When Drew Brees officially goes into the Hall of Fame Saturday, he’ll be the first quarterback of the 2020s to be enshrined in Canton — and just the 30th QB overall to receive the game’s highest honor. It was never seriously in doubt that Brees would make the Hall sooner rather than later; indeed, it took exactly one ballot for the New Orleans Saints signal-caller to take his place among the sport’s immortals.
Amidst all of that, though, it still feels like Brees has somehow become underrated. This is a passer who ranks second only to Tom Brady — the consensus GOAT QB — in yards, completions and touchdowns, and nobody else is especially close to them atop those lists. And yet, when The Athletic published their Football 100 ranking of all-time players, Brees came in as the 11th-best quarterback in history — trailing far behind not only Brady at No. 1 overall, but also the rest of the Top 10 at the position.1 Even granting that these subjective QB rankings often make zero statistical sense, it speaks to how Brees is usually consigned to the second tier of all-time great quarterbacks.
