Coming Back Stronger

by Drew Brees

  Finally, Tom suggested I do what he called a “star profile,” which is basically a personality test tweaked for athletes. The questions reveal a lot about what makes you tick as an athlete and a person and the way you approach life—and where you might need some improvement.

  I saw myself as an outgoing, assertive person. The profile revealed the opposite. So my first task was to get my perception in line with reality, to learn the truth about myself. And if I didn’t like what I saw, I needed to take steps to change that. Everyone needed to see me as I saw myself. As the tests indicated, though I’m outgoing and can make friends with anybody, there are times I can be reserved and shy and keep to myself. If I was going to be a good leader, I needed to know when it was time to come out of my shell and leave my comfort zone. Cam Cameron used to say, “You need to learn to be comfortable when you are uncomfortable.” In other words, as a starting quarterback in this league, I would no doubt find myself in many tough situations along the way, so I’d better learn to like the pressure.

  Tom showed me how other athletes had scored on certain questions. Michael Jordan was off the charts in one area. Nolan Ryan was low in another area. He referenced great players, great leaders, and champions and showed me how I was in line with them in some ways but how I was not where I thought I was in other areas.

  That fired me up. I wanted to be a great leader. And I wanted others to see what I knew deep down about myself so they would follow me.

  As I headed to training camp for that season, I wasn’t going to show up as the same player. I was coming back stronger and better than ever.

  Let the Competition Begin

  San Diego didn’t sign a quarterback when free agency opened in 2004. I felt good about that and hoped management had changed their minds about me. But the draft was still ahead, and San Diego had the number one pick.

  A day or two before, I stopped upstairs after my workout to talk with Brian Schottenheimer, our quarterbacks coach. “What does it look like?” I said. “Are we going to draft an offensive lineman?” I had almost convinced myself that the inevitable was not going to happen.

  Brian looked right at me. “Drew, you know we’re going to draft a quarterback.”

  I stared him dead in the eye and said, “That will be the biggest mistake this organization ever makes.”

  There was quite a bit of drama in the draft world that off-season. Eli Manning, the projected number one pick, had publicly said, “I don’t want to go to San Diego.” Some said it was because of the state of the Chargers organization, while others said it was because he would be a better fit with the New York Giants, who held the fourth pick. Our management chose him anyway, knowing that the Giants wanted Manning badly and confident that they would be able to work a trade and still get the player they wanted. It was a shrewd business move. The Giants chose quarterback Philip Rivers from North Carolina State, but the negotiations for a trade with San Diego had already begun. About an hour later, San Diego traded Manning to the Giants and received Rivers and three draft picks, including a first-round pick for the following year.

  Immediately following the trade, I specifically remember storming into my garage and jumping on the treadmill. Maybe it was partly to continue to build my edge and partly just to blow off some steam. Regardless, I knew that right then I was working and the guy they’d just drafted was probably sipping champagne somewhere. The phone rang in the middle of my workout—Marty Schottenheimer. “We’ve traded for Philip Rivers. Let the competition begin.”

  It didn’t matter who the new quarterback was. I wanted my boss and my team to know that I was their quarterback for the future. Nobody you bring here is going to take my job. After the previous disappointing season, I was already motivated to play better. But the draft lit a fire under me and gave me even more incentive to make this my best year yet.

  At some point in life, every person—no matter how successful—is told he isn’t talented enough, big enough, strong enough, fast enough, or smart enough. When that happens, it’s easy to spend all our energy trying to prove those people wrong. We can spend our whole lives trying to debunk the naysayers.

  But I’m convinced that’s not the best way. At the beginning of that season, when so many people were doubting me, I made a choice: instead of being spurred on by those who doubted me, I’d be motivated by those who had faith in me. These were the people who mentored me, supported me, and believed in me. To this day, when I walk from the locker room to our tunnel on Sundays, I’m overcome with emotion thinking of all the people in my life who have had a positive impact on me—everyone from my parents to my teachers, coaches, mentors, teammates, and now the city of New Orleans. Whatever success I achieve is directly related to those who have stood behind me. I get emotional thinking, This is for them.

