Kellen Moore didn’t need a long lecture on Saturday. He didn’t roll out a cut-up, didn’t dive into practice corrections, and didn’t spend time on scheme. He put Drew Brees’ 28-minute Hall of Fame induction speech in front of the Saints and let the moment do the work.
“That’s all they needed,” Moore said.
For a team meeting room in Metairie, it was a pretty powerful assignment. The same franchise that Brees helped define was watching its greatest player speak from Canton, Ohio, and the impact was immediate.
“I have no words,” said rookie receiver Bryce Lance. “It was really, really impactful. The full room was moved after watching that speech and I’m very thankful to coach for allowing us to watch that.”
Brees’ speech traced the arc of a career that started with a lightly recruited kid from Texas and ended with a gold jacket in Canton. Moore called it “As good of a speech as you’re ever going to hear,” and said the bigger lesson for his players was the way Brees handled the bumps along the way.
That included a shoulder injury before he ever got to New Orleans, a setback that could have ended everything. Instead, he pushed through it and wound up rewriting the NFL record book.
“For all of our guys - when you’re in the middle of training camp - adversity is always going to come,” Moore said. “Everyone has faced adversity.
Drew faced adversity through his career and his life. I think it’s always a reminder.”
The speech hit home in a different way for Saints defensive back Terrell Burgess. He grew up in San Diego, where Brees spent the first five seasons of his NFL career with the Chargers, and when Burgess was 16, he got to work out with him.
“Just listening to how much he loves the game of football is really inspirational,” Burgess said. “Every day he went out there with dignity and made sure he made everyone around him play as well as they could.”
Brees also spent a lot of time thanking the people around him. He mentioned about 70 people, including family members, friends, former coaches and teammates. That stood out to Lance, who was only a year old when Brees entered the league in 2001.
“He’s a Hall of Famer now and all he talks about is his teammates and coaches and everyone around him,” Lance said. “I think that’s something we are really trying to build (here). I know I haven’t been here long, but I can tell that’s something we are going to try to emulate.”
The speech carried another message too: what Brees meant to New Orleans itself. The line that landed hardest may have been the one that should someday sit on the base of a statue.
“You trusted me with the soul of the city and I would have died to protect that calling.”
Moore said that kind of sentiment matters, especially for younger players who are still getting their bearings in the city.
“That’s the important part,” Moore said. “For a lot of the younger guys, they have got a taste of our city, our community.
But they are busy in training camp and living in a hotel a lot of times during this part of the year. They start recognizing how this is different.
To be honest, this isn’t a normal NFL team. This is different.
This is a really special place.”
That sense of place was on display in Canton, where Zach Wood was one of three current Saints in attendance, along with Cam Jordan and Alvin Kamara. Wood said the scene felt familiar in the best possible way.
“It felt like the old days when Drew was here,” Wood said. “It felt like the Dome. It was a good reminder of how special he was to the city and how much the city lived through him.”
For players still learning the city and all its quirks - from food spots to how to say “Tchoupitoulas” - the speech offered something bigger than a tribute. It was a reminder of what New Orleans has meant to Brees, and what Brees has meant back.
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