It’s January 20th, 1985 in Stanford California. The brief presence of snow is replaced with a light frost on the grass. The campus, once empty for winter break, is filled with students running about being the keener Ivey League douches they are. But they aren’t alone. The campus is filled with drunken 40 year olds with beer guts and unkempt beards, well put together men and women prepping for interviews, and the strangest of all… large athletic men! I mean it’s a fucking Ivey League school right? The biggest guys you see are the Warcraft abortions that have accumulated 230 pounds of mass from stuffing Cheetos in every orifice of their body and only moving to piss or shit. (Oh wait it’s 1985, Warcraft doesn’t exist yet. What was nerdy and gay in the 80’s? Dungeons and Dragons?) So obviously something is going down. Oh ya, Stanford has been taken over by Super Bowl XIX, the site of both Dan Marino’s biggest success (getting to the Super Bowl) and ultimately his greatest disappointment (losing and never returning)

After a long cross country flight to California, endless interviews and press conferences, a week of practises, and the constant scrutiny of fans and the media alike; Dan Marino is ready to play some football. The only issue is he’s facing off against legendary coach Bill Walsh and Joe Montana, another quarterback who leveraged his football skills to escape the blue collar death trap that is Pittsburgh (that sounds bad, but Pittsburgh does suck). Despite a first quarter lead of 10-7, the Dolphins would eventually lose the game to the more experienced 49ers with a final score of 38-16. Dan Marino threw for 318 yards and a touchdown but threw two interceptions and completed just 58% of his passes in the loss. But it was only his 2nd year in the league! He would definitely be back right?

Dan Marino was in the infancy of his career. In just his second season he had come within a game of reaching the pinnacle of the NFL. He was already a super star and had broken a number of all time NFL passing records in just a few years. Everything was looking up for Marino.

But unfortunately, Super Bowl XIX would be the last time he would ever play for Lombardi’s sacred prize.

Twenty years later Drew Brees may be on his way to becoming the next Dan Marino. The comparisons are easy. Both have thrown 5,000+ yards in a single season (the only two to ever accomplish such a feat), both had an ineffective running game supporting them, both had abysmal defenses, both were overlooked in the draft, and both haven’t won a Super Bowl.

Drew Brees is among the best quarterbacks in the league, statistically speaking. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are better leaders (aka have a better team/defense around them), but Brees has shown us that he is on par with the two in terms of passing the football, just watch last weeks game against the Lions. Had the Saints been a playoff team last year, with a record of 10-6 or 11-5, Brees would have been the odds on favorite to win the MVP award, but thanks to an atrocious defense and a laughable running game the Saints finished 8-8 for the second straight year.

Brees has been to the playoffs twice now, once with the Chargers and once with the Saints, but he has never been to the Super Bowl. The closest he’s gotten is the NFC Championship game in 2007, the first year after signing with the team and one year after the team went 2-12. The Saints got the 2nd overall pick as a result and landed one of the hottest assets to come around in years, Heisman winner Reggie Bush. Bush and Brees were being marketed as the saviours of New Orleans, an offensive duo that would be unstoppable. In the NFC Championship game the two would hook up on a long touchdown that brought them back in the game, 16-14. The Saints would eventually lose the game 39-14 but the Saints had hopes for the future with Bush and Brees in town.

But much like Marino’s career path, Brees has hit a lull. Reggie Bush was starting to look like nothing more than a glorified slot receiver and, despite the addition of Vilma, the defense was still horrendous. The once promising future that Brees and the Saints had envisioned was gone, and in it’s place a sense of mediocrity that has kept them out of the playoffs for two straight seasons. In the offseason the Saints made some key upgrades in on the defensive side of the ball, drafting heralded Ohio State corner Malcolm Jenkins and signing free agent Darren Harper to shore up their secondary and re-signed Vilma who paced the team with 132 tackles last season. The Saints showed that they were willing to spend money for a winning team, but would it translate to wins on the field?

I know it may be a little early, but it looks like the Saints are the class of the NFC South. Maybe even the NFC. In two games this season the Saints have beat the Lions 45-27 and the Eagles 42-22. Say what you will about the Lions, but the Eagles were in the NFC Championship last season and were considered by many to be the preseason favorites to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. And don’t be a douche and say that they beat an Eagles team led by Kevin Kolb not McNabb, the Eagles defense is a top 10 unit and the Saints still put 35 offensive points on the board. So fuck you.

The offense is unstoppable, the defense is much improved, and Brees is currently projected for 5,352 yards and 72 touchdowns. Umm, 72? I’d say thats a winning formula. It may not be too much longer before Brees wins and joins Brady and Manning as the best quarterbacks of this generation. That it will provide countless chirps for Shannon to ridicule Marino again is just icing on the cake.

But until then Brees is nothing more than a prolific passer who can’t win.

- KC Roberts