Drew Brees admits Sunday's return to San Diego means 'a little bit more'
Drew Brees has been named a first-team All-Pro once and made nine Pro Bowls in his career. He’s thrown for more than 5,000 yards four times in his career and has 436 touchdowns in 16 seasons.
Most of those accomplishments have come since the start of the 2006 season, his first with the New Orleans Saints. His previous team, the San Diego Chargers, let Brees walk because of a torn labrum, which they didn’t believe he’d recover from.
Brees has gone on to build a Hall of Fame-worthy career in New Orleans with endless accolades, records and a Super Bowl. Yet, there’s one thing he hasn’t done in the past 10 years: return to San Diego.
On Sunday, the Saints take on the Chargers in what will be Brees’ first game in San Diego since leaving the always-sunny city.
“I mean, listen, I’ve been waiting for the moment to go back there,” Brees said, via Mike Triplett of ESPN. “I’m trying to make this just like any other game. It’s hard to do that, obviously, because it’s meaningful. I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that this one may not mean a little bit more. But my preparation remains the same.”
Brees spent five years in San Diego, four as the starter. He totaled 12,348 yards, 80 touchdowns and 53 interceptions, completing 62.2 percent of his passes. Those numbers don’t remotely compare to the ones he’s amassed in New Orleans, even on a per-year basis.
Despite the fact that the Chargers look foolish for letting Brees hit the open market, he says there are no hard feelings, or added motivation to make them pay. He believes “everything has happened” the way it was supposed to.
“It had nothing to do with them at that point,” Brees said. “It was just, this is a significant injury, I’m being told by some doctors I’ve got a 25 percent chance of coming back and playing. So that’s – you feel like your dream is being ripped away from you. That was the part that was really scary. That was where the motivation came from.”
Part of the reason the Chargers were OK with letting Brees walk was because they had his heir in Philip Rivers, whom they drafted a couple years prior. Rivers has gone on to have a very successful career himself, but it’s nothing like Brees’ in New Orleans.
And when the Chargers wanted Brees to be Rivers’ backup, he realized San Diego wasn’t the place for him.
“I realized that, 'They expect me to come back and be a backup. And that’s not who I am. I’m going to go be a starting quarterback and win a championship somewhere. And if it’s not there, it’s not there,’” Brees said. “And it probably didn’t set in until I signed with the Saints, and it was, ‘All right, this is happening. I didn’t think it would happen, but it’s happening. And move on.’”
The Saints are currently 0-3, but it’s not because of a lack of production on Brees’ end. He has eight touchdown passes and just one interception, totaling 1,062 yards in three games.
