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How Saints QB Drew Brees used unusual sports this offseason to help him throw a 60-yard pass

How Saints QB Drew Brees used unusual sports this offseason to help him throw a 60-yard pass

BY AMIE JUST | STAFF WRITER JUL 30, 2020 - 1:20 PM

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In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic-mandated shutdowns, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and his throwing coach Tom House sat down to have their annual conversation regarding Brees' goal for the offseason.

Brees' goal was football-oriented: throwing a 60-yard pass. But the steps he normally would take to get there had been eliminated due to no open fields and closed gyms.

"'What are we gonna do?" House recalled to Caroline Gonzalez on Thursday's New Orleans Saints podcast. "How the heck are we going to get a workout in today? What tools do we have available?'"

Brees had the use of his large backyard in San Diego, but from there the two had to get creative.

House suggested tennis, as Brees notably played the sport when he was younger — even beating former world No. 1 Andy Roddick back when the two were in grade school. So they played some tennis.

Brees suggested lacrosse, believing it would help his torque, front hip and back shoulder.

Then, there's modified surfing: a.k.a: paddling on a surfboard in Brees' backyard pool.

"The fact that Drew is confident enough that some our crazy stuff might work, it sounds like that comes out of nowhere, but I've never had a surfer with a bad arm in my 25 years, 30 years of coaching," House said.

Brees didn't touch a football for much of the offseason, instead throwing a one-pound ball — approximately the same weight as a football.

Early on in quarantine, they did some testing to see how much his shoulder joint and elbow could handle in regard to intensity — finding that Brees could handle as much stress as possible, a big positive for a 41-year-old quarterback who's currently in the "skill retention" phase of his training, House said.

House said there are four windows of trainability for athletes: neurological, muscle, skill acquisition and skill retention. Skill retention is the phase for the "aging athlete," he said, or those who are losing flexibility and their nervous system isn't performing at the same output it used to.

The two set a month deadline for Brees to throw the weighted ball 60 yards. Brees accomplished that within three weeks and one day.

Then, three weeks ago, Brees picked up a football for the first time and knocked down a couple passes that went 45 or 50 yards, House said, "like he was 25-years-old again."

Last Thursday, House said Brees "threw a couple balls 57, 58 yards without even trying."

The path to get there may have been unconventional, but Brees and House made it work to their benefit.

"It's things that we would have never normally thought about, except for COVID," House said. "And the fun thing about the relationship with Drew is that we trust, both of us, to be crazy enough to try something new and most often with Drew, the new stuff actually makes him better."

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