What does this loss mean for Drew Brees?

I gotta be that guy this morning, huh?

I gotta be that guy.

Um, I love Drew Brees as a football fan.

I'm such a big fan of Drew Brees.

And yet today, after what may be his last game, if you're asking me point blank, I got to do my job and and tell you what the loss means.

Unfortunately, um, Drew Brees is arguably a top 10 quarterback ever.

He was playing in a pass happy era and put up great numbers.

Arguably a top 10 quarterback ever.

He really needed another Super Bowl to elevate his status, and he really had a chance this year to do it going into the fourth quarter.

As I mentioned earlier in the show, Stephen A.

I tweeted out what I was thinking, which is Drew Brees right now, it's a tie game heading into the fourth quarter.

Tom Brady almost usually comes through in these situations.

Drew Brees right now has to be better than Tom Brady.

You got to do that for one quarter of football on a team that's already beaten Brady's team twice in the regular season there at home.

Andi couldn't do it.

He was a lot worse than Tom Brady and Tom Brady.

One spectacular.

But he didn't make mistakes, and Drew Brees did.

Drew Brees.

Legacy is, he is the most accurate passer ever, right?

Like he's an amazingly accurate passer.

But, guys, the fact of the matter is too often, particularly over the last half decade on teams that Stephen A.

For how long were you saying things like Drew Brees has to overcome this Saints defense and they're not giving them enough help on that side of the ball.

But then they got him help on that side of the ball and they got him, playmakers and whatever imperfections on the Saints.

You know, there were hard to complain.

They were one of the best balance teams over the last 345 years in football.

How much more could you ask for?

You couldn't get it done in the playoffs.

How often was he the guy over the last half decade, a big chunk of his career toward the end?

If this was his last game, who you could point to and say with better quarterback play, they could have won that game where they snakebit, yes, bad officiating, bad luck.

All that's true.

But also, let's be honest, bad Drew Brees.

Certainly not playing up to his standards otherwise.

And when you think about it, was he ever the best quarterback in the league?

You never wanted M v P for a lot of his career was Brady and Peyton in whatever order you wanted to put him back then and then Rogers.

And then after Peyton left, you have an influx of new quarterbacks like Mahomes.

And when you talk about the best, you always add Breezes.

Name in at the end as a courtesy, almost.

But the fact is, he's never in the running.

Say, yeah, that guy's the best in the business.

I hated to see it.

I was really pulling for him because I thought this Saints team had a good chance to win the Super Bowl this year.

And as a Drew Brees fan, I was hoping he could at least get to play in another one.

He had to go through Tom Brady and and Aaron Rodgers and then likely Mahomes in order to get there all quarterbacks better than him So, for all the good about his legacy, what the loss yesterday points to will be what I just mentioned all those guys I mentioned that are ahead of him before I get into that, um, particularly on the daylight today, um, indulge me for just a second.

As I deviate from the subject at hand, I wanna give major props to boost areas for something that has never been mentioned on this show or any other show that I've mentioned.

Do you understand that Bruce Arians is in the NFC championship Game and forth is leading assistance Are all black.

Byron Leftwich offensive coordinator.

Todd Bowles, defensive coordinator.

Harold Goodwin.

He's your assistant head coach.

Keith Armstrong.

He's your special teams coordinator.

This man, Bruce Errands, has four black men as his lead assistance and then the NFC championship game.

How's that working out for is working out Well, I just wanted to give props to Bruce Areas for making those selections and thank him for that.

Having said all of that, let me get back to your point.

Especially on this day, Stephen A.

That's important to say.

Yeah, that's what I was saying.

Um, let me get back to your point about Bruce Brew.

Drew Brees has no effect on jewelries whatsoever because we weren't gonna label him number one.

Anyway, No matter what Drew Brees did, we weren't gonna look at him and say he's the greatest quarterback of all time.

We were still gonna put Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady and others ahead of him.

That's what we're gonna do.

He'd be a two time Super Bowl champion to the one that would elevate his cachet, I guess.

But in the end, what it comes down to is this.

He's still a Super Bowl champion.

He's still a guy that has thrown for over 80,000 yards in his career.

We knew the miracle against Minnesota that wasn't on him, Okay, we saw an NFC playoff game against Seattle.

I think it was a conference championship game years ago that wasn't on him.

There have been plenty of times as opportunities that he's had to these let slip away.

But primarily it was due to the Saints defense.

And even though the Saints defense obviously has improved exponentially over the last few years, that was after Drew Brees was about 38 39 years of age.

He's 42 now, and so when we look at it from that perspective, you could simply look at him.

You can delude to Father Time you can allude to things catching up to you.

Age, attrition, etcetera.

Even though he was still excellent, obviously, he needed more help.

They got him more help.

But still in all, you weren't able to close the deal.

We look again.

Alvin Kamara, Sean Payton.

Why did he get the ball more?

Michael Thomas.

Why were you on lock and key?

What what happened with that?

We can look at a bunch of things in the end, if Drew Brees walks away and decides to go into the NBC booth next season, you know what we're gonna say about him?

The same thing we would have said about him if he won the damn Super Bowl.

If he won yesterday's game.

Don't say one of the greatest quarterbacks who have ever played in the NFL eyes now in the booth.

That's what we would say.

That's what we would have said.

That is true.

That's what we're going to say now that he lost.

But what we But what's gonna happen.

Stephen A like when you talk about the top 10 quarterbacks of all time, you know those top list.

He's not top five.

He didn't have a chance to be, really, but Top 10, even Stephen A.

He's not Tom Brady.

He wasn't Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers and just talk about quarterbacks in his own era or Joe Montana.

Or then There are other guys like Steve Young, Brett Farve, Dan Marino, John Elway.

Not to mention the guys coming up now.

And I'm not even going that far back into time.

I mean, you know, in my lifetime, there's Mahomes on the way.

There are guys coming.

Russell Wilson.

If he wins another one, Drew Brees had a chance to make himself special, even among the most special ever to kind of get into that inner sanctum off the best quarterbacks ever.

You know, people talk about the Hall of Fame, and then it gets watered it down a little bit, and they're like they need a little ring of honor within the Hall of Fame.

Drew Brees had a chance still to enter that he won't be getting in.

Not to that.

Thanks for watching ESPN on YouTube for live streaming sports and premium content.