I heard of Drew Brees a little earlier than most

Football Insider Board
#1

In 1996, I was living and working in Galveston. Ball High, the public high school on the island, made its deepest playoff run in many years. They reached the state 5A Division 2 semifinals, played in the Astrodome. The opponent was Austin Westlake. Westlake, which entered the game 14-0, had an undersized QB named Brees. I didn’t go to the Dome but I listened on the radio, the only BHS game I ever bothered to find on the radio. It was a close game but Westlake won. The next week Westlake blew out Abilene Cooper in the state final to complete a 16-0 season. Nobody in Texas recruited that kid, though, and he wound up choosing Purdue over Kentucky.

Now 23 years later, that smallish kid holds every NFL passing record worth mentioning, including his 540th TD pass tonight, and will set a few more when he quits, like career completion percentage.

If Ball High had to get knocked out of the playoffs that night, it took a pretty good QB to do it.

1 Like
#2

When Saban went to Dolphins ,the first player he wanted was DB who was free agent then but Gen Mgr wanted to go another direction and did. Saban left after couple years to go to Bama. Man knows talent and what a difference in SEC if he was still in NFL assuming Brees had a similar career for the Dolphins.

#3

Brees was coming off of shoulder surgery during his free agency and the Miami GM thought it was too risky to sign him. That is one of those small decisions that had repercussions throughout both the NFL and College football. If Miami takes Brees, Saban probably never leaves the NFL, New Orleans doesn’t win a Super bowl, and Bama is not a power house.

#4