Want to know why Brett Favre is still slinging TD passes at age 40?
Because the man is a hunk.
He didn't get to the NFL — or land those Wrangler commercials — on arm strength alone.
If you ever wondered why the handsomest guy in your high school was also the quarterback on the football team, wonder no more. Looks can open a lot of doors, on and off the field. It's an empirical fact.
David J. Berri, an associate professor of economics at Southern Utah University, combined with colleagues Rob Simmons (Lancaster University), Jennifer Van Gilder (Ursinus College) and Lisle O'Neill (Ursinus College) to produce a scholarly paper called "What Does it Mean to Find the Face of the Franchise? Physical Attractiveness and the Evaluation of Athletic Performance."
The study confirmed what you suspected. The quarterback actually was the best-looking guy in school — or close to it.
Meanwhile, Favre keeps getting chances, clear into his beautiful middle-age years.
The idea of matching looks to success occurred to Berri as he was being interviewed by a reporter about NBA star Chris Paul. That led him to wonder if he could match salaries to good looks, especially in the NFL. Quarterbacks traditionally have among the highest salaries and get followed more by the paparazzi than other players. They date super models and pop stars and generally act like beautiful people.
Turns out they are.
Aided by a computer application that measures facial symmetry — the main component in good looks — the group discovered that quarterbacks with the best faces generally make "a substantial salary premium over an equivalent worse-looking player, purely for his physical attractiveness and regardless of his performance and characteristics."
So go ahead, hate them because they're beautiful.
A 1994 study revealed that better looking people in the general population make more money than average people by about 5 percent. It also showed below-average looking people earn less than average looking people — by 9 percent in men and 4 percent in women.
Sports, though, should be different. Isn't it really about the touchdowns? It's not like Ben Roethlisberger is a dreamboat. Oh, wait. Yes he is. Big Ben scored a 99.4 on facial symmetry, sixth among quarterbacks and two ahead of traditional heartthrob Tom Brady.
OK, so maybe sex appeal can't be completely quantified.
The "handsomest" QB was Atlanta's Matt Ryan, whose face is 99.8 percent symmetrical. Favre checked in at No. 2 in the latest study, No. 1 in a previous effort.
"My students are saying, 'He's 40. How good-looking can he be?' " said Berri.
Other top 10 quarterbacks were Aaron Rodgers, Matt Hasselbeck, Kerry Collins, Shaun Hill, Philip Rivers and Kurt Warner.
In case you're wondering if it's entirely about looks, that's not true. As Berri noted, Brad Pitt isn't going to star in the NFL, no matter how handsome he is.
"You actually do have to play quarterback," said Berri.
Still, he said, it starts when quarterbacks are kids. Beginners are similar in size, and, as he put it, "You can't be choosing quarterbacks on arm strength, because they can't throw the football. So what it tells you is when they pick a quarterback they're saying, 'He's pretty good-looking, let's make him the quarterback.' He keeps playing quarterback, and that's why the better-looking guys end up being quarterbacks."
According to Berri, the average person has a facial symmetry of about 90 percent, yet of 312 NFL quarterbacks they studied, only two scored under 92. The average quarterback was about 97 percent symmetrical.
Berri and his colleagues plan to move ahead, perhaps looking into offensive linemen, whom he suspects won't grade out as high on the symmetry scale.
Other studies, he noted, have shown that looks factor into income and success in almost all jobs. Some research indicates death row inmates, as he put it, "are not very attractive."
I don't know what all that means when Charlize Theron uglies up and plays the part of a convicted serial killer in "Monster."
I only know she got paid a lot to do it.
e-mail: rock@desnews.com