AsylumGuido

I want to clarify one point here. Brees got a lot of grief over that off-season when he was said to have "held out". The facts are that Brees was both the guinea pig and the scapegoat in that whole ordeal. The player's union and the league office were at odds over the status of franchise tags. Everyone knows the first time a player is franchised by a team it is for something along the lines of the average of the top five at the position. The second time it goes up by a sizable percentage. Brees had been tagged by the Chargers earlier and the player's union wanted him to delay signing a deal so the Saints would be forced to put the franchise on him. The league contended that since it was a different franchise (team) the tag should be at the first level, while the NFLPA said it should be applied at the second level and the fact that it was a different franchise that levied the tag had no impact. Brees agreed to hold off on signing a deal until the dispute could be resolved through litigation. Brees and the Saints had basically come to an agreement on the terms of the contract, but Brees felt it was best for the good of future players to wait to sign.

Brees caught all of the hell for this and was called greedy, etc. He happened to be the right person in the right place at the right time to help challenge this situation. If you remember, he signed almost immediately after the dispute was resolved and the NFLPA won. Brees has been enduring the aftermath of that event ever since ... unfairly.