If there is any poetic justice in the NFL, all-time passing leader Drew Brees will win a Super Bowl this coming year.
The 41-year-old Brees announced Tuesday he will play one more season for the New Orleans Saints. Not only is he one of the classiest, most civic-minded people in all of professional sports, but he has played more than well enough to participate in several more Super Bowls than the only one he actually played in and won as the Most Valuable Player 10 years ago.
Every time the Saints have made the playoffs since then, Brees has played well enough to win, only to be let down by late defensive lapses or blown officiating or both. The games usually have ended with Brees on the sideline, with no chance to add to his own heroics.
After the 2010 season, Brees led the Saints’ offense to 36 points as he completed 39 of 60 passes for 404 yards and two touchdowns, all without a turnover. But the defense allowed the birthing of Marshawn Lynch’s “Beast Mode” as the Seattle Seahawks put up 41 points for the win. The next year Brees’s offense scored 32 points as he went 40 of 63 for 462 yards and four TDs — two of which, plus a two-point conversion, came in the final 4:02 of play. But the defense, again missing tackles all over the field, gave up two TDs in the final 2:11, resulting in a 36-32 defeat to the San Francisco 49ers.
Two years later, Brees was merely superb, not otherworldly, as he threw for 309 yards in another loss to the Seahawks, as the defense gave up another 140 yards on the ground to Lynch. Result: 23-15, Seattle.
After a three-year hiatus from the playoffs, Brees and the Saints returned for three straight heartbreaks. Never before in NFL history has a team lost playoff games three consecutive years on the final play of the game, but the Saints did. After the 2017 season, Brees threw for 294 yards and three TDs, but his defense bizarrely gave up the “Minnesota Miracle” to record another improbable loss. The next year featured the most consequentially horrendous officiating decision in league history, as the Saints just missed a Super Bowl, 26-23. Brees played wonderfully again, completing 26 of 40 passes for 297 yards and a touchdown. Yes, Brees threw an interception in overtime, but it was only because he was hit as he released the ball — not something a quarterback can easily control.
Finally, this past year, the Saints’ offense finally sputtered, but Brees did complete 26 of 33 passes to force an overtime, after which a combination of awful defense and still more bad officiating cost the Saints the game without Brees ever getting on the overtime field.
Six playoff games, four fantastic Brees performances and two decent ones. Five of the six times, he merely watched as his defense failed to get off the field or stop the other team from scoring at the end. On the sixth, he could only watch as his team tried multiple laterals rather than to get out of bounds and afford Brees a chance at a Hail Mary pass.
The all-time leader in passing yards, completions, touchdown passes, passing yards per game, and completion percentage, Brees lacks multiple championships through no fault of his own. And even if karma doesn’t somehow reward him with one more Super Bowl ring, which it should, he will forever be a champion off the field as well.
But here’s hoping that ring does come. Nobody deserves it more.
