Drew Brees's postseason failures shouldn't take away from an all-time incredible NFL career

If Sunday was indeed the end of Drew Brees’ unbelievable NFL career, there should be no doubt about where he should be among the all-time great quarterbacks: as I argued just over two years ago, it’s possible Brees might be a top-five QB when he’s finished.

Not the hottest of takes, I imagine. He owns the top spot in total passing yards (if — when? — Tom Brady keeps playing, he’ll leapfrog Brees next year should the New Orleans Saints QB call it quits), passes completed and he’s second in touchdowns. He’s fifth in career passer rating (better than Brady!) and per the Tampa Bay Times, he engineered 53 game-winning drives in the regular season. The laundry list of accomplishments and eye-popping stats is looooong.

But I’ve seen some questions asked about Brees’s postseason record. There was the win over Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. Since then? Seven years in the postseason since then in which he’s fallen short of the championship game, including one loss that would have been a trip to the Super Bowl in the 2018 season. The one on Sunday night was an absolute dud, one that we all wish wasn’t his last game (that is, if it turns out to be the final contest).

But think about some of the ways he and the Saints have lost in the postseason after that unreal run to a ring. They were all kinds of soul-crushing, littered with bad calls and non-calls, and in some cases just plain fluky. There was The Catch III against the 49ers, the Minneapolis Miracle, the missed Nickell Robey-Coleman pass interference, no offensive pass interference on Kyle Rudolph … yeesh.

How many of those can you put on Brees? Sometimes, you need your defense to step up at a critical moment or the officials to throw a flag. Stats and numbers always need context, and the context here is Brees has been on the short end of some horrible losses.

In the era of the passing game exploding, he’s right up there with Manning and Brady. At six feet tall, the “undersized” label turned out to be ridiculous, and in New Orleans — an aside: remember how close he was to signing with the Dolphins in 2006? How’s that for a “what if?” — he was a winner of 142 games while under center.

That’s his on-field legacy, and there shouldn’t be anyone questioning it if his career is really over.