Drew Brees named SI’s ‘Sportsman of the Year’
In his four plus years with the New Orleans Saints, Drew Brees has been awarded just about every honor the NFL or different sports organizations can hand out besides the NFL MVP award. He as a Super Bowl Ring, a Super Bowl MVP Award, the Offensive Player of the Year award, and the Walter Payton Man of the Year award. On Tuesday, Brees took home yet another prestigious honor.
Brees was named as Sports Illustrated’s 2010 ‘Sportsman of the Year,’ not only for his performance on the field that led the Saints to their first Super Bowl title, but for all of the work he does in the community.
SI’s official criterion for the award is that it goes to “the athlete or team whose performance that year most embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement.” With this being the case, it is hard to see how Brees could have been bypassed for the award. Since coming to the Saints, Brees has lit up scoreboards, as well as the hearts of those adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina, and lifted a woebegone franchise to the top of the NFL. That isn’t even including the charity work he does on the Gulf Coast, West Lafayette, Indiana (where he went to college), and San Diego (where he started his NFL career) with his Brees Dream Foundation.
With this honor, Brees became only the fifth quarterback to be named the Sportsman of the Year, behind Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Tom Brady, and Brett Favre. And while all of those signal-callers are worthy of the award, there was only one choice for the honor in 2010: Drew Brees.
Saints’ Will Smith arrested for domestic battery on Saturday
During the Saints game on Thanksgiving Day, FOX returned from a commercial break with a picture of Saints’ defensive end Will Smith, his wife, and small children. In the short clip, the family wished all of the viewers a happy Thanksgiving.
Less than 48 hours later, a different picture of Smith and his family is being visualized in New Orleans and across the county. In the wee hours on Saturday morning, Smith was arrested for domestic battery after he allegedly grabbed his wife by the hair and brought her to the ground. Police officers witnessed the scene and arrested Smith. He was later released on $1,000 bond.
While the Saints spokesperson released a generic statement saying that the team was looking into the matter, it’s hard to imagine that there will not be any kind of punishment for Smith for this alleged transgression. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has been hitting players hard for their sins off of the field, and it seems likely that Smith could be looking at a one game suspension at the very least.
Any interesting wrinkle into this saga is that Smith’s wife, Racquel, posted on her Twitter page that the entire event was a “giant misunderstanding” and that she “feel(s) bad for my husband who is innocent in all of this and all my family.”
Since Smith is easily the Saints’ best defensive end, it will be interesting to see what kind of distraction this proves to be for the team, and what a possible suspension to Smith will do to the team as it angles for a playoff spot.
NFC South Roundup: Week 12
Since the Saints played on Thursday afternoon, and their 30-27 win over the Dallas Cowboys has been well-documented, the team got some extra time off this week, and got to spend their Saturdays at home watching their NFC South rivals playing various opponents around the NFL.
The Atlanta Falcons, the Saints’ biggest rival and team they are looking up at in the standings, played against the Green Bay Packers in a much-hyped matchup of current NFC titans. The game was largely a back and forth affair, but the Falcons won, 20-17, on a last-second field goal from their kicker Matt Bryant. An interesting development is how difficult it is to win inside the Georgia Dome, as Matt Ryan is 19-1 as a starter at home. Because of the Falcons’ win, the Saints remain one game behind them in second place.
Coming into Sunday’s game, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were a half game behind the Saints, and could match the Saints’ 8-3 record for second place in the NFC South with a win over the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens defeated the Bucs 17-10, and dropped Tampa Bay’s record against teams with a winning record in 2010 to 0-4. Their loss also put them in third place, one game behind the Saints and two games behind the Falcons.
The last-place Carolina Panthers were unable to secure a win against the bottom-feeding Cleveland Browns, as Peyton Hillis had a monster Day for the Browns. Their game was also a back and forth matchup, and the Panthers even had a lead in the fourth quarter, but the Browns ended up coming back and winning the game, dropping Carolina’s record to 1-10 and inching them even closer to the number one overall pick for the 2011 draft.
Saints’ Bush struggles in return
In all of the hoopla of the Saints’ game against the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day, the return of offensive dynamo Reggie Bush was one of the reasons many of the NFL’s pundits were predicting a Saints victory. And even though he returned, and played sparingly against the Cowboys, the Saints were able to win in spite of his efforts on the football field.
On the stats sheet, Bush officially ran the ball one time for one yard and caught one pass for two yards. But it is outside of the stats sheet that shows Bush’s lack of impact on the Saints’ attack.
While in the red zone in the third quarter, quarterback Drew Brees threw a short pass to Bush down the middle of the field, which hit him square in the hands, and he just dropped. If he had caught the ball, there was a wide open lane to the end zone, which would have resulted in six points for the Saints. Unfortunately for the Saints, that was only the start of Bush’s rustiness on the game’s outcome.
Shortly thereafter, coach Sean Payton put Bush in to return a punt, which is a normal duty of his when healthy. During the return, he fumbled the ball, which gave the Cowboys the ball again inside of the red zone. After that error, Bush did not return to action for the rest of the day.
Bush had not played at all since the week two game against San Francisco, and his errors during the game can be blamed on rustiness and inexperience within recent weeks. But he nearly cost the Saints game with those mistakes, and it took Malcolm Jenkins’ forced fumble to save the day. With the fight the Saints are in to win the NFC South and make the playoffs, they cannot afford bad mistakes like those, and need to be sure that Bush is ready before they play him in week 13 against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Brees awarded FOX’s ‘Galloping Gobbler’ award
As if rolling into Dallas on Thanksgiving Day wasn’t enough, the Saints win on Thursday earned Saints quarterback Drew Brees another piece of hardware to put on his mantle.
Every year that there is a Thanksgiving Day football game on FOX, the broadcast company gives an award to the MVP of the day’s game. The award, which is more of a gag gift, is a trophy shaped like a turkey, and is handed out annually by FOX to the player that does the most to help their team win on Thanksgiving.
Brees will now have the Galloping Gobbler award to put on his mantle in addition to his Super Bowl MVP Award and Super Bowl 44 ring. He was awarded the trophy for his efforts in the Saints’ 30-27 win over the Cowboys. The Saints All- Pro quarterback completed 23 of 39 passes for 352 yards and one touchdown en route to the Saints win. The one touchdown was the game winner, which resulted from Brees driving the team down the field with 3 minutes left in the game for the win.
Although Brees was a deserving winner of the award, Malcolm Jenkins and Chris Ivory also deserved consideration for it. Jenkins saved the game with his soon-to-be legendary fumble-forcing strip of Roy Williams that gave the Saints offense the chance to win the game. Ivory also had a solid game, scoring two touchdowns and rushing for 38 yards on 7 carries.