  Forget all the doubters. Forget all the critics. Is there satisfaction in proving them wrong? Sure, but I don’t want to give those people the gratification of even dwelling on their words that long. There’s a motivator much more powerful than doubt. I play in honor of those who believe in me.

  Earning My Nickname

  Competition can bring out the best in a player. If the Chargers hadn’t drafted Philip Rivers in 2004, would I have been as successful that season? There’s no way to know. But the fact is, I knew I needed to bring my best that year—not only to fulfill the commitment I’d made to myself after the Chicago game, but also to win my job back.

  Training camp came, and I was ready for a showdown. Despite our competitive rivalry from the start of his rookie year, Philip and I were friends. I respected him as a player and as a teammate, and now as a father to his five children. But San Diego had drafted him to take my job. And I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  From day one, I needed to make sure that everyone on my team knew I was going to lead them. I asked Marty at the end of the first team meeting at training camp to take the other coaches and leave the room to give me a few moments to talk to my teammates. This was unusual, especially on the first day of camp, and especially from a guy who was supposed to lose his job that year. And that was what I loved about it. I didn’t care—I talked to my team about leadership, about commitment, and about fighting through adversity. I read them a few motivational quotes I had picked up in the off-season. We then set our goals together as a team. Most important, I looked every last one of those guys in the eye and didn’t flinch. In my heart I was telling them that they hadn’t seen anything yet and that I was ready to lead them. I believe they got the message.

  In week one against the Houston Texans, I was named the starter, and Philip began the season as my second backup, behind Doug Flutie.

  Winning on the road in the NFL is no easy task. We were playing in Reliant Stadium and were tied 20–20 in the fourth quarter. We drove into Texan territory and scored on a pass to Eric Parker. There was a power outage in the stadium on our next drive, and then we were forced to punt. A couple of plays later, though, we recovered a fumble and got a few first downs to run out the clock. By the time we hit the locker room, I had gone seventeen of twenty-four, for 209 yards and two touchdowns. It was a solid victory for us and a good start to the season for me.

  The next game we faced the Jets, but this time it was a different story. I threw a couple of interceptions, which were bad enough blows to the ego. Then in the third quarter I suffered a blow to the head. It was an all-out blitz—Jon McGraw and Jonathan Vilma came untouched up the middle, and after I let go of the ball, they each took turns hitting me in the head like a pinball machine. Then my head smacked the ground. The first thing I remember after my vision cleared was staring at the ground and seeing everything spinning. I spat what felt like gravel out of my mouth. Three of my teeth were chipped.

  At that point I didn’t know I had a concussion, so I stayed in the game. The play came into my headset, but I could barely comprehend the words. I felt like I was underwater. I handed off to LaDainian Tomlinson, and he went in for a touchdown. We celebrated, but I was out of i
t. I almost ran to the wrong sideline.

  By the time I reached our sideline, everything was spinning. The doctors came over to look at me and did the normal routine for a potential head injury. They said three unrelated words—something like “Dog. Banana. Bicycle.” Then they asked me how I felt and checked me out. A couple of minutes later they asked, “What were those three words we said to you earlier?”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  At that point they knew there was a problem. They conferred and kept an eye on me, but when our offense went back on the field, I went with them. Now my head was really pounding, and I wasn’t thinking straight. I had to concentrate hard on the play calls, but in some strange way the injury actually relaxed me. I played two possessions after taking that blow to the head, and on the second one I threw a thirty-three-yard touchdown pass.

  When I returned to the sideline, Cam Cameron approached me. “Listen, I know you got dinged. How are you feeling? What percentage are you?”

  “I don’t know. Seventy? Sixty? I’m not all here, but I’m fine.”

