Drew Brees never won NFL MVP and former Saints still cannot explain why

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Drew Brees finished his career with a Super Bowl MVP award, a collection of NFL records and a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

One major individual honor never came.

Brees threw for more than 5,000 yards multiple times and led the NFL in passing yards and touchdown passes during his career. Still, he was never named the league’s Most Valuable Player.

“I mean, listen, it still baffles me,” another former teammate said.

Former Saints wide receiver Lance Moore said the decision was particularly difficult to understand during the earlier years of Brees’ run in New Orleans.

“Especially in that earlier Saints run where he was obliterating records left and right, and we were having successful seasons,” Moore said. “I just, for the life of me, I didn’t understand it.”

Former Saints running back Mark Ingram joked that no calculation could explain the missing award.

“You could add and carry the one and divide by the square root of pi,” he said. “And the math will never add up.”

Brees eventually received the recognition that mattered most.

“You might miss the MVP, but you got the Super Bowl MVP and you got the gold jacket,” Former Saints wide receiver Marques Colston said. “I think you did all right.”

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The Saints’ championship season began with expectations Brees had helped establish from his first day in New Orleans.

Members of the 2009 team made shirts referencing Super Bowl 44 before the season. Players said the group around Brees performed at a championship level because that was the standard expected of them.

Colston described his connection with Brees as a “thought partnership” that developed after years of repetition and trust.

Brees understood where he would be, even when the receiver adjusted his route from what was drawn in the playbook. Colston trusted Brees to recognize the same opening and deliver the football.

“The defense can be right and still be wrong,” Colston said. “Because you’re just that much on the same page.”

The Saints won their first 13 games of the 2009 season before defeating the Arizona Cardinals 45-14 in the divisional round.

Garrett Hartley’s overtime field goal against the Minnesota Vikings then sent New Orleans to the first Super Bowl in franchise history.

“We really started to believe, like, we’re gonna win the Super Bowl,” Former Saints wide receiver Lance Moore said. “And it wasn’t like, we can win the Super Bowl. It was like, no, we’re gonna win the Super Bowl.”

The Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 after Tracy Porter returned a Peyton Manning interception 70 yards for a touchdown.

Brees was named Super Bowl MVP.

“We had a heck of a run,” one former teammate said. “We got that ring. That ring means everything. We won a lot of games, and, you know, we changed the city.”

The championship created expectations that another title would follow.

It never did.

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Former players said the Saints teams fielded in 2011 and 2018 were among the strongest of the Brees era.

Colston said the 2011 offense played “Madden-level offensive football.” The Saints’ season ended after five turnovers in a divisional-round loss at San Francisco.

The 2018 NFC championship loss to the Los Angeles Rams left deeper wounds.

The Saints were positioned to reach another Super Bowl before an uncalled pass interference penalty on a hit against Tommylee Lewis helped send the game to overtime.

“It pains me,” Former Saints left tackle Terron Armstead said. “It’s sickening, really. Every time I think about it, every time I see the play, it just takes me to a bad place, a dark place.”

Former Saints left tackle Jermon Bushrod said the loss ended his career.

“I couldn’t even muster up to play football anymore after that,” Bushrod said. “Just the way that it ended.”

The Saints also suffered the Minneapolis Miracle loss during the 2017 playoffs, but one former teammate described the game as perhaps Brees’ greatest performance.

New Orleans fell behind by 20 points before Brees led the Saints back to take the lead in the fourth quarter.

“We never get to the Minnesota Miracle if Drew didn’t go like Michael Jordan,” Armstead said. “He went crazy.”

Those losses left members of the organization wondering how Brees’ place in NFL history might have changed with additional championships.

Moore said Brees might be discussed more often as one of the top two or three quarterbacks ever if the Saints had won titles in 2011 or 2018.

“I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights over those what-ifs,” Saints executive Mickey Loomis said. “Our team was capable of winning a lot of Super Bowls, and the fact that we only won one leaves you with an empty feeling.”

The missed opportunities did not change what Brees meant to the franchise.

Former teammates called him the greatest player to wear black and gold and credited him with changing the narrative surrounding the Saints.

Loomis went even further when asked whether Brees was the organization’s greatest or most important free-agent signing.

“Both,” Loomis said. “I think he’s the best free-agent signing in the history of the league.”

Brees said the relationship worked both ways.

“I know New Orleans was looking for a quarterback then, but I promise you, I needed New Orleans more than New Orleans needed me,” Brees said.

His Hall of Fame selection became real when former quarterback Dan Fouts arrived at his home wearing a gold jacket.

Brees said his family stalled him as he prepared to leave for a birthday dinner. He was becoming frustrated with his sons for taking too long when someone knocked on the door.

“And then there’s Dan Fouts,” Brees said.

Fouts informed him that he had been selected as a first-ballot member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026.

The honor completed a journey that began with the Saints taking a chance on an injured quarterback and ended with Brees giving New Orleans its only Super Bowl championship.

He never won league MVP.

His former teammates still believe the numbers, the victories and the impact tell a different story.

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