WhoDat!656

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

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."