuned to detail is Favre? He says that he sometimes sees a play unfold in the instant between the snap and his receivers' first steps.

"Favre isn't as famous as he probably should be. Green Bay, population 96,000, is the league's smallest media market. His family's legal problems haven't helped his image, and his own rehab stint surely cost him endorsements. With so much to celebrate and regret, he is a sadder but wiser young man these days.

"Of course, he'll still spray you with shaving cream.

"Shortly before his triumphal visit to the White House, Brett told me he planned to give Bill Clinton 'a few choice words' about taxes. That's where we picked up the next time we met."