Drew Brees is calling it “an obvious decision.”
Well, it was.
And the Miami Dolphins made the wrong choice.
With Brees entering the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend, the story of his flirtation with the Dolphins in free agency in 2006 was bound to come up. And so when Brees was asked about it by Jason Kelce on the New Heights podcast, Brees retold the story, sharing some details we knew and some that have long been forgotten (if they were known in the first place) — all of which, wrapped together, are guaranteed to turn a Dolphins fan’s stomach even now.
Brees recounted the many reasons he had to want to go to Miami and not choose the New Orleans Saints. All things considered, his mindset was “Miami, here I come.”
At least that’s what he thought until the Dolphins’ medical staff wouldn’t clear him because of a shoulder injury. Coach Nick Saban instead traded a second-round pick to Minnesota for quarterback Daunte Culpepper and the Dolphins have continued their search for a successor to Dan Marino since.
Brees is about to have his bust placed inside the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, thanks in part to a Super Bowl victory he gave New Orleans, post-Katrina. That victory came on the Dolphins’ home field, no less.
Culpepper’s Dolphins “career” lasted four games, only one of which was a win.
Here’s what Brees told Kelce:
Buy Miami Dolphins tickets on StubHub
“I mean, on paper, like, that was an obvious decision. It was Miami all the way. Miami had Nick Saban. They had just come off a 9-7 season where they won, like, the last seven in a row. So, like, they kind of had it figured out. Defense was lights out. Zach Thomas, Jason Taylor. Their offense, I loved all their coaching staff. Mike Mularkey was the OC. Jason Garrett, quarterback coach. Hudson Hauck was their O-line coach who had been our O-line coach the year before when we had won the division. Loved ‘Hud.’ They were running the same offense that we were running.
“Like, Miami Dolphins, sitting there eating dinner on Wayne Huizinga’s yacht. He’s there at dinner talking about, ‘Hey, we’re gonna go play golf in Scotland every summer with Dan. I got out a helicopter over there, we’re just gonna hop around.’
“No state income tax, I’m like, ‘Dude, this is, on paper, Miami, here I come.’
‘Some unknown head coach named Sean Payton …’
“And then on the flip side, you got New Orleans, right? Six months post-Katrina. Some unknown head coach named Sean Payton, right? Who’s this guy, right? And ironically, five years previous when I was being, like, in the draft, Tom Condon was my agent. I had probably 15 teams that I thought might draft me. And he’s like, we’re going through that list, leading up to draft day, and he’s like, ‘Man, you got all these great possibilities.’ He’s like, ‘Man, you know, honestly, the only one I would really not want you to go to is the New Orleans Saints.’ Like, ‘Kind of dysfunctional, party town, this and that.’
“Like, so I had that ringing in my head as well, right? So again, on paper, it’s like, this is so obvious, and I’m not leaving anything to chance. I’m gonna go, and I’m gonna give each one, like, its fair opportunity.
“And like the Miami trip was amazing with the exception of they put me through the ringer like six hours of these this medical testing because I was only like eight weeks post-op on an eight-month rehab, so I was nowhere close. I mean, my arm, I’m still kind of in a sling, you know, and I can’t do anything. And there, they do, you know the saline solution, the contrast MRI? So I’m like in an MRI for two hours. I get out of that, they stick these big needles in my shoulder to test nerve endings. They’re wanting to test everything.
“So I just I got this feeling of, like, doubt. Like they don’t really (want me), and then their doctors were the ones who told Saban, ‘We think he’s got a 25 percent chance of ever coming back and playing again.’
“And I go to New Orleans and it’s like, ‘You are our guy.’ Like Sean Payton, (GM) Mickey Loomis, ‘You’re our guy. We’re building this offense around you.’ They did everything they could to kind of roll out the red carpet despite all the circumstances. I mean, New Orleans was still destroyed, right?
“And the epic story is Sean Payton, after this great visit there, gets lost in the Lakeview neighborhood and we’re driving through there and houses are off of foundations, Chevy truck upside down in the living room, all of a sudden, car stops, there’s a tugboat in the middle of the road, and I’m looking at my wife like, ‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’
“But it was also one of those moments like, ‘Man, this is so much bigger than just football, right? Like, we get to be a part of one of them, you know, the resurrection of one of America’s greatest cities.’
“Like, this is God’s calling in our life.”
Hal Habib covers the Miami Dolphins for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at HHabib@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Hall of Famer Drew Brees says joining Dolphins was ‘obvious’ choice
Reporting by Hal Habib, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Hal Habib, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
