An Injured Football Player Needs A Team That Will Let Him Play And A City Needs A Nero to Show That It That It Can Win.
Sounds Like A Job For A Saint.
Now That Should Be A Movie.
It’s called Coming Back Stronger.
It is a Sports Drama
In the vein of The Blindside.
It is basically Remember the Titans Meets Invictus.
It follows injured quarterback Drew Brees
And rookie coach Sean Payton
As they rebuilt The New Orleans Saints into a team that can bring hope to Gulf Coast region after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Problems occur when Drew’s mother commits suicide, and the team loses the last three games of the regular season.
Now they must find healing by taking one day at a time as the give The Crescent City something to believe in as they head to the Super Bowl.
This idea came to me when The Saints won XLIV 44.
My unique approach to the subject is the symbiotic relationship of a city and football franchise as they recover from disaster and build a team of champions/
A set piece would be the first Saints game held in the newly remodeled and restored Superdome that many thought should be demolished. The Saints are playing the Falcons while surrounded by 75,000 fans decked out in black and gold. On just the fourth overall play of the game, Safety Steve Gleason blocks a punt, then DB Curtis Deloatch intercepts the ball and runs down the field to the end zone for the Saints first score of the game! The 75000 fans go wild! The game pauses to allow the news cameras to pan the crowd whose cheering goes on for 10 minutes. It is symbolic that the city is coming back.
Target audience would be football and sports fans, men and women 30-65 years, the faith-based market, and residents of the Gulf Coast region.
People would turn out to watch the film in theaters because of the universal themes of recovery, healing, and overcoming adversity.
Who Dat!
Today’s book that I would like to pitch as a movie is Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity by Drew Brees, with Chris Fabry, from Tyndale House Publishing.
While I’m not a big sports fan, I have always found stories from that profession to be great inspirations for life. The story of Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints is one such illustration of how the power of a sport, football, can affect an entire city and cross paths with history.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. On December 31, 2005, Drew Brees injured his shoulder while playing for the San Diego Chargers. Katrina flooded 80% of New Orleans. The Chargers lost 23-7 because Drew was out of the game. Hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents were displaced by the storm. An MRI showed a 360-degree tear of the labrum and rotator cuff in Drew’s shoulder. 1,464 Louisianans were lost during the hurricane. Drew had to go under the knife and face the possibility of his muscle, his livelihood being cut. A humanitarian crisis unfolded at the Superdome as tens of thousands gathered to be evacuated. The doctor did not cut Drew’s muscle, but it did take him seven scope holes and eleven anchors. New Orleans saw 70 billion dollars in damages. Drew had to begin eight months of rehab, including four months in which he could not throw a football. New Orleans faced division as cries of “racism” were raised due to government failures in responding to emergencies in the African American community. Despite beating the rehab expectations, it was obvious that the Chargers did not want Drew back. New Orleans faced the possibility of being abandoned. Drew found himself a free agent who was not even considered backup material.
These two stories of tragedy and adversity would entwine in a powerful comeback story.
While he is recovering, Drew Brees is given two offers, one from The Miami Dolphins and one from the Saints in New Orleans. Drew’s first impression of the Saints was not positive. They had only had one good season back in which they had won a playoff game, back in 2000, and their city had been destroyed 6 months earlier. The team had only recently moved back into their facility which had been occupied by the National Guard for several months. The Dolphins were the obvious choice since, not only was the city of Miami a great place to live, but the team had a tradition of winning Super Bowls. But since the Saints were the first to reach out, Drew felt like he owed the city a visit.
When flying into New Orleans, Drew looked out the window of his airplane and saw that, as the clouds parted, that most of the trees in the swamps surrounding the area had been beheaded by Katrina. When new coach Sean Payton and general manger Mickey Loomis picked him and Britney up from the airport, the windows of the limo had some of the darkest tint he had ever seen. Sean made sure Drew knew that he wanted him to play for the team and believed in him as a quarterback. They took him and Brittney to all the upscale and nice neighborhoods like St. Charles Avenue, Uptown and English Turn.
