Mr. Drew Brees

I continue to follow Drew Brees’ career with a certain horrified fascination. Just knowing he should be but isn’t quarterbacking the Miami Dolphins right now kind of sucks, there’s just no other way to put it. The Dolphins blew it with Brees twice. Wannstadt passed on drafting Brees in 2001 and with the chance to rectify Wanny’s error in 2005 Saban instead passed on Brees in favor of signing worthless Duante Culpepper. And Brees wanted Miami to sign him! That’s the worst part. Actually I don’t know what the worst part is. What I do know is that a team in desperate need of a quarterback for practically this entire decade twice refused to grab somebody who for the last few years has been one of the best QB’s in the game. And every week this year football fans have gotten to see Brees’ incredible accuracy and tremendous decision-making week in and week out. His team’s 12-0, one of those wins coming at the expense of the Dolphins. Brees’ demolition of the New England Patriots a couple weeks ago was staggering. Could any quarterback ever have played a better game?

Making it slightly worse is the fact that Brees seems like a really good guy, someone you actually want to root for. I mean, you’re going to root for your team no matter what but it’s nice when your team’s got some actual quality individuals who deserve the cheers they get. Brees is one of the most respected players in the game. Which makes me wonder something.

Remember a few years back when Bret Favre’s dad died and there was a whole huge media story about how that would affect Favre and if he was going to play that week? That was all we heard about that week and for weeks after (And unless you drink a lot or suffer from early onset dementia you of course know Favre did play and play well that week and for the rest of the year). Well you may not have heard that Drew Brees’ mother passed away back in August. And it was just recently determined that she committed suicide. Also, while previously it was reported the two had not even spoken in the three years before her death it turns out that was all wrong and in fact the two had been working on repairing their strained relationship. So you have to think coping with all of that would be at least as hard as what Favre went through. Yet I heard no preseason speculation whatsoever wondering if after his mother’s death Brees could maintain the level of play that won him the 2008 Offensive Player of the Year Award. I’ve seen no commentary on just how amazing it is that Brees continues to perform like this despite what he’s been gone through. I’m just sayin’.