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METAIRIE, La. — At first, Drew Brees came to New Orleans to rebuild, an ambitious undertaking that included his shoulder, his career, an organization and a city reeling from Hurricane Katrina.

Since 2006, Drew Brees leads all N.F.L. quarterbacks in completions (1,276), yards (14,751), 300-yard games (25), touchdown passes (97) and completions of 25 yards or more (110).
Now, Brees wants to move beyond rebuilding. He wants to create, to lift the Saints and the city that adopted him to unprecedented success. Brees believes this is more than mere coincidence, the perfect union between the quarterback who wanted to feel needed and the city that needed help.

Destiny, Brees calls it. His true calling.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that we can win a championship together,” Brees said Friday inside the empty media room at the Saints’ headquarters. “Not only for the players and the organization, but for this city. Because no place deserves it more.”

Dozens of dots connected for Brees and the Saints to arrive at this point. Brees injured his shoulder at the end of the 2005 season, the final blow to his career in San Diego. As a free agent, he picked New Orleans over Miami, despite the uncertainty left by Katrina’s destruction.

He led the Saints to the National Football Conference championship game in his first season, became a symbol of hope, an elite quarterback in a frightening offense. He failed to guide the Saints into the playoffs the past two seasons.

This off-season, he and his wife, Brittany, had a son. The Saints added a new defensive coordinator and renewed their commitment to the running game. Brees saw the stars aligning, with an unusual twist: The less he needs to carry these Saints on his sculptured shoulders, the more threatening they become.

“He would gladly trade all the numbers for us not to finish 8-8 again,” the backup quarterback Mark Brunell said. “Winning is paramount for Drew.”

After Brees came to New Orleans, he moved into a 120-year-old house in Uptown, the city’s oldest neighborhood. For the first month, neighbors filled his porch with Southern delicacies, leaving biscuits, brownies, even seafood.

Instead of at hello, New Orleans had Brees at gumbo.

He felt uneasy on his flight into the Big Easy, questions swirling in his stomach. Would the city rebuild? Would the displaced organization rebound? Could he right his career in such an unstable situation?

Brees found an energy flowing through the city, an intoxicating daily rhythm, a passionate fan base that often greets the team when it returns from road trips in the middle of the night. Mostly, he identified with the resilience of the locals.

Sometimes, Brees thought back to the 2004 N.F.L. draft. Deep down, he knew the Chargers were searching for his replacement, an intuition confirmed by Brian Schottenheimer, his position coach, the day before.

Brees asked if the Chargers planned to select Robert Gallery, a mountainous tackle from Iowa. Schottenheimer told him they were leaning toward a quarterback, and he said he would never forget the look that came across Brees’s face, the way his eyes glazed over.

“That will be the worst decision this organization ever makes,” Brees said.

Resilience? With Philip Rivers waiting in the wings, Brees went to the Pro Bowl that next season, led the Chargers to the playoffs, then eventually left for New Orleans and an organization that believed in him.

The Saints found an underrated athlete who once defeated Andy Roddick in juniors tennis, who could have played college baseball, who resembles the point guard Steve Nash and plays basketball like him, too.

From that varied background, Brees developed nimble footwork in the pocket, deft movement that safety Darren Sharper, in his 13th season, described as the best he has ever seen. Brees combined that with uncanny vision to overcome what he famously lacked in height (he is listed at 6 feet).

Beyond physical gifts, Brees has preparation habits, including film study and training techniques, that remain legendary at Saints headquarters. Like when the offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr. left the facility one Friday, went downtown, ate dinner with his family and returned, only to find Brees still watching tape.

“Sometimes, he doesn’t even notice you walk by,” Carmichael said. “Everything around him fades. He’s oblivious. He has this face, all focus. And it’s the same face he has on game day.”

Since 2006, Brees has led all N.F.L. quarterbacks in completions (1,276), yards (14,751), 300-yard games (25), touchdown passes (97) and completions of 25 yards or more (110). This season, Brees holds a passer rating of 118.1 and leads the N.F.L. with nine touchdown tosses.

These are numbers normally reserved for video-game shootouts, a point once driven home to Brees when he played a Madden expert. The expert used Brees and the Saints and won, 77-0. Only then did Brees feel the pain of opposing defenses.

But while fullback Heath Evans, who last played in New England, compared Brees to Patriots quarterback Tom Brady — “Those two are made in a different mold,” he said — the Saints’ passing numbers have not always translated into the respect teammates believe Brees deserves.

“His humility has somehow allowed him to fly under the radar,” tackle Jon Stinchcomb said. “It’s almost as if he’s mentioned as an afterthought, when you throw out Brady and Peyton Manning, and oh yeah, Drew Brees. He’s deserving of elite status.”

Brees will reach their realm when the Saints turn the five games they lost last season by a field goal or less into victories. That is where this season feels different. Because, so far, Brees has not had to win games by himself.

Last week against Buffalo, the Bills limited Brees to his lowest passing output in three seasons, but the Saints ran for 222 yards and still won by 20 points. The New Orleans rushing attack, which Stinchcomb described as an “afterthought” in seasons past, ranks second in the N.F.L. The vaunted passing game stands sixth.

“Everything happened to make us stronger,” Brees said. “To bring the team together and the team and the city together. Everything was building for this season, for this moment.”

Now that Brees and the Saints have completed their rebuilding project, the first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history is the next anticipated step. Along the way, Brees transformed a team that lost 97 games in the 10 years before he arrived into an undefeated contender going into Sunday’s game against the undefeated Jets.

He also planted roots in the place he least expected to. He doubled his off-field efforts, encompassed in the Brees Dream Charity Foundation, in New Orleans. He started his family. Brees and his son, Baylen Robert, share a birthday, Jan. 15.

More than ever, Brees finds himself enjoying the unexpected moments, the nights he returns from film study and holds a 9-month-old in his arms.

“In a small way, you feel like you’re representing the little guy,” Brees said. “Just like you feel like you’re representing New Orleans. I’m going to stay here as long as I can. It’s the best decision we ever made.”

To the perfect match, Brees has one thing left to add. The perfect ending.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/sp...rees.html?_r=2

D_it_up

Any article like this about Drew Brees just enhances my man-crush on the guy.