When Drew Brees retired Sunday at age 42, you could hear one word shouted by Panther fans around the Carolinas:
Finally!
Brees was one of those opponents Panther fans loved to hate, but mostly because he was fantastic.
If he had played for Carolina, a Brees statue would sit out front of Bank of America Stadium alongside the sculpture of Sam Mills. There was nothing to hate about Brees except he was so darn good. He was Luke Kuechly playing offense, a guy who combined thinking and playing and leading just about as well as anyone ever did in the NFC South.
During most years, Carolina played Brees twice per season. Once, it was three times. Occasionally it would just be once, because either Brees was hurt or the Saints had already clinched the division and didn’t see the point in playing him.
Brees beat Carolina more than any quarterback —18 times, including the only time he saw them in the playoffs. He wasn’t a Johnny-come-lately mercenary in the NFC South like Tom Brady; he was a fixture. Brees went 8-0 in his final eight games against Carolina. The Panthers never beat him after 2016. He even beat them back in 2004 in his first-ever matchup against the Panthers, when Brees was still playing for San Diego and had LaDainian Tomlinson in the backfield, going against defenders like Dan Morgan and Mike Minter.
Brees also had more passing yardage against the Panthers than anyone else — a staggering 7,949 yards, which is about two full seasons worth for an elite NFL QB. He threw 55 touchdown passes against Carolina, far ahead of second-place Matt Ryan (39 TDs) and more than double anybody else.
And Brees did it all in such frustrating, brutally efficient ways — dinking and dunking, straight down the field seven yards at a time, until suddenly he would take one shot and there came the 40-yarder. He would get to the 1-yard line and then occasionally dive over the goal line himself, on a quick count before anyone quite knew what was happening.
Brees was undersized, in much the same way Mills (who once starred for the Saints, too) was undersized. Both players found their way around that genetic challenge — Brees was an expert at moving the pocket just enough to see, and somehow he managed to avoid getting passes knocked down.
Blitz him and he threw the ball to a hot receiver in two seconds. Rush him with only three guys and he surveyed the field for days until someone broke open on a double move. Sometimes a blitzer would be completely unblocked and Brees would still complete the pass.
“The ball comes out so fast,” Kuechly once said of Brees, shaking his head slightly. “He’s able to read and diagnose and understand where the ball needs to be extremely quick.”
To watch Brees and Kuechly go against each other was to watch two chess grandmasters. If Brees had an off day against Carolina — and he did have a few — Kuechly almost always had something to do with it. Kuechly’s best game ever probably came against Brees, in 2013 when he had a remarkable 24 tackles and the only interception he ever got in 16 games against the New Orleans quarterback.
The Panthers beat Brees that day and 10 more times, too, and Kuechly was on hand for seven of those wins. But sometimes New Orleans just had an awful defense and Carolina would win something like 31-28. Brees would still throw for 350 and three TDs, but at least he never played defense.
I loved the clip of Brees after his final game, when the Saints played Tampa Bay at home and suffered another playoff meltdown (there were a lot of those, although never against Carolina). Brees went back on the Superdome field afterward and stayed out there so long with his kids that finally Brady came by and threw a pass in the end zone to one of the Brees’ boys.
A lot of athletes would have stayed in the locker room and sulked after that one, then driven home with the family in dead silence. But Brees recognized the enormity of the moment for his family and put aside the personal agony of defeat to watch his kids run patterns and do cartwheels on the empty field.
It was a cool way to go out for Brees, who will be replaced as the Saints’ starting QB by Taysom Hill, Jameis Winston or a quarterback to be named later. No one should feel sorry for Brees. He only won that single Super Bowl, compared to Brady’s seven rings. But Brees leaves with a 20-year hall of fame career, millions of dollars and bushels of NFL records.
There’s no need to feel contempt for him, either.
Give the man his due, Panther fans. You’re feeling relieved today, and that’s it’s because the Brees is no longer blowing. Now if Brees would just talk to Brady and Ryan, change their minds and take both of them with him on the way out the door, the Panthers could really have some fun.
