You remember what this franchise felt like before 2006.
Hopeful some summers. Scrappy some seasons. But never truly feared.
The New Orleans Saints existed for forty years before Drew Brees ever took a snap in black and gold. From 1967 through 2005, this team won exactly one playoff game. One. That was January 4, 2001, when Aaron Brooks beat the Rams in the Superdome for the first postseason victory in franchise history.
That’s not sustained relevance. That’s survival.
Archie Manning had heart in the 1970s, but he went 35-101-3 as a starter. The Dome Patrol era in the late 80s gave us elite defense with Rickey Jackson and Sam Mills, but the offense never caught up. Jim Mora’s teams were competitive, yet January usually ended quickly.
Then came the storm.
Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005. The Saints went 3-13 that season, playing “home” games in Baton Rouge and San Antonio. The franchise felt untethered. There were real questions about whether the team would even stay in the city long term.
That’s the context.
March 14, 2006. The Saints sign Drew Brees to a six-year, $60 million deal. He was coming off a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder. The Miami Dolphins passed after a failed physical. Nick Saban chose Daunte Culpepper instead.
New Orleans took the risk.
Brees wasn’t a hotshot rookie. He was 27 years old, cast off by the Chargers after they drafted Philip Rivers. He had already made a Pro Bowl in 2004, throwing for 3,159 yards and 27 touchdowns, but he wasn’t viewed as a sure thing post-injury.
Sean Payton had just been hired as head coach. First-time head coach. Rebuilding roster. A city still reeling.
And then September 25, 2006 happened.
Saints vs Falcons. First game back in the Superdome after Katrina. Steve Gleason blocks the punt. The place explodes. The Saints win 23-3. Brees throws for 191 yards that night, but it felt bigger than stats. It felt like rebirth.
That 2006 team went 10-6 and reached the NFC Championship Game. In Year One.
From there, the numbers get absurd.
Between 2006 and 2020, Brees threw for 68,010 yards and 491 touchdowns as a Saint. He led the league in passing yards seven times. He completed 71.5 percent of his passes in 2018, setting an NFL record at the time. He finished top three in MVP voting four times.
But Saints fans don’t need the stat sheet.
You remember January 24, 2010.
NFC Championship Game. Saints vs Vikings. Overtime. Brees throws for 197 yards and three touchdowns. Garrett Hartley nails the 40-yard field goal. Super Bowl bound.
Two weeks later, February 7, 2010. Super Bowl XLIV against the Colts. Brees completes 32 of 39 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns. Tracy Porter’s pick six seals it. Final score 31-17.
For the first time in franchise history, the Saints are champions.
Think about that timeline.
Forty seasons. One playoff win. Then fourteen years of Brees, and suddenly the Saints are one of the league’s most stable contenders. From 2006 through 2020, New Orleans made the playoffs nine times. They won seven division titles. They averaged over 28 points per game across Brees’ tenure.
The offense became the identity. Precision. Tempo. Confidence. You expected 30 points every Sunday.
And here’s what makes it so wild.
He wasn’t drafted here. He didn’t grow up here. He wasn’t a top overall pick in New Orleans. He arrived as a free agent with a damaged shoulder and a question mark.
That’s not how franchise quarterbacks are supposed to happen.
But Brees embraced the city, and the city embraced him right back. He rebuilt his career while New Orleans rebuilt itself. Those two arcs ran side by side. It’s impossible to separate them.
There were heartbreaks, of course. The Minneapolis Miracle in January 2018. The no-call against the Rams in the 2018 NFC Championship Game. The overtime loss to the Vikings in 2019. Painful exits that still sting.
But even those seasons felt different from the decades before.
Because with Brees under center, you believed.
You expected double-digit wins. You expected playoff games. You expected the Saints to matter in January.
That’s the transformation.
The franchise didn’t just get better quarterback play. It got legitimacy. National respect. Prime-time slots that weren’t charity appearances. Young fans who grew up thinking the Saints were contenders by default.
Before 2006, the Saints were lovable underdogs.
After Brees walked in, they were a standard.
That’s what a late-career arrival can do when it’s the right guy in the right place at the right time.
Drew Brees didn’t just throw touchdowns in New Orleans.
He rewrote what Saints fans believed was possible.