Sports Illustrated - Sports Illustrated Drew Brees: Celebrating a New Orleans Legend

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Drew Brees retired as New Orleanss all-time leader in almost every passing category, including yards, completions, and touchdowns.

Brees leapt across the line of scrimmage against the Lions in 2012.

A Regular Legend

Drew Brees accomplished the extraordinary while remaining refreshingly ordinary

by Greg Bishop

Drew Breess transcendent pro football career will be defined by numbers, so many numbers, because the digits he collected are way too staggering to ignore: 80,358 passing yards, 571 touchdown throws, 67.7% completion rate, 20 seasons spent dissecting NFL defenses as the premier surgical QB, not just of an era but of all time.

Hell be tagged, too, for winning only one Super Bowl, as if historically great quarterbacks can just snap their fingers and collect rings.

Ill remember Brees, though, not just for the records he collected with an assassins ruthlessness, but also for how damn grounded he was in the most abnormal of ecosystems, the alternate universe of NFL stardom. When I interviewed him for a 2018 Sports Illustrated cover story, he invited me to his sons bounce-house birthday party afterward and even packed a plate of food to go for me. Funny enough, the pizza, pasta and salad were neatly separated in the container he provided. Brees remained precise and meticulous, always, from the most meaningful interactions to a totally meaningless one.

Those who know Brees best understand this side of him. Hes probably the most normal of all the superstars Ive come across, says Tom House, the respected throwing coach who has trained Brees, Tom Brady and Nolan Ryan, among many others in various sports. So many elite athletes, House says, put their careers first. Hes not judging; they have to in order to maximize their earnings and potential. Brees, though, struck House as closer to 50-50 in how he split his priorities between his team and his family. Each pursuit made Brees better for the other.

House, a former major league pitcher, knew the other way from experience, as baseball had cost him his first marriage. Now remarried, the throwing guru who helped stabilize the motion of the most accurate passer in NFL history learned an important lesson about balancing his life in return. That marks yet another measure of Breess outsize impact, which extended to the injured athletes inspired by his 2006 comeback from shoulder surgery to fellow NFL players who appreciated his work as a member of their unions executive committee.

Like every fan who ever tugged on a Saints jersey, House wishes that Brees had won another championship. He came so close in the last four seasons, leading teams with legitimate hopes only to be knocked out on a fluky catch now known as the Minneapolis Miracle (2017), a terrible pass interference call (18), an odd overtime upset (19) and, most recently, a GOAT named Brady (21). But House asks, fairly: Why define Brees by the games he didnt win when we have so many examples of his brilliance?

In 245 regular-season and postseason starts for the Saints, Brees won 151 times, including this 2014 playoff victory.

Sure, there were missteps. Brees endorsed AdvoCare, a health and wellness company that in 2019 paid $150 million to settle charges of operating a pyramid scheme. Then there was the Yahoo! Finance interview in which he advocated that players stand for the national anthem rather than kneel in protest. But there Brees should be commended for listening to teammates outraged over what he said, for trying to understand the issues that led to the protests and committing to work toward improvements.

Brees was named to the Pro Bowl 13 times, was the Comeback Player of the Year in 2004 and won 172 games as a starting quarterback. He led the NFL in passing yards seven times and fashioned more than 50 game-winning drives. He won Super Bowl XLIV after the 09 season and nabbed that games MVP honors, too.

His impact, though, stretched far beyond wins and those statistics, eye-straining as they were. Brees will be lauded for what he did in, to and for New Orleans, starting with his arrival in 2006, fresh off the surgery to repair the torn right labrum that threatened to end what to that point was an uneven career. He took a city still reeling from Hurricane Katrina and gave back an important and unquantifiable commodity in short supply: hope.

Theres something almost miraculous about that relationship, says James Carville, the famous political consultant and lifelong Saints fan. Drew defines the psyche of a place more than any athlete I can recall. Its more than wins and losses. Its borderline supernatural, the way it fits.

As the seasons flew by, Brees became a vital part of Carvilles life, almost like a friend. The two men never actually met, but Carville began defending Brees in public and private conversations, arguing, fairly, that Brees belonged with Brady and Joe Montana in the best-ever NFL quarterback conversation. If you dont count touchdowns, yards and completions, then hes not, Carville quips. When the Rams knocked the Saints from the playoffs three seasons ago, after that phantom P-INT, Carville says he felt most for Brees, knowing that his odds to secure another title dwindled with each passing year.

Carville also notes, correctly, that how Brees is considered, his ultimate standing in NFL history, will age well over time. Well view Brees more favorably in 10 years, Carville posits. The missteps will fade, the numbers will remain and the chance that anybody ends up approaching thembeyond, maybe, Patrick Mahomes under fairly ideal circumstancesis as likely as Breess growing another six inches in retirement.

House agrees. He says that when football analysts look back at the quarterback era thats now close to ending, Brees and Brady will stand alone. All the pundits are saying [Aaron] Rodgers is this and [Peyton] Manning is that, House says. But Drew is right there with the GOAT. Time will bear that out.

Brees will now move into broadcasting, at NBC Sports, where hes likely to excel, as a normal legend who can break down football with uncanny precision. In other words, hell continue to be Drew Brees, the superstar quarterback who never carried himself that way.

Brees raised the NFC championship trophy after defeating the Vikings 3128 in 2010.

The unassuming Brees quietly rewrote the NFL record books.

Brees was showered in confetti after the Saints victory over the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV in 2010.