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Drew Brees plays for stats. It's true.

Let me clarify. The New Orleans Saints quarterback plays for one stat.

Wins.

He understands it's the determining factor in judging the hierarchy of the league's all-time elite quarterbacks. Brees knows how many wins Tom Brady carries in his back pocket. It drives him bonkers that he's not on the same level as Brady.

What drives me up the wall about a very small fraction of the Saints fanbase is when someone says Brees is only in it for the stats. Not the "wins" stat, but other stats.



How do you think Brees best helps the Saints try to win games? Gaining yards and scoring touchdowns. How some people fail to comprehend that is beyond me.

I asked Brees on Wednesday about his historically great numbers each year.

"I'm just willing to do whatever I need to do to help us win," Brees said. "I have a high level of expectation and standard for myself. That doesn't mean stats. Now listen, does a high completion percentage and touchdown passes vs. a low number of turnovers, do all of those things result in winning in most cases? Yes, they do. There's a correlation there. But at the end of the day, we've got to find ways to win."

I followed up by asking if wins are more important than all of his prolific, historic stats he puts up every year. Brees jumped right back:

"Yes. Yes it is. Priority No. 1 is winning."

Brees isn't launching his helmet to the ground with earpads flying everywhere during training camp while using language he couldn't say in another Sesame Street segment with Elmo just to make sure he reaches 5,000 yards again.

He wants to win. Badly.

Drew Brees plays for one stat, and it's absurd to fault him for the others | NOLA.com

foreverfan

Sunday Brees will be playing for 2 stats... I guarantee.

WillSaints81

So he's bothered by the fact he's not got what Brady has. Well, that's on the HC.

WhoDat!656

Dan Marino & Jim Kelly could say the same thing.

AsylumGuido

Yes they can, and both of their coaches, Don Shula and Marv Levy, are in the Hall of Fame.

jeanpierre

For me, the head coaches that have turned franchises around and won in more than one place, particular League Championships are the most impressive...

Shula though was clearly a limitation to Marino and didn't have the same drive to win it all like Marino was driven. Shula and Jimmy Johnson should be ashamed to not have won a Superbowl with Marino.

In the case of the Bills though, they're no where near the team without Levy and the Bills who ran a great personnel department...

Until Payton wins another championship, it may be BS but detractors will always throw luck and bountygate against his one, and only, championship with Brees who matched Manning, the greatest passer of his generation, late in his career...

It's not that my way is the right way, I just make the right way my way...

SmashMouth

WillSaints81

He hasn't won that second yet. But Payton is nothing but a playcaller that imo has held this offense back due to his lame limitations.

Rugby Saint II

So..............what you're saying is you don't like anything about the way the franchise is run and blame it all on Payton.

Try saying something positive about one of the players for a change. That would be refreshing. We understand how you feel about Payton. How do feel about our New Orleans Saints?

AsylumGuido

It is hard to tell when he admittedly has other favorite teams.