Saints make it official, file Drew Brees’ retirement with NFL
If there were any holdouts hoping for a Brett Favre-like reconsidered retirement from Drew Brees, that door is now shut. The New Orleans Saints formally added Brees to the NFL’s reserve/retired list on Friday. The next time fans see a No. 9 jersey inside the Superdome, it should be raised to hang in the rafters.
Brees leaves New Orleans as the greatest player in franchise history. He set the bar for every passing record while bringing the city its first Super Bowl victory. It’s tough to understate how important he was to the team during his 15-year Saints career. Not bad for an undersized quarterback who was cast off by his previous team after suffering a career-threatening injury.
So what’s next? Saints training camp is going to center around a competition between backups Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston (with long shots Trevor Siemian and Ian Book also in the room) to replace Brees under center, while the front office bides its time to gain more salary cap flexibility once Brees’ accounting come off the books.
Because the Saints waited to do this until after June 1, they’ll receive $1.075 million in what’s essentially a refund of his 2021 salary while carrying a dead money charge of $11.5 million in 2022. Depending on where the 2022 salary cap is set (it’ll be no higher than $208.2 million, meaning Brees will be accounting for at least 5.5% of next year’s salary cap), that might end up being a frustrating hurdle to clear. But it’s a situation the Saints have expected for years now, and they’ll have plenty of time to prepare for it.
Here’s to Brees, who leaves a successful NFL career and a strong legacy in New Orleans behind him. He’ll have a long summer to spend with his family before gearing up for his first season in broadcast work, calling Notre Dame football games for NBC Sports. Depending on how his new career turn goes, maybe he’ll be on the call for NBC when the network broadcasts New Orleans’ next Super Bowl in a few years.
