The New York Sack Exchange documentary director says Mark Gastineau’s confrontation with Brett Favre was ‘unexpected’

Days before the Jets’ ESPN documentary premiered, former defensive end Mark Gastineau’s feud with Brett Favre made waves on social media on Tuesday.

At a Chicago sports memorabilia show last year as part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary about “The New York Sack Exchange,” which premieres Friday at 8 p.m. ET, Gastineau confronted Favre and accused him of letting Giants defensive end Michael Strahan sack him to break his record in 2001.

“I was there during that moment, and it was unexpected,” director Ken Rodgers told the Daily News about Gastineau confronting Favre. “We were just following Mark around a card show and if he’s anything, he is still passionate.

“You saw it on the football field as a sack master celebrating and he is still as passionate about what he feels and believes. In retrospect, maybe I’m not as surprised that he would have that moment with Favre now that we’ve experience so much time with him and done interviews with him and seen his career.

“At the time, it was totally unexpected that happened.”

During the interaction in Chicago, Favre and Gastineau shook hands, and Favre mentioned to the former defensive end how they had met before.

“Yeah, right — when you fell down for [Strahan],” said Gastineau.

“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,” and Gastineau shouted back, “Well, I don’t care. You hurt me. You hurt me! You hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you,” Favre replied.

“You really hurt me. You really hurt me, Brett,” Gastineau said to Favre before a handler escorted him away.

Gastineau is clearly still angry about the final game of the 2002 season between the Packers and Giants when Strahan broke his controversial single-season sack record (22). Many believe Favre fell on purpose to give Strahan the record of 22.5.

At the time, Gastineau attended the game and hugged Strahan afterward. However, he later expressed his feelings about Strahan breaking the record in an ESPN interview in 2020.

During the documentary, Gastineau said about the incident, “Anybody will tell you that Brett Favre took a dive.”

Steelers pass rusher T.J. Watt equaled Strahan’s record of 22.5 in 2021. Favre addressed the incident between him and Gastineau on X in a long thread. The three-time NFL MVP said he didn’t intentionally take the sack to hurt Gastineau.

“There was no malice on my part,” Favre said in the post. He also endorsed Gastineau for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“He was made to be an enemy by the media, which we can see in that Phyllis George interview,” James Weiner, who also directed the documentary, told the Daily News about Gastineau. “They blame him for the [sack dance] rule change. He feels like the world has been against him, rightly or wrongly and he got some good points.

“The Favre-Strahan sack record, there are a lot of people who think that the league wanted Strahan to have the sack record. He was a popular player among a lot of people, the league, and opponents, and Gastineau was not a popular player. So, you had two popular players involved in this controversial incident and Gastineau was perceived as the bad guy back then, so there wasn’t much sympathy for him.

“Twenty-three years later, we look at it a little bit differently perhaps.”

“The New York Sack Exchange” 30 for 30 examines the rise and fall of the Jets’ defensive line from the late 1970s through the 1980s. It also details the relationships between Gastineau, teammates Joe Klecko, Marty Lyons, and the late Abdul Salaam, who died in October.

“I’m sorry, he won’t get to see the finished film,” Weiner said about Salaam. “But I’m happy he was a big part of it. I keep telling Ken, the timing of this thing was unbelievable.”

The documentary is narrated by musician, actor, and lifelong Jets fan Method Man, and the film is directed by Rodgers (The Tuck Rule, The Two Bills, Four Falls of Buffalo) and Weiner (The Brady 6, SEC Storied: Saturday Night Lights,), who grew up in Long Island in Port Washington.

Rodgers wants people to take away a special message when watching the documentary.

“For me, it’s never too late to forgive past transgressions between people,” he said. “It’s really hard to get along with people you work with because you’re all striving towards different individual goals at the same time. Not everybody that works together gets along, let alone out in the real world or at the supermarket.

“These guys disliked each other on some level more than most people dislike their coworkers. It was real, the anger and frustration, so much so, they’re still working through it, but they are still working through it.

“I’m sitting at a reunion with somebody 30 years from now, I’m not going to care about those little transgressions that make me upset. The impact the film had on me was to reevaluate my work relationships and realize that if these guys can sit down and talk with each other and work things out, then anybody can.”