‘Gunslinger’ a deep dive into career of Favre

It was the afternoon of Sept. 17, 1992 when the Pittsburgh Steelers — off to a 3-0 start that season — ran headfirst into history at Lambeau Field.

Looking for their first 4-0 open since the year they last won the Super Bowl, 1979, the Steelers were favorites against a Green Bay Packer team that was giving a young quarterback his first career NFL start.

That quarterback rolled over the Steelers rather easily, 17-3, burning the NFL’s best cornerback, Rod Woodson, on two impressive touchdown throws.

That quarterback was Brett Favre — the one-and-only, the man with the rocket arm, and most recently, the Pro Football Hall of Famer — launching his illustrious career by dismantling the Steelers’ defense in a way he’d do to countless others over 20 seasons.

Football fans can relive Favre’s life — from his early days in rural Mississippi, to his often-forgotten season in Atlanta, to his Super Bowl win and rocky relationship with Aaron Rodgers — in “Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre” by Jeff Pearlman.

Pearlman, a New York Times-best-selling author, puts readers inside the locker rooms where Favre became one of the most beloved and flawed players in the sport’s history. It is in this territory where Pearlman thrives; his obsessive focus on athletes as human beings is constructed behind dogged reporting.

The result is the most comprehensive biography of Brett Favre that exists. The book’s depth is no more apparent than in the poignant look at Favre’s rookie year in an Atlanta Falcons uniform. Even die-hard football fans might not recall that Favre ate and drank his way out of a job there, sleeping through team meetings because he was hungover.

If stories in which Favre overcomes adversity en route to an extraordinary career are the book’s bread and butter, the main dish is in the quarterback’s rendezvous with scandal. There’s much about his propensity for alcohol and struggle with Vicodin use.

And there’s riveting anecdotes about Favre’s uncomfortable relationship with his successor in Green Bay, Aaron Rodgers. Pearlman’s reporting details the pair’s first awkward meeting, which set a precedent of animosity between the two players.

That’s why “Gunslinger” is so outstanding: with a backbone of compulsive research and reporting, Pearlman succeeds in taking football fans deeper into the stories about Favre that have been told so many times already.