National Football League

Feeling fulfilled, Saints legend Drew Brees happily careens into the next phase of life

Updated Jul. 20, 2021 7:17 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Sometimes, the best thing to do is talk about the present, even in situations in which every instinct lends itself to reflection on the past.

Drew Brees had a spectacularly outstanding NFL career, but we knew all about that already. Just like we knew, realistically, the Saints quarterback's retirement was imminent even before it became fact Sunday.

We knew about the longevity and the sustained excellence, the unthinkable numbers and the unparalleled records, and the title of Super Bowl champion that perhaps should have been bestowed more than once.

But the best, most heartwarming, worthiest takeaway of all wasn’t in counting stats or a favorite moment from a list too long count. Instead, it came from the way Brees, at 42, revealed he will no longer play football.

The method he used to walk away from the game was – even for the most grizzled of football die-hards – really darn cute. But it was so much more than that and, in its own way, represented his greatest triumph.

"After 15 years with the Saints and 20 years in the NFL, our dad is finally going to retire … so he can spend more time with us," Brees’ four young children said collectively before bursting into cheers on a video posted to his Instagram account.

For a player who won not just consistently but also relentlessly and turned the reputation of the New Orleans franchise about-face, it was a victory without compare. Because this is how everyone should get to go: fulfilled, content and positioned to not just enjoy what follows but also throw themselves into it with delight.

It carried all the satisfaction of an athlete who has relished virtually all parts of an incredible career but who knows that even better, more thrilling things await.

"Each day, I poured my heart and soul into being your quarterback," Brees wrote in an accompanying message. "Til the very end, I exhausted myself to give everything I had to the Saints organization, my team and the great city of New Orleans.

"This is not goodbye, rather a new beginning. Now my real life's work begins!"

With such a sense of peace, does it matter that Brees’ final attempt to get back to the Super Bowl – his Saints famously defeated Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts in 2010 – fell short this past season? Or that a golden opportunity was denied by a dreadful officiating error in the NFC Championship against the Los Angeles Rams two seasons prior?

Of course it does. Because it mattered to him. Brees played the game to win it – all the time, every time, every year, all the way to the end. An absolute competitor, so inherently driven to avoid defeat that Purdue coaches canceled games of Ultimate Frisbee that the squad played for fitness because Brees endangered his body by taking them too seriously.

When he got to the point that he had given his all, when the tank was empty – even for the man for whom winning was like a drug – and life away from football seemed more appealing, he walked away.

It’s what we all want, isn’t it, from our working lives? To leave on our terms and for the very, very best of reasons.

During that glowing tenure in the Big Easy, there was so much collecting of achievement that it’s hard to know where to start. What type of historian are you – statistical or sentimentalist? Brees’ accolades ticked both boxes. No one has thrown more passing yards, completions or touchdown passes. Maybe no one else could have been the figurehead to lift the city during the dream campaign that followed the disaster of Hurricane Katrina.

It will seem weird next year when someone else has the reigns, even though there was a small taste of it with the injury-enforced absences Brees suffered the past couple of years. There will be a time to talk about whether his replacement will be Taysom Hill or Jameis Winston or perhaps a lay-it-all-out-there move for one of the big names circulating through the QB rumor mill.

But not yet. Just as the past is only part of this story, the future can wait, too.

Brees is adored in his adopted New Orleans because, as a franchise statement read Sunday, he "came to us at our lowest point" and "led us to our highest." His free-agent signing in 2005 is rightly seen as one of the most impactful in the league’s modern annals.

Naturally, the plaudits came in quickly Sunday, from far and wide and from as close to home as it gets.

"For all of us that have had the chance to coach him, it has been our privilege, we are better for it," Saints coach Sean Payton said.

Teammates, rivals and sports luminaries all joined in. The Atlanta Falcons, divisional rivals, deferentially said they "wouldn’t miss" Brees.

Football will.

In the coming years, other exceptional quarterbacks will follow him out of the league — even Tom Brady, eventually.

It was Brady who provided one of the more meaningful tributes. Remember the interaction the pair had after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers knocked the Saints out of the playoffs? When Brady threw a touchdown pass to one of Brees’ kids, and the two QBs reminisced on shared memories?

"Congrats, my friend on an incredible career," Brady wrote. "Thank you for the inspiration and dedication on and off the field. Look forward to seeing what’s next."

There are not many people who know what it’s like to play that long, far beyond the time when financial stability is comfortably taken care of and when thoughts of life after football are more real and present.

They are both pillars of the league and will remain so, as one of them carries on for the same reason the other just revealed his time was up.

Because it felt right.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. You can subscribe to the daily newsletter here.