DREW BREES: OVERACHIEVED RIGHT INTO CANTON; NOW SADLY, TIME TO SAY GOODBYE
Happens to everybody.
To all of us.
Time waits for no man, woman or beast.
Some are able to look time square in the eye and with admirable defiance, triumphantly.
For a while.
But only for a while.
It — whatever “it” may be — slips away ever so slowly and at the outset then, is barely discernible.
Until that first faint message registers in the brain, things are as they always were.
Business as usual.
Just another day.
And you may not even be the first to notice, but eventually you do.
And when you do, you have choices presented and decisions to make.
Can I shunt it aside? Must I acknowledge it? Now? Nah. Maybe I can go a little longer. I can do this. I’ve been doing this right along.
Nothing has changed.
Aaaaah… now that’s where you are mistaken sir or madam. Something has indeed changed.
It’s called the passage of time.
Drew Brees was an overachieving 5’9” quarterback — he’s officially listed as 6’0” — of great repute at Purdue. He was almost as well known for the birthmark on the right side of his face — his cheek — as he was for his cannon arm.
Almost.
Because the boy could play.
He graduated in 2001, the owner of Big Ten Conference records in passing yards (11,792); TD passes (90); total offense yards (12,693); completions (1,026); and attempts (1,678).
As of 2016, he remained the Big Ten record-holder in nearly every passing category, including passing yards, TDs and completions.
He held the NCAA record for pass attempts in a game (83) for fifteen years.
He was the team’s offensive captain as a junior and a senior, he piloted the club to its first Big Ten championship in over three decades (2000), he played in the 2001 Rose Bowl with Purdue making its first appearance there since 1967, and he won a truckload of individual awards and honors.
He finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1999 and third in 2000. As a senior he was the Boilermakers’ first Academic All-American since 1989.
(Bruce Brineman was so honored then).
Brees was named the Big Ten’s best quarterback of the 1990s and the Big Ten Conference’s Griese-Brees Quarterback of the Year Award initiated in 2011, was named in honor of Canton inductee Hall-of-Famer Bob Griese and him.
Not too shabby.
In the 2001 NFL Draft Drew Brees was the first pick of the second round and 32nd overall by the San Diego Chargers. In 2002 he earned the starting job and was a Pro Bowl selection by 2004.
A severe shoulder joint dislocation along with a 360 degree tear of his labrum and rotator cuff devalued his stock with the Chargers and with 2004 first round (#4) draft pick Philip Rivers waiting in the wings, Brees signed with the New Orleans Saints as a free agent in 2006.
Since then he has made the Pro Bowl eight times and directed the club formerly known as the “A’ints” to the Super Bowl XLIV Championship (2010) in a game in which he was voted the MVP.
Upon joining the Saints he has led all NFL quarterbacks in TDs, passing yards and 300-yard (passing) games.
In fact this season (2016) he passed for over 5,000 yards for an unfathomable fifth time in his career; no other NFL QB has done so more than once.
He has topped the NFL chart in passing touchdowns four times and in passing yards a record seven times.
He was the league’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2008 and 2011, among his many other achievements and countless accolades.
In 2010 Sports Illustrated named Brees its Sportsman of the Year.
The spectrum of philanthropic and charitable endeavours which graces his resume is as prodigious, impressive and broad as his superhero gridiron numbers are wide.
Best to begin perhaps with his role in helping to orchestrate the city of New Orleans’ rebirth in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy.
He and his wife chose to live in the heart of it — in New Orleans proper — rather than retreat to the suburbs and this meant the world to his legion of local fans in particular.
The Brees Dream Foundation, begun in 2003 to support cancer patients and research, expanded to provide assistance for Katrina rebuilding projects and recovery when the Brees family moved to New Orleans. The foundation also funds and supports various programs in San Diego and in West Lafayette, Indiana where Purdue is located.
In 2007 a partnership was announced with the international children’s charity Operation Kids. Its comprehensive and wide-ranging foci targeted rebuilding, restoring and recreating academic and athletic facilities, parks and playgrounds; after-school programs; mentoring programs for the intellectually disabled; neighborhood revitalization projects; and child care facilities in New Orleans.
In addition, Brees sponsors the Rebuilding Thru Brotherhood program inviting fellow Sigma Chi fraternity members to the New Orleans community to build homes with Habitat for Humanity.
Toss in multiple USO tours; raising money for various other charities through a promotional deal with Chili’s Grill and Bar and The Pro Sports Team Challenge; a co-chairmanship appointment by President Obama to the renamed President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition in 2010; and an appearance in an It Gets Better video sending an anti-bullying message in the aftermath of a spate of gay teenage suicides, and it is no wonder that his full philanthropic dance card has vaulted Brees to a stratospheric humanitarian level reached by few.
And then there is his relationship with Steve Gleason, his kamikaze former teammate hanging on in a life-draining battle with ALS.
As a co-producer of the “Gleason” documentary, Brees is on the inside — where he typically finds himself — but it’s much deeper than that.
As Brees notes, “it’s hard not to be moved by the film, regardless if you’ve ever known Steve or call him a friend. It’s raw and it’s real. You’re gonna get emotional…you’re gonna think deeply about things that you’ve probably never gone that deep about before…because they really hold nothing back. And it’s meant to be that way. Listen that’s the way Steve lives his life.”
The documentary has earned rave reviews from several film festivals after debuting at Sundance and is Oscar-worthy.
The Team Gleason foundation counts Brees as a charter member which comes as no surprise.
“It’s pretty incredible what he’s been able to accomplish,” Brees observes. “…You felt like this is the last guy on earth who deserves something like this. And yet he’s one of the only people on earth that could do with it what he’s been doing.”
Brees oughta know.
Brees oughta know because he knows what extraordinary is. He has been doing magnificent things on and off the football field for a very long time.
His thirty-eighth birthday is two days away, on January 15th. Only Tom Brady at 39 is an older NFL quarterback. They both are still healthy and eminently capable. The difference is that Brady and the Patriots win — a lot.
In the mind-boggling five seasons in which Brees has thrown for 5,000 yards, he and his mates have missed the playoffs three times (2008; 2012; & 2016).
Stats are not necessarily for losers but unless something changes dramatically it is unlikely that Brees will be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy anytime soon.
If the objective in football — the ultimate team sport — is to win and it is an unvarnished and hard-boiled given that time inexorably marches on, then Brees should retire now and devote himself to his philanthropic pursuits and whatever else he fancies.
No time like the present to start working on his Canton Hall of Fame bust.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in January 2017.]
ADDENDUM:
Brees is 41 years old and has not yet retired.
In 2017 he threw for 4,334 yards with 23 TDs, 8 INT and a Passer Rating of 103.9.
His career numbers look like this: 77,416 yards; 547 TDs; 237 INT; & a Passer Rating of 98.4.
Remarkably, the only blemish on his record rose in June 2020 when he reiterated his position that he will “never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America,” engendering serious backlash, some of which came from his Saints teammates.
