Drew Brees is happy to be back with the Saints and glad that his offseason ended with a lucrative new contract, but he’s not happy about everything else that went on this offseason.
Specifically, Brees is unhappy about the NFL’s handling of the investigation into the team’s bounty program, and he’s displeased that the Saints will be playing without their suspended head coach Sean Payton this season.
That’s the word from Peter King of Sports Illustrated, who spent an hour or so with Brees at the Saints’ camp. Brees told King that the Saints, both the individual players and the organization as a whole, believe strongly that they have been wronged by the NFL.
According to King, Brees says there’s a difference between paying a player for performing well in a game and paying a bounty for injuring a player, and what the Saints did was the former, not the latter. And Brees says the Saints view the suspensions of their teammates, coaches and General Manager Mickey Loomis as motivation.
That “us against the world” mentality may prove to be much more effective as motivation than the tactics that Gregg Williams employed.
