One of the most prolific careers in NFL history came to an end when New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees announced on Instagram on Sunday that he has decided to retire after 20 seasons.
Brees’s four kids announced in a video: “After 15 years with the Saints and 20 years with the NFL, our dad is finally retiring. So he can spend more time with us! Yes !!” said his children Baylen, Bowen, Callen and Rylen.
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Drew Brees, with the help of his children, officially announces his retirement from the NFL.
Brees added a message to the message with the following text:
After twenty years as a player in the NFL and fifteen years as a saint, it is time I retire. Every day I poured my heart and soul into being your quarterback. Until the end I exhausted myself for everything. what I had to give to the Saints organization, my team and the wonderful city of New Orleans, we have had some wonderful moments together, many of which are graced in our hearts and minds and will be a part of us forever.
“You have shaped me, strengthened me, inspired me and gave me a lifetime of memories. My goal for the past 15 years has been to give you everything you gave me and more. I’m just going to stop playing football, I’m not going to retire. New Orleans. This is not goodbye, rather a new beginning. Now my real life’s work begins! “
Brees, 42, is retiring as the all-time NFL leader in through yards (80,358) and ranks second all-time in touchdown passes (571) and completion rate (67.7%). But more than that, Brees will always be revered for helping to revive the Saints’ franchise and the city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when he and coach Sean Payton arrived together in 2006.
They led the Saints to the NFC Championship Game that first year and three years later won the only Super Bowl in franchise history, with Brees being named the game’s MVP.
“When I was hired as head coach by the Saints in 2006, the very first goal was to create a functional and winning culture,” Payton said in a statement. “It was essential to know what we were looking for in a player, talent, work ethic, makeup, intelligence and leadership are all qualities we found in Drew Brees.… I am forever grateful for what he has done. for our team, our community and for me personally. “
Brees never returned to a second Super Bowl, despite leading the Saints to four consecutive NFC South titles in the past four years. His last game was a disappointing 30-20 loss to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the division round of the playoffs – the first time he ever threw three interceptions in a playoff game.
His decision to retire leaves a huge void for the Saints to fill with Taysom Hill, Jameis Winston, or a quarterback named later.
Brees’ legacy has long been assured as one of the greatest players of all time.
On top of all the gaudy numbers and historical accomplishments, Brees will also be remembered as an all-time great underdog story. At just six feet tall, Brees was recruited by just two colleges for a record-breaking career at Purdue. He fell into the second round of draft in 2001, where he began his career with the San Diego Chargers.
In his last game with the Chargers in 2005, Brees sustained a devastating shoulder injury – a 360 degree labral tear and some rotator cuff damage, which required 12 anchors to repair. Noted surgeon James Andrews later said Brees’s recovery was the most remarkable of any athlete he ever treated, and Brees was back on the field with the Saints in week 1 of that unforgettable 2006 season.
“Drew is so much more valuable than all the records, honors and awards he has amassed during a 15-year career with the New Orleans Saints and a 20-year NFL career, one of the best in the history of our league,” said Saints owner Gayle Benson said in a statement. “When Drew first joined the Saints in 2006, my late husband Tom was determined to bring a team to New Orleans that would win a championship on the field and become a leader in the community after hurricane setbacks. Katrina had to endure our region. Beyond his outstanding performance, Drew came to represent the determination, passion and drive that resonates not only with Saints fans and football fans, but with our entire community. “
Brees finished his career with a record of 172-114 as a starting quarterback in the regular season and 9-9 in the postseason. He was 142-86 and 9-8 in 15 years with the Saints, where his partnership with Payton spawned some of the most spectacular attacking teams the game has ever seen.
Brees threw five times for more than 5,000 yards in a season – no other quarterback has done it more than once. He has the top three one-season completion rates in NFL history and six of the top nine.
Brees has been in the top 10 NFL passers-by in ESPN’s Total QBR metrics in all 15 seasons since its inception in 2006; a streak that is six years longer than any other quarterback in that period.
Although he never won an MVP award in the regular season, Brees finished second four times, a record.
Brees has long said he believed he could play at a high level until the age of 45 – as long as he wanted to keep playing. But as of 2017, he also said he started taking each season one year at a time – treating each as if it could be his last – and that after each season he would take some time to reflect with his wife Brittany and their kids about whether he wanted to keep playing.
Brees had already drafted his “next chapter” last year when he agreed to become an analyst for NBC after his playing days were over.
After missing just one game due to injury in his first 18 seasons, Brees faced some significant injuries late in his career. In 2019, he missed five games after tearing a ligament in his thumb. In 2020, he missed four games after a punctured lung and 11 broken ribs.
By retiring now, Brees paves the way for fellow forty-something Brady to finish ahead of him in their two most prominent races in the NFL record book. Brady has 10 more career TD passes than Brees, and he needs 1,155 passing yards to outpace Brees.
Brees also leaves a hefty $ 22.65 million salary cap, which the Saints will have to consider for the next two years due to the way they chose to structure his previous contracts. However, they’ve already cut his salary from $ 25 million to this year’s veteran minimum of $ 1,075 million, so they can wait until after June 1 to officially process his retirement. As a result, they could push $ 11.5 million of its remaining ceiling costs into 2022.
Brees will count $ 12,225 million at this year’s limit through June 1. Thereafter, his 2021 limit will drop to $ 11.15 million after his retirement becomes official.
That’s a big deal for the Saints, who have been more bothered by the NFL’s lowered salary cap this year than perhaps any team in the NFL. They started the off-season with nearly $ 100 million above the limit before cutting Brees’s salary and releasing veterans like Emmanuel Sanders, Janoris Jenkins, Kwon Alexander and Thomas Morstead, among others.
The Saints also restructured Hill’s contract to create a logging space. Hill received a four-year contract extension, $ 140 million – but all years are void, and it’s a mechanism to free up cap space this year, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. It will save the Saints more than $ 7.5 million over the cap this year, and its contract numbers this year include a $ 9.686 million signing bonus, a $ 1.439 million guaranteed roster bonus, and a $ 1.034 million guaranteed base salary plus incentives.
On the positive side, Brees leaves the Saints in good shape in terms of backup options. Hill, who is under contract until 2021, remains unproven as a 30-year-old double threat quarterback with limited experience. However, he went 3-1 as a starter this season in place of Brees with four TD passes, four TD runs, two interceptions and three lost fumbles in that four-game stretch.
Winston, meanwhile, is an unsigned free agent. But he chose to come to New Orleans on a minimal contract last summer so that he would have the chance to learn under Payton and Brees and potentially revive his career as Brees’s successor. And Payton recently made it clear that the Saints want to re-sign him and run him for the runway.
Although Payton chose Hill to replace Brees in the short term in 2020, he has insisted that the team is committed to Winston’s potential. And Payton has repeatedly insisted that he believes “our next quarterback is in the building” – be it Hill or Winston.