Brees Most Likely To Get “Marino’s Monkey”

It’s impossible to think about the New Orleans Saints without bringing up Drew Brees, the emotional leader and quarterback of the team. Likewise, it’s just as difficult to think of “best player to never win a championship” without thinking of Dan Marino. The experts have flooded us with Super Bowl predictions picking the Colts to win it all and, if that’s the case, it looks like Drew Brees might inherit the proverbial monkey that Marino carried on his back throughout his career.

Brees and Marino don’t share too much history besides being white quarterbacks. Marino is four inches taller, spent his entire youth in Pennsylvania, went to college at Pittsburgh and was a first-round pick. By contrast, Brees is much shorter, twenty pounds lighter, was born and raised in Texas before attending school at Purdue in the Big 10, and was a second round choice in the draft. On top of that Marino was a stud from the moment he stepped on the NFL field, while it’s taken Brees quite some time to earn the respect of NFL experts, writers and fans. He was even cut by San Diego to make room for Philip Rivers.

Now a nine-year veteran, serving as a starter for eight seasons, Brees shares much more in common with Marino statistically. In their first eight seasons as NFL starters, Brees and Marino both broke the 4,000 passing plane four times. They’ve both breached the 5,000 yard mark ranking fist and second on the all-time list for most yards thrown by an NFL quarterback in a single season. In terms of all-time production, Marino is one the greatest to enter the NFL ranks and Brees may very well join him when all is said and done but the two share one glaring commonality neither of them want to be remembered for – zero Super Bowl rings.

This was a monkey that Peyton Manning had to suffer through as he reached the statistical milestones that Marino had set personally, but Peyton was able to break the spell by winning the Super Bowl in 2007. Now Peyton can hand that monkey to Drew Brees as the “best not to win a ring”, unless Brees can overcome the overwhelming Super Bowl odds and walk out of Miami a champion.

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