New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and his teammates are putting their legacies on the line in the playoffs against the Chicago Bears
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Most observers aren’t expecting a very competitive matchup between the New Orleans Saints and the wild-card Chicago Bears. NFL experts are picking New Orleans by a healthy margin, and the oddsmakers are calling for a blowout. But the Saints have learned — painfully — that no playoff game can be written off as an easy win.
And few players on their team should be more aware of that than Drew Brees. The quarterback is bound for the Hall of Fame whenever he hangs up his cleats, which ESPN reports could happen this very offseason. But as gaudy as his records and stats sheet have become over the years in New Orleans, retiring with just one Super Bowl victory on his resume would sting. There’s a chance Sunday’s game with the Bears is the last time Brees ever plays for the Saints.
Earned or not, the Saints have been stuck with a reputation as regular season champions that fold in the playoffs against lesser competition. While that’s been pointed to often in recent years, it’s been a thing throughout Brees’ era; only one team to eliminate them in the postseason has gone on to win that year’s Super Bowl, being the 2013 Seattle Seahawks.
And that Seahawks team was the only Saints playoff opponent to be led by a quarterback with a career quarterback rating over 100.0. See for yourself, per Pro Football Reference:
- Rex Grossman (vs. Saints in 2006 playoffs): 71.4
- Matt Hasselbeck (vs. Saints in 2010 playoffs): 82.4
- Alex Smith (vs. Saints in 2011 playoffs): 86.9
- Russell Wilson (vs. Saints in 2013 playoffs): 101.7
- Case Keenum (vs. Saints in 2017 playoffs): 85.2
- Jared Goff (vs. Saints in 2018 playoffs): 91.5
- Kirk Cousins (vs. Saints in 2019 playoffs): 97.9
That isn’t exactly a rogues’ gallery of all-time elite passers. It’s a group of mediocre-to-average throwers (plus Wilson) that the Saints have underestimated in critical moments.
All of this was said to illustrate the point that the Saints can’t overlook the Bears and Mitchell Trubisky. While the former second-overall draft pick has underachieved throughout his NFL career (with a quarterback rating of 87.2), he’s exactly the sort of player who has knocked the Saints out of playoff contention before.
If they can’t handle their business against Trubisky, the modern-day Saints will go down in history as underachievers themselves. They’ve strung together the four winningest seasons in franchise history without a Super Bowl title to show for it. And that’s unacceptable for them and for Brees.
It’s worse than even the 1990-1993 Buffalo Bills, who at least made it to four consecutive Super Bowls, though they couldn’t seal the deal. The 2017-2020 Saints risk becoming an even more obscure trivia answer if they can’t cap off this last run with Brees by going all the way.
Sure, Saints coach Sean Payton has groused about the narrative of flat playoff performances from New Orleans, but the specifics won’t be remembered if the Saints come up short against Chicago. That’s the sort of multiyear trend that gets set in stone, especially if it’s the coda to Brees’ career with the Saints. They’d always be looked back on as also-rans.
It goes without saying that every playoff game is a must-win matchup. But for Brees and the Saints, their Wild-Card Round kickoff against Trubisky and the Bears is as critical as it can possibly be.
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