Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity by Drew Brees

Author:Drew Brees [Brees, Drew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adult, Inspirational, Non-Fiction, Biography, Memoir
ISBN: 9781414339436
Publisher: Tyndale House Books
Published: 2010-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

Coming Back Stronger

The Season Begins

On September 10, 2006, we played our opening game at the Cleveland Browns Stadium. Like the Saints, the Browns have a storied tradition in the NFL. With names like Paul Brown, Jim Brown, Bernie Kosar, and others, Cleveland has given their fans something to cheer about over the years. Unfortunately they, too, had fallen on hard times and in recent years had a streak of teams that put out extreme effort but earned few wins.

That season Cleveland and New Orleans were viewed as two of the teams at the bottom of the league. The year before, the Browns had won six to our three. After such a rough preseason, our goal was to just figure out how to win one game. We focused on Cleveland and scratched and clawed the entire contest, with John Carney kicking four field goals. Our rookie running back, Reggie Bush, had 141 all-purpose yards and helped us control the ball. Our defense helped us out with a solid game, and we ended up eking out a 19–14 win.

It wasn’t pretty; we basically had to grind out the win. But it was a victory all the same, and beating them on their home field gave us a measure of confidence. The locker room afterward was a happy place—we had achieved our goal of winning that first game. But we knew we had our work cut out for us the next week.

Next Sunday we were on the road again to face the Packers. Lambeau Field is always a difficult place to play—we knew their fans would be out in force. The memory of the Packers embarrassing our team the year before with a 52–3 win gave us that extra edge to motivate us. I don’t live in the past, but we certainly wanted to use what had happened the previous October to spur us on. We wanted to send the message that this was 2006, and we were a different team.

Beating Cleveland was definitely a start, a stepping stone. Take care of the first game and then you can move on to the second. It would take a lot more to face Green Bay at their place against Brett Favre. If we could somehow pull off a victory against the Packers, it would carry a lot more weight.

We knew we were underdogs, and in the first quarter we played like it. On our first three possessions, I had three turnovers, giving up two fumbles and throwing an interception. Both fumbles occurred on sacks in the pocket when a defensive end hit my arm as I was throwing. Hits like these can cause shoulder injuries even to healthy arms, but thankfully I came away from both plays feeling durable. Unfortunately, that didn’t change the fact that Green Bay walked away with the ball in their hands—twice. The Packers scored thirteen unanswered points, and from all objective viewpoints, it looked like they were on their way to a blowout, just like the previous year. That

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