  “You are not going back in this game,” Cam said. “I can’t risk it.”

  “There’s no way I’m coming out.”

  “If you go back in and you take another shot, you could really get hurt, Drew.” Studies have shown how serious hits like these can be. Cam knew better. He had his wits about him, and I didn’t.

  Physically things progressed from bad to worse for me. My head was pounding something awful. Marty put Flutie in, since he was technically my backup. Later I heard that management was upset—they wanted to get Philip in the game. He hadn’t taken a snap yet.

  The Jets ended up beating us 34–28. The next week we played the Broncos in Denver, which had been a tough venue for us in the past. I had come back from the concussion, but I didn’t play well. We lost 23–13. We were sitting at 1–2 with the Tennessee Titans coming to town. That week Marty came to me with an announcement: he was upgrading Philip to the backup position.

  “So what?”

  “Just wanted you to know,” Marty said.

  I heard the underlying message—I was on a short leash. If I didn’t play well, I would be pulled. Philip would be going in. I gave Marty a look that said, I don’t care who the backup quarterback is because he’s never going to see the field.

  It was during this time that I had a conversation with Lorenzo Neal I’ll never forget. Lorenzo was our fullback—one of the best blocking fullbacks in the league—and in my book he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He told me, “This is the moment you need to decide something. Are you going to be a great player in this league or a career backup? Take this challenge and turn it into motivation. I know you’re going to be a Pro Bowl player. You’re going to be a championship quarterback.” He didn’t see me as a backup. He saw me as championship material. Sometimes when you feel like you have been beaten down so much, all you need is for someone to show that they believe in you.

  The Tennessee game was a pivotal one in the season. Whatever happened, we didn’t want to go 1–3. But things didn’t start out well. I just couldn’t seem to find the rhythm I wanted. On a third-down play in the second quarter, I went back for a pass and got thrown to the ground like a slingshot by Rien Long. My body landed hard and in an awkward position. Immediately I felt a sharp pain in my left arm. Either I’d broken my collarbone or I had just separated my shoulder. As I walked to the sideline, my arm felt like a dead weight.

  The doctors checked it and said I’d separated my AC joint, probably a grade two or grade three separation. Philip Rivers began to warm up on the sideline. I thought about what Lorenzo Neal had said. Do I want to be a career backup? If I come out of the game right now, even for one play, that may be my destiny. Who knows if I’ll ever get an opportunity again.

  Just then Lorenzo walked over to me. During training camp he had given me a nickname: PB, for Pro Bowler. I hadn’t thought much about the Pro Bowl before. I was just trying to win back my job as starting quarterback. Making it to the Pro Bowl was the furthest thing from my mind.

  Lorenzo saw the doctors examining me. “Come on, PB, we need you. This is your time. Right here. Right now. Show them what you got.”

  I knew then that no matter what happened, I had to tough out the injury and find a way to get back out on the field. The team needed me, and I had something to prove.

  I told the coaches I was good to go. The look on Marty’s face said it all. “You have one more series,” he said. In other words, if I didn’t get something done right then, I would be pulled.

  We went out and drove down the field. I threw an eleven-yard pass to Antonio Gates to put us up 14–7. We scored another touchdown on the next series and ended up winning the game 38–17. With a separated left shoulder, going on nothing but adrenaline and painkillers, I threw three touchdowns, with no interceptions. It was one of my better performances in the NFL so far. And even more significantly, I didn’t let my backup see the field.

  That year we went 12–4 and won our division. We made it to the playoffs but lost a heartbreaker to the New York Jets in overtime, 20–17. It was my best season to that point, and I won NFL Comeback Player of the Year.

  And on top of that, I ended up making the Pro Bowl. Lorenzo Neal called it.

