Five years after his last snap in New Orleans came without the roar of a packed Superdome, Drew Brees is finally getting the kind of farewell COVID took away.
This week’s Hall of Fame celebration has turned into something bigger than one ceremony for Brees. In a Saints video released Monday, he and his wife, Brittany, talked through the arrival, the retirement and the career that reshaped the franchise - and how the ending never quite felt finished.
“My last season was COVID, so unfortunately, we weren’t in the packed Superdome for any of those games, and so didn’t get that full fan effect,” Brees said. “And then also, I really never had a retirement party because of COVID as well.”
Brees retired after the 2020 season, closing out a 15-year run with New Orleans that included the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship. But for him, the goodbye never landed the way it should have. He said the week now feels like a bundle of delayed moments finally arriving at once.
“So here we are five years later, and it’s almost maybe all wrapped into one, that this is kind of send-off, retirement party, Hall of Fame,” Brees said. “Just a grand appreciation. I mean, honestly, a grand appreciation for me to everybody who had a chance to be a part of this journey.”
Brittany Brees said the strange end to his career left both the quarterback and Saints fans without closure.
“You never got to say goodbye,” she said. “I think that was the hard thing because it was COVID, because it was such a weird situation.”
She added that New Orleans watched her husband and their family grow up over the years.
“For you not to say goodbye probably bothered Drew just as much as other people had a hard time not being able to say goodbye to him,” she said.
Even now, Brees says the game still pulls at him. He watches football all weekend, works in broadcasting and coaches his children during the week. The body, though, is a different story.
“I still just have this insatiable appetite for the game,” Brees said. “And I hope that that remains for a really, really long time.”
He admitted the competitive itch still makes him think about what it would be like to get back out there and run an offense.
“Mentally, I could still play the game,” Brees said. “Physically, obviously, there’s things that unfortunately began to kind of deteriorate toward the end.”
Years of punishment eventually won out.
“Mentally, I could still play,” he said. “Physically, my right side just wouldn’t allow.”
Brittany Brees joked that he still throws to their children with his left arm, and the former quarterback said he’s still “pretty deadly” with his left hand from inside 15 or 20 yards.
The video also looks back at how Brees came to New Orleans in 2006 while recovering from shoulder surgery and as the city was still rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. He said the free-agency process felt tense because both sides were trying to figure out if the fit would work.
“It was like a first date,” Brees said.
What separated the Saints, he said, was their belief in him.
“Who believes in me? Who believes that I’m going to come back?”
Brees said. “New Orleans, there was no doubt.
One hundred percent, I was their guy.”
Brees will be presented by former Saints coach Sean Payton during his Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement. And for him, that means the ending he missed is finally starting to come into focus.
“I finally, you know, kind of like the last song,” Brees said.
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