Quarterback Drew Brees retired after the 2020 season. He flirted for a moment in 2021 with the idea of returning to the Saints. Since then, it’s been a non-issue.
Brees explained in an appearance on ESPN Radio that a comeback is out of the question because he can no longer throw a football.
“Look, I’ll let you in on a little fact,” Brees said, via ESPN.com. “I don’t throw with my right arm anymore. My right arm does not work. So, when I throw in the backyard right now, I throw left-handed.”
Brees, who now plays pickleball, said that’s not an issue because he doesn’t have to put his arm over his head.
The condition traces to the injury that he suffered in his final game with the Chargers, to cap the 2005 season. The dislocated shoulder required surgery and rehab and prompted the Dolphins to pass on signing him as a free agent. The Saints decided to roll the dice, and it paid off.
Brees said that the injury “put me on the fast track to a degenerative shoulder and all kind of arthritic changes.”
He added that, if he could throw, he “would absolutely still be playing.”
Former Dolphins coach Nick Saban, who ran the show in Miami during his two years with the teams, periodically claims that he bears no blame for the decision not to sign Brees. In 2021, Saban blamed the decision not to sign Brees on a doctor who “didn’t know his ass from a handful of sand.”
Baloney. If Saban wanted Brees, Saban would have had Brees.
Brees got the most out of his right arm, winning a Super Bowl and forging a Hall of Fame career. He surely wouldn’t trade that for the ability to throw a football with his right arm in his early 40s.
