If you believe what excitable Fox Sports NFL insider Jay Glazer reported before Bucs-Saints, Sunday was the last game of Drew Brees's career. It would've only been his last game at the Superdome, but he played like absolute shit and New Orleans lost, 30-20.
The 42-year-old quarterback was visibly limited and abysmal in (what was most likely) his final game. If Brees had been any other player, he would've been benched. That one touchdown pass to Tre'Quan Smith didn't justify keeping him out there. Brees went 19-of-34 for 134 passing yards and three gruesome interceptions. Here they are:
Jared Cook deserves partial credit on that third pick, but still: hideous. There was no Taysom Hill gadget play to be unleashed today, as he was ruled inactive before the game, but Jameis Winston did step in to throw a 56-yard touchdown pass to Smith on a trick play. It was clearly an act of mercy by head coach Sean Payton, as the current version of Brees wouldn't have hit that receiver in stride if you gave him 10 tries.
Fox Sports made sure to use the conditional since Brees hasn't officially announced anything yet, but if this is indeed his final game, it's a good opportunity to look back on the highlights of his career. Fans may recall his Super Bowl 44 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, his status as the league's all-time passing leader, or perhaps more recently when he said that to not stand for the American flag during the national anthem was to disrespect it, causing him to alienate his teammates and apologize with a statement and a stock photo of a black hand clasping a white hand. They might also recall when he endorsed a company that eventually had to pay $150 million to the Federal Trade Commission for its multi-level marketing scheme. I, however, will choose to remember the time when Brees visited the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in 2009 and thought it was neat.
Brees thought Gitmo was such a nice experience that he believed the military prison should stay open, and that the detainees were essentially being pampered. Here's a quote from a radio interview he did after his trip:
I can say this after that experience — the worst thing we can do is shut that baby down, for a lot of reasons. But I think there's a big misconception as to how we are treating those prisoners — those detainees over there. They are being treated probably ten times better than any prisoner in a U.S. prison. They're on a 6,500 calorie-a-day diet whereas a normal U.S. prisoner is on a 2,000 calorie-a-day diet.... I think the international media — there's just been so much scrutiny over the way that we're treating these guys, it's almost like we're going overboard to treat them so well.I mean, they're allowed to call and write letters home, and receive letters and calls. They get five opportunities a day to pray, and they have arrows in the prison pointing towards where Mecca is. And the prison goes dead silent so these guys can have their religious time. They have rooms where they can watch movies and play Nintendo Wii. So I think that just goes ahead and says it right there.And you just talk to all the guards that are Army and Navy personnel, they'll tell you stories about how these prisoners, they'll be walking the cell blocks as they're keeping an eye on these guys and they'll be throwing their feces and urine in the faces of the guards as they walk by, and the guards are not allowed to do anything. They're not allowed to physically retaliate or do anything hardly to try to restrain these guys at all. These guys get away with whatever they want.And it was interesting because at one point, we were walking from one detention center to another and some of the prisoners saw us. And they started yelling, 'Torture! Torture!' We teach them English, by the way. But they assume since we're in civilian clothes that we were members of the media so they started yelling, 'Torture! Torture!' So you know, anything that they can do to show a poor light on the U.S. military, they're going to do it. Because it seems like they're being treated very, very well over there.
The detainees were not in fact being treated well. If this is really the end for Drew Brees, farewell, you pious psycho.
