Drew Brees is not the passer he used to be. The Saints quarterback led the NFL in passing yards per game in 2017 but hasn’t come within 50 yards in any year since. He traded danger for efficiency, leading the league in completion percentage every season since, including this one.
At 41, Brees is likely making his final Soldier Field stop on Sunday — he’ll join NBC Sports whenever his career ends, which could be after this season.
In other ways, though Brees is still the player he used to be: a franchise-defining, culture-changing, Super Bowl-winning icon.
He’s also the greatest free agent signing in the history of American sports.
Pay attention, Bears fans. Because the rare circumstance that made the 13-time Pro Bowl quarterback a high-ceiling bet 14 years ago could repeat itself with a different passer — the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott — in March. And if this season has taught the Bears anything, it’s that they need to find a permanent solution at the most important position in sports. Nick Foles — who quarterbacked Austin (Texas) Westlake High School 10 years after Brees did — is a short-term fix, at best.
The Chargers made Brees a second-round pick in 2001. When he struggled, they picked Philip Rivers fourth overall three years later. That sparked Brees, who won 20 games over the next two seasons. He was playing the final game of his franchise tag season in 2005 when the unimaginable happened: he dislocated his throwing shoulder, tearing his labrum and rotator cuff.
The Chargers, scared off by the injury and eager to play Rivers, didn’t offer him a second franchise tag. Brees received serious free-agent interest from two teams. The Dolphins polled shoulder experts, who doubted he’d return to normal, and traded for Daunte Culpepper instead.
That left the Saints, who signed Brees to a six-year, $60 million contract. Fans reeling from Hurricane Katrina months earlier embraced both him and the team. Three seasons later, they won the Super Bowl.
After boasting only one Pro Bowl quarterback in franchise history — sound familiar? — the Saints landed the most precious commodity in the game and have kept him for 15 seasons.
As the Saints’ pro scout, Ryan Pace was a small part of the bold move in 2006. The Bears general manager should consider a similar tack — with a different quarterback — this offseason.
Earlier this month, Prescott suffered a similarly gruesome injury: a compound break and dislocation of his right ankle. The Cowboys star was just the third quarterback to play a season on the franchise tag, joining Washington’s Kirk Cousins and — wait for it — Brees with the 2005 Chargers.
The Cowboys could give Prescott the franchise tag again season. But as they plummet to the bottom of the NFL, the Cowboys might have a rare chance of their own this offseason — a chance to draft a quarterback in the top five.
Would the Cowboys let Prescott leave via free agency rather than give him the tag? Or trade him? Either way, the Bears should be paying attention. Already in salary cap trouble, the Bears might have a hard time finding a way to afford Prescott. But a franchise whose greatest quarterback was born in 1916 can’t afford to not consider him.
In the meantime, the Bears will be able to watch a shining example Sunday of what happens when fate and bold thinking collide.
Only one coach-quarterback pairing — the Patriots’ Tom Brady and Bill Belichick — have more wins, post-merger, than Brees and coach Sean Payton.
“The quarterback has been constant,” Payton said this week. “That’s unusual for 15 years, and we don’t take it for granted.”
Even if Brees does throw the ball a little shorter now that he’s in his 40s.
“I just know this,” Bears coach Matt Nagy said. “I know Drew a little bit. What he’s done in his career, it doesn’t matter how he’s done it. He is one of the best to ever play this game.”
