Coming Back Stronger

by Drew Brees

  It was kind of a funny thing to say at that moment, after such a miserable performance. But my hope was returning. I knew the kind of person I was—I knew I was capable of playing well. Something inside was telling me I was not going to go out like that. I had gotten this far; I was not about to give up now.

  Greg looked at me, and I noticed there was a mist in his eyes too. “I know you are.”

  Marty benched me for the next five games. I had let my backup see the field . . . and now I was the backup.

  On the Bench

  I could have looked at this benching as a huge negative, but gradually I started moving beyond the disappointment and seeing it as something that could help me. I wanted to use this obstacle to help me become a better player, a better man. The truth is, you don’t learn much from winning, but losing can make you a lot stronger. Some say experience is what you gain when you don’t get what you want. In that case, I was gaining a lot of experience on the bench. I can look back on that time now and say it was exactly what I needed.

  I couldn’t have made it through that season without Brittany’s support. We had been married only nine months then, and already she was getting dragged along on this roller-coaster ride. When I returned to San Diego after the game in Chicago, I was lower than I’d ever been. I lugged all my bags into the house and couldn’t believe what I saw. There were sticky notes and signs everywhere! In the living room, in the kitchen, in the hallway, on the stairs—they were all over. You’re the greatest! You’re the best! Best husband ever! The best quarterback! You can’t keep a good man down! I went to our bathroom and saw that she’d taped pictures of me on the mirror—shots of all the great moments of my athletic career, from high school to the pros. Her support helped me bounce back after the big hit I’d taken. I am so blessed to have her in my life.

  Marty’s goal was for me to gain perspective while I was on the bench, and for those weeks that’s exactly what I tried to do. Being on the sideline gives you an advantage you don’t have when you’re playing: you get to observe like a spectator. When a fan watches the game on TV or in the stands, things seem so obvious. “Man, how did he not see that guy? He was wide open.” I was the Monday morning quarterback for a change.

  It was this perspective that helped me simplify the game and learn from what I saw. The last couple of games I had operated in a haze because of the pressure I was putting on myself. I realized I was making the game so much more complicated than it really needed to be. Before that point in my career, I’d felt invincible. I thought I could make every play. That meant that every time I stepped onto the field, I had to make every play. When you go into a game with that mind-set, you put undue pressure on yourself. And you’re destined to fail.

  That period of warming the bench also gave me a chance to evaluate my attitude toward my teammates and my coaches. Human nature tells me to be angry and resentful and defensive when things don’t go my way—to seek revenge. I always have to fight that. The more positive approach is to step back and look at reality. This is not what I anticipated. But how can I make the most of it? What’s the silver lining? This door may be closed, but there has to be an open window somewhere. Anyone can see the adversity in a difficult situation, but it takes a stronger person to see the opportunity.

  From the sideline I heard the play called. Flutie went into the huddle, then came to the line of scrimmage. I looked at the defense and immediately sized up the play: Our best matchup is the single receiver to our left. He should throw it there. Sure enough, Doug dropped back and threw it to the left. That was easy. Another play came in, and it was evident right away that we should check from the run to a pass because of the blitz look on defense. It was all coming back—the reasons I loved this game, the reasons I’d dedicated my life to it. This is what I was meant to do. If I was given another opportunity, I knew I’d be ready. I would go back out there and show them what I could do.

  Back in the Game

  Doug started five games, and then Marty approached me again. “Okay, it’s time to put you back in.”

  I was ready.

  Game fourteen of the 2003 season was against the Green Bay Packers. I would get the chance to face off against Brett Favre, one of the great quarterbacks of all time, in front of our home crowd. They ended up beating us, but it was clear that this was the beginning of a new era for me. I turned some balls loose, the kind you can throw only when you have complete confidence and trust in what you’re doing. No hesitation, no doubt, no fear of making a mistake. On that Sunday, I made progress as a starting quarterback in the league. Sitting on the bench had helped me develop a stiff upper lip. I was tougher now.

  After that we traveled to Pittsburgh—our next-to-last game of the season. The Steelers scored on their first three possessions. The game had barely begun, and already they were beating us 21–0. But then our offense started to click. We scored two touchdowns and a field goal, bringing the tally to 21–17. It was now the third quarter, and we had the ball with a chance to take the lead. Maybe this is our chance for a turnaround, I thought. This could be the spark!

  I fumbled.

  On the next possession I threw an interception.

  Those two mistakes led to ten more points on the scoreboard for the Steelers. Later in the fourth quarter, I threw a pass underneath to LaDainian Tomlinson, but he was blocked by the official. As he came to the other side of the referee, he reached back for the ball and tipped it off his hand. Deshea Townsend intercepted it and ran it back. Touchdown.

  Suddenly we were down sixteen points with four minutes left in the game. We’d had a chance at the lead, and then bang, bang, bang—three critical turnovers in a matter of a few minutes. By then the game was out of reach.

  When I got to the sideline, I was more frustrated than I’d ever been. Marty came over and said, “You’re out.”

