Drew Brees: the MVP of New Orleans

The Cincinnati Bengals play host to the New Orleans Saints Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium. Leading up to the game, I want to use this post to pay my respects to one of my favorite athletes outside of the Queen City: Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

When I was watching the Saints-Vikings Sunday Night Football game, NBC showed a graphic of some legendary athletes who did not or have not won an MVP. Brees was included in that graphic.

When one of my roommates and I were talking about that, I made a comment that I have since thought a lot about. Although Brees has never won an MVP award, he is the MVP of New Orleans.

I’ve never seen a city embrace an athlete the way New Orleans has embraced No. 9. In my opinion, he put the Saints on the map as perennial contenders. Yes the Saints had five postseason appearances in franchise history prior to Brees’s arrival in 2006, but remember how they were once referred to as the New Orleans “Aints?” The Saints only had one playoff win prior to 2006, but once Brees arrived everything changed.

Brees’s first year in New Orleans was the first year I really started getting into football, and since then I’ve always known the Saints as one of the NFL’s highest octane offenses and Brees as one of the best quarterbacks in the league. So to be able to have the opportunity to watch Brees in person next Sunday, and it may be the last time I get to do so, is truly special.

I’ll tell you all this: one of our family’s two dogs is named Manning. Well guess who Brees and the Saints beat when they won the Super Bowl in 2009? Peyton Manning and the Colts. ‘Oh don’t tell us you rooted for the Saints in front of your dog’ is probably what you’re thinking.

Yes. I. Did. I couldn’t not root for Brees in that game. Here’s why: no city at that time needed a championship more than New Orleans, and I was happy for the city and Brees when they won.

I don’t remember entirely too much about Hurricane Katrina, but I knew at the time that it was a terrible and catastrophic ordeal for New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast. Fast forward to March of 2006, and the Saints sign Brees despite him dealing with a shoulder injury that threatened to end his career. For Brees, though, coming into an organization that had finished 3-13 the year before, a new head coach and a devastated city? That’s a lot to put on a quarterback’s shoulders, especially one that was already injured.

I remember watching the Monday Night Football game that was the first Saints game in the Superdome since before Hurricane Katrina. I was born in Atlanta and was a big Falcons fan at the time, but that night was all about New Orleans and the Saints. I’ve watched Steve Gleason’s blocked punt so many times. Every time I watch it, I can hear how loud the Superdome was and just how much the fans there that night embraced the Saints returning home.

So when the Saints were in the Super Bowl, I couldn’t not root for Brees and the Saints.

As I mentioned, Brees is one of my favorite athletes outside of the Queen City. It’s so fun to watch him and the Saints play on t.v.. Brees has thrown for at least 4,000 yards in each of his 12 seasons with the Saints. That is incredible consistency. And watching games in the Superdome with the environment it creates makes me want to go there so badly, even if it’s not a Saints game.

So as much as I have and always will be a Bengals fan, this game against Brees and the Saints is going to be special. Obviously I want the Bengals to win this game, but it’s not every game you go to that you get to see someone so special like Drew Brees. That’s why I wanted to pay my respects to him here.