In Praise Of Drew Brees

We’ve come a long long way together, through the hard times and the good.  I have to celebrate you baby.  I have to praise you like I should.  -Fatboy Slim

Public Service Announcement:  Ok, here we go!  Ever since Peyton Manning found his way into this year’s Super Bowl, all we’ve being hearing is whether or not he is the greatest quarterback in football history.  All day long at school I hear how great Peyton is at this or how wonderful Peyton did that!  Peyton, Peyton, Peyton!  I’ve had all I can stands, I can’t stands no more.  What about the other guy?  What about the other guy who just won himself a Super Bowl MVP.  What about him?  What about Drew Brees?  Where does he fit in all this?     

There’s an old adage in football.  You might have heard it.  Defense wins championships.  True as that may be, I’ll tell you what else wins championships.  Protecting the football win championships.  Don’t believe me?  Just ask Trent Dilfer.  Uh-memba him?  Dilfer was seen as a caretaker quarterback by the Baltimore Ravens.  His success was attributed entirely to the strength of the Ravens’ defense and their three yards and a cloud of dust offense.  But do you know what else Trent Dilfer did?  He protected the football.  You know what he else he did?  He won a championship.

Now what if you have a guy who can really throw.  Throw to and fro.  A guy who really lets it go.  A guy who has let it go for well over 4,000 yards for 4 consecutive seasons.  What if you have a guy like that there but can also protect the football?  I’ll tell you what you get.  You get something very special.  You get a guy like Drew Brees.

Throughout this here postseason, Brees threw 102 passes.  That’s a lot of passes.  When Trent Dilfer won his Super Bowl, he only threw 83, and he played in one extra game.  Just so you know, Brees’ 102 passes during the playoffs are the highest total in one postseason by a player who didn’t throw an interception.  How about that?  Like the King of Rock, there is none higher.  Sucker QB’s should call him sire.  Now, if you didn’t like the Trent Dilfer comparison, I’ll do you one better.  I’ll do you Troy Aikman.  Aikman’s 89 passes without a pick in 1992 was the previous record.   

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, big deal.  You’re thinking, who cares?  You’re thinking, one season, so what?  I’ll tell you so what.  I’ll tell you in his pro career, Brees has thrown only two interceptions among 225 postseason passes.  Yowza!  For those of you keeping score at home, that interception rate of one for every 112.5 passes is the lowest in NFL history.  The lowest.  You can’t touch him with a ten-foot pole.  He even made the devil sell him his soul.  And in case you’re wondering, Bart Starr is number 2 with a rate of one pick for every 71 passes. 

NBo sports fans, Drew Brees does not throw interceptions.  It’s not what he does.  It’s not what he does because the guy is accurate.  Greg Maddux accurate.  Remember what Joe Morgan said about Greg Maddux?  Joe Morgan said, “Greg Maddux could put a baseball through a life saver.”  That’s Drew Brees.  His 32-for-39 performance in the Super Bowl lifted his career completion rate in postseason games to 66.7 percent.  That’s pretty gosh darned good.  So good in fact, that it broke the record of 66.5 percent that had been held, ever so briefly, by Kurt Warner.  Warner had broken Ken Anderson’s record of 66.3 percent earlier in this postseason.

So with all this greatest quarterback in the world nonsense flying around, I think it’s high time we enter one Mr. Drew Brees into the equation.  I think what JFK thinks.  I think we should let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of quarterbacks.  The torch had been passed to Drew Brees.

Public Spectacle:

Peace out homies.  Six two and Even!

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