WhoDat!656

Drew Brees brought his entire offense down around him in front of an unhappy Superdome crowd, throwing three interceptions, including a third quarter one returned for a touchdown that put the Saints in a really bad place. I’m referring, of course, to a 2006 game against Baltimore, in which Brees actually threw two pick-sixes, single-handedly turning a struggle into a beatdown.

Those two interceptions were among the seven pick-sixes Brees threw between 2006 and 2008, tying him with Brett Favre for worst in the league over that period. To be fair, Brees got better between 2009 and 2011 — he improved all the way to fifth-worst, his five interceptions returned for touchdowns one fewer than the number thrown by Mark Sanchez and the same as the number thrown by Matt Hasselbeck, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Chad Henne, Matt Schaub, and Jake Delhomme.

The Brees in decline meme is stronger this season than it has ever been, but it’s not a new thing. If you journey deep enough into big Saints message boards, you can probably find somebody arguing it as far back as 2010, when rumors of Brees’s fading arm strength replaced comments about his once-injured right shoulder acting up as Message Board Guy’s favorite worry.

There are two genres of Brees in decline meme: Brees nostalgia, which is when we aren’t satisfied by modern Brees, because modern Brees can never be as good as idealized past Brees, whom in our heads we see in sepia, probably, with also flicking film reel noises; and Brees ratio analysis, which is when we scientifically sum up our observed number of stupid Brees mistakes and compare that to our observed number of great Brees passes, and decide the difference between the two has gotten way worse lately.

The difference between the two genres is that one denies Brees’s long history of Favreness while one accepts it; otherwise, followers of both genres agree: the big plays just don’t happen like they used to. You know what comes next. Why else would I be writing this post?

Drew Brees Is Not in Decline -- You Just Have Brees Nostalgia | B&G

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