  Chapter Six

  Insult and Injury

  Things looked good for the Chargers going into the 2005 season. We had almost every starter returning from the previous year, as well as some talented newcomers like Shawne Merriman, our outside linebacker, who made a huge impact on defense and was named Rookie of the Year. We had some games where everything came together and we played well, but in others we just couldn’t get things to click. We lost a lot of close games that year, including one against Dallas on a goal line stand. We also fell to Denver and Pittsburgh on last-second field goals. We had another heartbreaker at Philadelphia, where they blocked one of our field goals and ran it back for a touchdown with about two and a half minutes left. We then drove down to their twenty yard line with a chance to win only to fumble the ball and lose the game. It was just that kind of year. We finished with a 9–7 record and wound up third in our division behind Denver and Kansas City.

  To anyone watching, our last game of the season, against Denver, was pretty meaningless. We had no shot at the playoffs. But it mattered to me—I didn’t want to be off the field in any game. Besides, I didn’t have a contract after that season, and there was a lot of speculation from the press and from management about what next year would hold. “Is it time to go in a different direction with Philip Rivers?” Others were saying, “How can you let go of a guy like Drew Brees after he took you to the playoffs the year before?”

  Difficult decisions were looming for the team—and for me. And by the end of the game against Denver, those decisions would have even higher stakes.

  Shredding My Shoulder

  It took only one play to change the course of my life and my career in the last game of the season on the last day of the year in 2005. It was late in the second quarter and we had been shut out up to that point. We needed someone to make a play, and that someone needed to be me. As I reared back to throw just inside our own end zone, I felt a presence at my back side. It was Denver free safety John Lynch, and he laid a hit on me that knocked the ball out of my hand and onto the ground, spinning to a stop at the one yard line. It was a live ball, but in my eyes it was my ball, and I had to get it back. With no regard for my own safety or future, I committed the cardinal sin for a quarterback. I jumped into the pile for a loose ball. It wasn’t a rational decision—it was the only way I knew how to play the game. Unfortunately I didn’t get the ball, and even worse, after the dust had settled, my right shoulder was out of socket. My arm stuck out to the side as if I were resting it on a fence post.

  As I walked off the field on December 31, 2005, my arm numb and motionless, I was staring at the one thing I feared the most: that I might never wear a Chargers uniform again. I wouldn’t kn
ow for sure until I heard what the surgeon said, but I’d been around football long enough to know that this injury had the potential to shatter not just my shoulder but also my dreams for the next season . . . or possibly even my entire career.

  I refused to let myself dwell on it, though. And I certainly wasn’t going to admit that possibility to anyone else. My faith was being tested, but I stood firm, knowing even then that God had a plan. I tried to downplay the injury and make sure everyone knew I would be back in 2006. Some would call it foolish; others would consider it impossible. But this was the hope I held on to: I would put on my blue and gold again. And I would come back stronger than ever.

  I had never heard many positive words from the Chargers general manager, A. J. Smith. He had drafted Philip Rivers two years earlier, and it was clear he thought Philip was the future of the franchise. However, before I left for Alabama to see a specialist, A. J. reached out to me. “Drew, don’t worry about this. We’re going to extend you a long-term contract. Just go and take care of your arm, and we’ll be here for you when you get out of surgery. I just want to put your mind at ease.”

  His words did put me at ease. I believed him.

  San Diego had put the franchise player tag on me for 2005, which meant I had a one-year deal and my pay was based on the average salary of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL. In 2006 I would be available for free agency, but the Chargers could choose to franchise me again—or give me a more permanent contract. When I was drafted by San Diego in 2001, I looked up to players like Troy Aikman, John Elway, and Dan Marino, who had played their entire careers with one team. That was my hope and plan from day one with the Chargers. I wanted to be the one-team quarterback who led San Diego to their first championship, so I committed my entire career to that organization and that city. A long-term contract would put me on track to do just that.

  But for now, the contract wasn’t my biggest concern. I was on my way to Birmingham to see if I even had a future in football. After all, a football contract doesn’t do you much good if you can’t throw a ball.