Drew Brees Reveals He Nearly Came Back To Play For Desperate AFC Team During Last Year’s NFL Playoffs
This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.
Denver’s run to last season’s AFC Championship Game ended in heartbreak. The Broncos entered that Divisional Round win over Buffalo with real Super Bowl hopes. But they had to watch quarterback Bo Nix go down with a fractured ankle late in the victory.
Backup Jarrett Stidham took over from there, eventually starting the conference title game against New England. He struggled through a snowy 10-7 loss at Mile High.
Stidham completed 17 of 31 passes with a touchdown, an interception, and a lost fumble.
Behind the scenes, though, Denver’s staff quietly explored an entirely different plan.
Two Assistants Reached Out Without Telling Their Head Coach
ESPN‘s Adam Schefter reported Monday that then-offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi and offensive assistant Pete Carmichael contacted Drew Brees about coming out of retirement to face the Patriots.
Brees had turned 47 just two days before Nix’s injury, and both coaches had spent years working alongside him in New Orleans.
Brees told the pair he wanted to work out first to test whether his body could still handle NFL-level throws. According to Schefter, discomfort in his wrist ultimately ended the idea before it ever became public.
Head coach Sean Payton reportedly didn’t learn about the conversations until this offseason. When he found out, Schefter described his reaction as “both fascinated and flabbergasted,” having initially assumed the story referred to a different Brees comeback discussion from years earlier in New Orleans.
The Comeback Would Have Echoed Another Recent Return
Had Brees actually signed, one Broncos source told ESPN he would have immediately factored into the quarterback conversation. “At a minimum, you sign him, he’s 1A or 1B,” the source said. “And Drew’s point was: ‘I know how to win a game like that.’”
The idea wasn’t entirely without precedent. Philip Rivers made his own surprise return to the NFL last season with the Colts, a move Schefter noted nearly got matched by an even more improbable comeback in Denver.
Brees, who last played in a 2020 playoff loss to Tom Brady’s Buccaneers, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this past summer instead. He and Payton reportedly discussed the AFC title game scenario again during that induction ceremony, closing the book on what nearly became one of the strangest storylines in recent NFL history.
