Payton and Brees, стр. 58
If Brees’ maniacal competitiveness wasn’t evident to Brunell after the home run derby, it was hammered home a few months later on a bowfishing trip to Port Sulphur, Louisiana. The informal fishing contest between Saints players began at 8:00 pm and stretched well into the next morning. As Brunell recalled, all of the boats had reported to the dock and weighed their catches with the guides by about 2:30 am. Yet, one boat remained on the water, more than an hour after the others had returned to the dock. Finally, sometime in the wee hours before dawn, it came in.
“We’re all just sitting there waiting,” Brunell said. “We’re nasty, disgusting, and we just want to go home. But to a man, we all knew why his boat was the last one to come in. And sure, enough, he had the most fish. He’s even competitive in bowfishing. That’s Drew Brees.”
Brees has ascended to the elite ranks of NFL quarterbacks for many reasons, from his underrated all-around athletic ability to his versatile skill set to his legendary work ethic. But those who know Brees best say his extraordinary competitiveness is what sets him apart, the single trait that has driven him from an under-recruited prep player to the highest level of his sport. In a league of extraordinarily competitive men, Brees’ almost obsessive competitiveness stands out.
The Saints knew Brees was competitive when they signed him in 2006. They were counting on it to fuel his rehab from shoulder surgery. But no one knew just how competitive he was until they got him in the building. And it became apparent very quickly that they were dealing with a different animal.
Nearly everyone who has spent any length of time with Brees over the years has a story about his legendary competitive streak. Brees grew up in an athletic family and competed in sports at an early age alongside his brother, Reid. But Brees doesn’t limit his competition to organized sports. He’ll compete in just about anything, from ping-pong to darts to seed spitting to rock skipping to skeet shooting. Anything to stoke his competitive juices.
His roommate at Purdue, Jason Loerzel, still shakes his head at the sleepless nights he endured at the teammates’ on-campus apartment because of Brees’ marathon late-night electronic dart games. Chase Daniel said when he played for the Saints from 2009 to 2012 Brees would create games like “pencil football” in the quarterback meeting room and “football golf” on the practice field to stoke the fire. McCown remembers seeing Brees spend 20 minutes in the weight room one day trying to toss a physio ball and land it on the weight rack.
“He wouldn’t leave until he did it,” McCown said.
At times, Brees’ competitiveness can border on obsessiveness—so much so that friends and teammates have learned that letting him win is sometimes better than beating him.
Former NFL quarterback Carson Palmer told the Los Angeles Times he and Brees would train together near their San Diego homes each offseason, and Brees would somehow turn the workouts into a competition.
“He was so over-the-top competitive,” Palmer said. “We would jog from drill to drill, and he would have to be first. After a while it was, ‘All right, dude, just go.’ He couldn’t turn it off. We would finish every workout with little agility games like catching cards. You’d throw playing cards in the air and catch them with one hand…. Your mind is exhausted, your body’s exhausted, and Drew just can’t turn it off. As a peer and a competitor, I was in awe. But his competitiveness got to the point where it can be annoying.”
During bowfishing trips, Loerzel said he would surreptitiously gesture to his fishing guide to steer the boat toward fish in Brees’ direction so he could shoot the most fish in their angling derbies.
“I would give a nod for him to turn the boat so Drew can shoot the fish because if we didn’t we were going to be out there all night until he got the most,” Loerzel said. “We joke with him about it, but it’s real.”
Over the years, Brees even found a way to multi-compete. During practices, while trying to move the ball against the defense, he would simultaneously compete with fellow quarterbacks. The mini-competition assigned point values to various aspects of quarterback play. Players received points for throwing a touchdown pass, completing a pass after a scramble, checking down to the proper receiver, or making the right read. Points were deducted for interceptions, inaccurate reads, etc. As the senior member of the group, Brees reigned as judge, jury, and arbiter of the daily tally. He was even known to tweak the scorekeeping criteria when necessary.
One day during organized team activities in the spring, McCown said Brees introduced a bonus score: one point for a completion on a throw in the flat. The other quarterbacks readily agreed. Later, McCown noticed the script for that practice. Brees’ series featured numerous plays in which the primary receiver ran a flat route.
“He’s a manipulator,” McCown said with a smirk.
Brees’ competitive drive fits like a glove with Payton. Saints scouts grade personnel for their competitiveness in the evaluation process. Payton also fosters a culture of competition in daily workouts, even joining the players in the informal post-practice contests.
“There is a high value on [competitiveness] I think, just as there is on intelligence,” Payton said. “I think it is extremely important. And it is also on us to create those environments. It is okay to have winners and losers.”
Brees, as you would imagine, rarely loses. Payton kidded that the few times he’s managed to defeat his quarterback involved competitions “like throwing a ping-pong ball in a fish bowl.”
Loerzel recalled Brees missing a short putt on the golf course and replaying the putt over and over until he finally made it, much to the dismay of the foursome behind them. Jamie Martin said Brees once missed a single pass in a two-hour practice and