However, on Drew’s last day in the Big Easy, Sean became lost while driving to the facility to talk with Tom Benson. He ended up driving Drew and his wife through Metairie and Lakeview, two areas hit hard by Katrina. Drew and his wife saw houses knocked off their foundations, cars in living rooms and doors with giant spray painted X’s noting the number of survivors, and victims, inside. Seeing the devastation really put things in perspective for Drew.
The Miami Dolphins had been the obvious choice for Drew, but he and his wife kept feeling a call to NOLA. Where others saw devastation, they saw opportunity. It was like the city had been washed clean and now had a new slate to start over with, to rebuild. What if, like Ester in the Bible, they were called for such a time as this. The calling to NOLA was confirmed when the Dolphin’s doctors gave Drew a 25% chance of being able to play again. The Dolphins had faith in their medical team and the Saints had faith in Drew. That settled it.
The Crescent City embraced the Brees with a warm reception. The chef at Emeril’s restaurant said he would cook their first meal at their house if he signed with the Saints. Drew and Brittney decided to embrace the city back. Symbolic of them putting down roots was their purchase of a home in the Uptown neighborhood that had $50,000 in roof damages. This was to show the people of New Orleans that they were not just passing through, but here to help restore the city.
Drew’s commitment to the city was matched by Sean’s intense training camps. The Saints practiced in full gear in the 110-degree humidity of a Mississippi summer for days. The worst happens when it becomes apparent that Drew’s throwing arm is not 100% recovered. The ball thumbs in the dirt. Drew just knew Sean was wondering if he had made the right decision with hiring him as quarterback. However, Sean just said, “Use your legs.” This would be a pivotal moment in a movie as it cements the relationship with Sean and Drew. Then a montage would follow of the training camp and Drew working his shoulder and increasing his pitch count up to 120 balls a day with the cleanup and restoration of New Orleans by its residents.
Drew’s first game with the Saints, against the Indianapolis Colts, ended 27-14. However, during the first quarter, Drew threw a ball that sailed forty yards, The receiver dropped it, but Drew didn’t care. The velocity was just right, and he knew his shoulder was back. Drew took a cue from the residents of New Orleans who had faith that their city would recover. He saw the word everywhere, including on T-shirts. Faith became the motto for the team’s 2006 season. And with a rookie head coach like Sean Payton and a barely off the injured list quarterback, even the pundits believed faith was the only thing the team had going for it.
The faith paid off during the first 2006 season game with the Cleveland Browns. Thanks to Reggie Bush, they won 19-14. Then they beat the Green Bay Packers 34-27. An underdog team just wasn’t supposed to win in Green Bay.
Then on September 25, 2006, the first time in two years, The Saints were playing their home game in the Superdome. In 2005, 32,000 tickets were sold out of the 70,000 seats available in the Superdome. It would have been understandable if people did not pay for tickets for place that had seen so much human misery and they still trying to financially recover themselves. Yet, the 2006 seats were filled, selling out months in advance. People wanted to believe that a place like the Superdome, a place skeptics said be demolished, could come back. If the Superdome could come back, so could their city.
On the Saturday before the big game, Sean brought the team into the Dome. It was the first time that Drew had been there. Sean had the team sit out on the turf. Then he played a video of Hurricane Katrina’s wrath. Helicopters lifting people from island roof tops surrounded by brown water. Children walking through flooded streets with all their earthly belongings. People digging through debris. Families looking at the foundations of their demolished homes. Dead bodies with white sheets over them laying out in the open. The Superdome filled with cots. After the video ended, there was not a dry tear among the players. Sean, choking back emotion, addressed them. “You want to make this night special? Then you go out and win this game for these people. They deserve it. But you need to win this game.”
Drew almost did not make it to the game. On one of the biggest days of his life and for the city, he found himself stuck in traffic congested by Saints fans. He had planned to get there before the game by 4:30, three hours before it started at 7:30. Still in traffic at 5:00, he tried a different way. It too was congested with fans. He finally made it to the Superdome. But then his Land Rover Defender’s roof crunched as he tried to enter the parking garage. It was 5:29 and he had a minute to get inside. Security came by and said they would take care of the vehicle so he could rush in. The last thing he wanted was his teammates thinking he was lake because he didn’t take the game seriously or consider the gravity of it for the people of New Orleans. He was finally able to relax after Micky Loomis came by and said everything would be fine.