  I don’t know how to describe what I felt in that moment. The fire inside had returned, and I wasn’t going down without a fight. “I am not leaving this game. I deserve to be in there. Don’t give up on me.”

  We went at it for a while on the sideline. If you watch the footage of the game, you’ll see two people who want to win with two different ideas about how to make it happen. In the end, it was his decision—he was the head coach. He pulled me and I sat. Actually, pacing was more like it. I walked up and down the sideline, trying to keep my head from exploding.

  We ended up losing 40–24. As the team headed to the locker room after the game, Marty and I went at it again in the hallway. We didn’t call each other names or tear each other down; we were just two passionate guys who each believed he was right. I didn’t feel like I deserved to get pulled, and he felt like he was doing what was best for the team—and for me.

  “Listen,” Marty finally said. “You’re still our starter, and you’re going to start next week. But you need to realize how you win and how you lose in this league. You were playing well, and then all of a sudden you turned it over three times. I don’t care how the turnovers happened. The fact is, you turned the ball over three times. And when that happens, I’m pulling your a–– out of the game.”

  The next game, our final game of the year, we played the Oakland Raiders at home. The wildfires in California had messed up our practice and game schedule earlier in the year, and it was good to be back at Qualcomm. I started the game, and we won 21–14.

  When the smoke cleared for the season, our record was a dismal 4–12. What a waste of talent and expectations. The only good thing about it all was that because we had the worst record in the NFL, we now got the first pick in the draft—a draft that incidentally would end up having a big influence on my future as a Charger. But despite our record, the 2003 season hadn’t been a waste. I felt like I’d learned a lot from all of it—the losses, the disappointments, even the benching. My faith was also strengthened during this time, as was as my relationship with our team chaplain, Pastor Shawn Mitchell. He would pull me aside regularly to pray for me at our team facility, and he ev
en prayed for me on the phone one time as I was driving down the highway. He was full of God’s Spirit and was always looking to pass on that grace and mercy to me.

  I couldn’t wait to get back on the field in 2004.

  However, there were now questions from the front office. “Is Drew the guy? He was benched two times. The team went 4–12. Maybe it’s time to go another direction.”

  We were working under new management. John Butler, who had drafted me out of Purdue, had lost his nine-month battle with cancer in April 2003. The new general manager, A. J. Smith, hadn’t drafted me, and he certainly wasn’t convinced that my play deserved another season. He was determined to do whatever it took not to go 4–12 again. And despite the fact that he still had Flutie and me on the roster, it seemed as if he wanted to look on the outside to find the future of the franchise.

  Going into that off-season, Cam Cameron asked me to come into his office. He closed the door and looked straight at me. “Drew, I’m just letting you know . . . I don’t think they would want me to tell you this, but I owe it to you: they are going to bring somebody in.”

  “Another quarterback?”

  He nodded. “It’s going to be a free agent or maybe a high draft pick. Now, I can promise you this: you will have the opportunity to compete. But you need to be prepared.”

  I thanked him for telling me. “That’s all I want—just let me have a chance.”

  “I’ll be honest with you. At the other side of the building, they don’t believe in you. Marty has confidence in you; I have confidence in you; Brian has confidence in you. But you have to be ready to compete for this job. Basically you’re going to have to win your job back.”

  I was up for a fight. But I needed a plan to give me an edge on my competition.

  Chapter Five

  Creating the Edge

  With the knowledge that another quarterback would be vying for my position in 2004, I was looking for an advantage, a way to rise above the competition. It seemed like in the past I was always the one chasing someone in front of me. Now, instead of being the hunter, it would be very easy to feel like the hunted. Someone was coming after my job. But that was not the approach I took. I always wanted to be striving to be better, to push myself past my limits, to be willing to try new things. If I kept that attitude, I would always be the hunter. I wanted to be a great player in the NFL, and I knew I wasn’t there yet. Somehow I had to find a way to get from where I was to where I wanted to be. I was the quarterback of the future, and nobody was going to take my job.

  Cam Cameron knew I was determined to do whatever was necessary to keep my spot as starter. “I think I have someone who can help you,” he told me.

  Tom House is a well-known pitching coach, now on staff at USC. He has quite a coaching history in Major League Baseball, including a stint as Nolan Ryan’s pitching coach with the Texas Rangers. He played professional baseball himself for eight years, pitching for Atlanta, Boston, and Seattle. One of his claims to fame was catching Hank Aaron’s record-setting 715th home run in the bullpen at Fulton County Stadium.

  Tom House has a doctorate in psychology, and when I met him, he was conducting baseball camps, working with individual athletes to get them into peak physical condition. But he didn’t just deal with the physical; he worked on the whole person—the mental and emotional components as well. He tackled everything from sleep patterns and diet to attitude and awareness.

  I was open to any approach that would help me achieve my goals. I had the will, I had the desire, and I wasn’t afraid of hard work. I just needed a method—and someone to help me map it out.

