Drew Brees nearly took one more swing at the NFL, and it would have come in the middle of a Broncos playoff run.
According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, Brees considered coming out of retirement after Bo Nix suffered a fractured ankle in Denver’s divisional round win over the Bills last January. The idea, Schefter reported, was that Brees could potentially step in for the AFC championship game against the Patriots.
The people doing the recruiting were familiar faces. Former Broncos offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi and offensive assistant Pete Carmichael spoke with Brees about returning, and both men, along with Broncos head coach Sean Payton, had coached him on the Saints for more than a decade. Payton, though, did not learn about those conversations until this offseason.
The timing made the idea even more striking. Just a month earlier, Philip Rivers had stunned the football world by coming out of retirement for the Colts after Daniel Jones tore his Achilles.
Rivers, who retired after the 2020 season, threw for 544 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions over three starts. It was a memorable comeback, but not enough to lift the Colts to a win or keep their playoff hopes alive.
Brees never got that far. Schefter said he told Lombardi and Carmichael that he wanted to work out first and see how his body responded. Once he felt discomfort in his wrist, he shut the door on the comeback.
If Brees had felt ready, Schefter reported that Payton would have signed him and then chosen between Brees and Stidham as the starter.
At 47, Brees would have become the second-oldest quarterback ever to appear in an NFL game, behind only George Blanda, who played at 48.
Instead, Denver turned to Jarrett Stidham, another quarterback who had not started in years when he made his fifth start in the AFC championship game. The Broncos and Stidham started well enough, but a disastrous moment changed everything when his attempted throwaway was ruled a backwards pass and recovered by the Patriots.
New England turned that turnover into a touchdown and added a field goal in a snowstorm that turned the game into a grind. The Patriots won 10-7 and moved on to the Super Bowl.
That left Denver with the obvious question: what if Nix had stayed healthy?
No one will ever know whether Brees could have changed the outcome. Maybe the Broncos beat the Patriots and reached the Super Bowl. But even then, it’s hard to picture an older Brees handling the Seahawks and their defense, especially when his own body didn’t feel right enough to give the comeback a real shot.
Brees still had a big moment waiting for him. A few weeks after Denver’s loss, he was elected for enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and last month he was officially inducted. Payton was there to present him into Canton.
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