Saints quarterback Drew Brees wants to play until he’s 45. While the flesh ultimately may fail him, Brees continues to have an exuberance that could carry him to the doorstep of 50. Which sounds really old until I remember I’m currently standing there, holding a bottle of saw palmetto.
Brees and coach Sean Payton have spiced up camp not only with ongoing post-practice competitions (including an American Gladiators-style contest) but also with practical jokes.
It started, as best we can tell, after Payton expressed mild annoyance during offseason workouts with the presence of sponsorship patches on the team’s practice jerseys. The next day, Payton arrived at the team facility to see in the coaches’ locker room an array of polo shirts carrying the same patch. Courtesy of Brees.
Then, last week during training camp, Payton replaced Brees’ patch with an identical copy that replaces “Chevron” with “Rogaine,” a nod to the shrinking follicles on Drew’s dome. Payton distracted Brees with conversation while Brees was putting on his jersey, and Brees went through most of session not realizing that he had acquired a new sponsor.
Most recently, after Payton had an apparent mishap over the weekend with one of the golf carts at The Greenbrier, Brees re-created the scene by putting a cart against a light pole, with a dummy slumped over the windshield of the cart. Brees was believed to be the culprit.
At least the cart wasn’t covered with something other than a dummy.