  I sat down with Tom, and he understood immediately what I wanted to do. “Hey, I’d love to work with you. Meet me at the gym at five o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  That was the beginning of a four-month process of getting up early each morning to work out and learn things I never knew about the mechanics of the quarterback position as well as the mental and emotional aspects of playing the game. Tom immediately started diagnosing the weak areas that needed to be developed.

  “In order to be a great quarterback, what do you think you need strength-wise?” he asked.

  “I guess I need a strong arm. And strong legs for power,” I said.

  He smiled and broke it down for me. “I can tell by looking at you that you lack some back-side shoulder strength. We’re going to need to work on that. You’re very front-loaded—you have more muscle in the front of your shoulders than in the back. That’s creating an imbalance. So if the front of your shoulder is strong enough to throw a hundred miles an hour but the back of your shoulder is only strong enough to throw eighty miles an hour, then—guess what?—you’re only going to throw eighty miles an hour. You’re only as strong as your weakest link.” Pretty amazing that the guy could identify that just by looking at my posture.

  That was the theme throughout the process: you’re only as strong as your weakest link. He listed all of my body’s deficiencies. Then he came up with a plan to bring those areas up to speed. He showed me joint integrity exercises for building up the muscles around my shoulder joint, especially the back side of my shoulder, and I worked on them every day. Strength equality in your shoulders will not only help you throw with more velocity and consistency but will also prevent injury since the muscles around the joint protect it.

  We spent time strengthening my core. I had never heard much about working my core or what role it played in my movements. As it turns out, your core is the focal point for your body’s operations. All the muscles in the rest of your body can’t make up for a weak core. It all starts there. And with the help of Tom and his exercises, soon enough I was gaining strength and balance. That was vital for me, because the quarterback position is all about balance: keeping steady in the pocket; being able to slide, move, and then still be stable enough to deliver the ball accurately and with velocity.

  We also discussed diet. At the time I thought I ate well. I didn’t get a lot of fast food. But Tom House took things a step further. “Have you ever had a food allergy test?”

  I’d never even considered it before. But I didn’t question him. Brittany and I flew to Portland together to see a specialist, and she took the tests with me. I figured she would have all the allergies because she couldn’t drink milk and had frequent stomachaches after meals. My stomach, on the other hand, was made of iron. I could eat anything. Or so I thought.

  As it turned out, I was the one with the problem. The tests revealed that I was allergic to a lot of the things I ate every day. Dr. Richard Heitsch explained what that meant.

  “When you eat these foods you’re allergic to, your body fights against them instead of repairing muscles and fighting off the free radicals in your body that cause sickness and disease. If you keep eating this way, you’ll feel fatigued, you won’t recover as fast, and you’ll get sick more often. And you won’t sleep as well. Everything works together—either for or against your body.”

  I discovered I was allergic to nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. I had jars of cashews, pistachios, and peanuts that I would take handfuls from throughout the day, and the other foods were staples in my daily meals. It was time to change my diet, find alternatives, and make some drastic adjustments. Tom also said I shouldn’t eat the same things over and over again. Anything in excess isn’t good for you. The body can take only so much of one thing, so it’s better to space it out. For example, if you eat red meat regularly, he said, the body will eventually decide it’s had enough and will start fighting against it.

  When I began this process, I wasn’t feeling bad. But I had no baseline to know what feeling good was like. Up to that point it was normal for me not to be 100 percent, but I didn’t know any different. When I changed my diet and stuck with it, I found I recovered faster, saw improvements in my strength training, slept better, and actually needed less sleep. I had more energy.

  But I didn’t stop with strength training and diet. To get me to the next level, Tom referred m
e to a friend to start working on visualization techniques. I’m a visual person anyway, and I believe if you can picture what success looks like—if you can put yourself in the moment, prepare for it, and play that scenario over in your mind—then when you actually get there, what you visualized can happen. You don’t have to think about it; you just react because you’ve done it so many times in your head.

  On my first day of visualization and focus training, the instructor had me sit down across from him. We talked for a minute or so, and then he asked me to close my eyes. I’ll admit, it felt weird at first.

  “What am I wearing?” he said.

  I had no idea, but I guessed. A brown jacket? Blue jeans?

  “What does the writing on my shirt say? And be specific.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’s a sign in the workout room over the watercooler. What does it say? What shape is the sign?”

  He wasn’t teaching me to memorize details. He was training me to go deeper into the moment and use all my senses. Here’s how it applies: just because I couldn’t see didn’t mean I had lost vision. There’s a big difference between sight and vision. There is a direct correlation between being aware of your surroundings and standing in the pocket as a quarterback. As a quarterback, you can’t always see your receivers or spot the rush coming at you or see defenders in coverage, but you have to be able to feel those things. You need to have the confidence to turn the ball loose and trust that your receivers will be where they are supposed to be to make the catch. There were times before a game when I would spend an hour with my eyes closed, visualizing all seventy of the plays we were going to run that day. I would picture every detail of the situation—the down, the distance, what hash mark we were on, everything. This really helped me play with confidence, feeling like I knew what was going to happen before it happened.