The entire city had either come to the game or shutdown to watch it on TV. The Saints did not disappoint. When Steve Gleason blocked the ball the Falcon’s had just pitched, and Curtis Deloatch caught it for a touchdown just minutes into the game, the crowd went wild. It was the loudest roar Drew had ever heard. It was New Orleans’s night. The game ended 23-3, Saints.
There are many inspirational scenes from the 2006 season just waiting to be told in a movie. During their game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Reggie Bush started motioning to the fans to get louder. It sounded like a jet taking off as he made a touchdown that ended the game 24-21. The game with the Philadelphia Eagles was hard, but with a 27-24 win, it proved to the fans that recovery was possible despite hitting snags along the way. Then they played the Falcons again. Many thought the only reason the Saints had beaten them was because they were in the Superdome. There was no way they could beat them in their own house, the Georgiadome. Yet, they did, 31-13.
One of the most powerful moments comes during their game against the Dallas Cowboys in the Texas Dome. Somehow the Who Dat Nation had packed the stadium. Towards the end of the game, as it became apparent that the Saints would win, Drew looked up – a great moment for an arching shot during a movie. A sea of blue and white shirts was exiting while a sea of black and gold was coming down the bleachers to get near the field. “Who Dat! Who Dat say dey goona beat dem saints?” filled the stadium. Interpreted, these were cries of, “We love you guys! You’re making this trying time a little easier. You’re giving us a home. You’re lifting our spirits. And we love you for that!” He realized the power of community spirit and how the Saints were not just a football team, but an existential element of life in the Big Easy. The game ended 42-17.
Then during a playoff game with the Philadelphia Eagles, veteran Saints player Deuce McAllister put his whole heart and soul into the play. He made a five-yard touchdown run, dragging Eagles players with him. Throughout the game, Drew continued handing off the ball to Deuce. Within the two-minute warning, Drew handed the ball off to him and he gained four yards. Again, and Deuce gained five more yards. They were going to third down. And again Deuce carried the team the whole way, crashing through the Eagle’s defensive line. Now the Saints were only one game way from the Super Bowl. Again, they owed it to the fans, going into the stands and high fiving everyone.
But the clock-struck midnight on the Saints’ Cinderella Story during their game with the Chicago Bears. They lost, 39-14. But the real victory game when the Saints touched downed at the airport at 2 a. m. Thousands of fans were waiting for him, clapping and cheering as they drove half-a-mile to get to the highway. “Bless you, boys,” the people of New Orleans said.
In many ways, the Saints’ roster was the perfect mascot for a city many consider unsalvageable. Many of the players were late-round draft picks or were not drafted at all, had been last roster spot or relegated to the practice squad, or had no team at all. They were basically told they were not good enough for the NFL. Some players had injuries from which they were told they would not come back from, yet they did. Pierre Thomas was an undrafted free agent. Marques Colston was a seven round pick out of Hofstra. Billy Miller had bounced from team to team for half a decade. Together, this band of castaways would make the 2009 championship team.
But first there were the 2007 and 2008 seasons. In at the beginning of the 2007 season, they lost 41-10 to the Colts, 14-31 to the Buccaneers and 14-31 to the Tennessee Titans. Most fans would turn their backs on a 3-0 team, but not the Who Dats. They continued to show the team they same support the team had give the city the year before. The Saints finished 7-9, missing the postseason entirely.
The 2008 season seesawed between losses and wins. It had a dramatic start as Hurricane Gustav headed toward New Orleans. As bad memories were relived from Hurricane Katrina, the whole city was evacuated. The Saints went to Indianapolis to practice at Lucas Oil Stadium. New Orleans survived Gustav unscathed and the Saints were back Sunday to play Tampa Bay in the Superdome. The storm had not kept the fans at home either. They were there because they believed the Saints needed them. The team ended the season 8-8, again missing the playoffs.
Yet, if it had not been for those seasons, Drew believes the team would not have been ready for 2009. The adversity taught them perseverance, fight, and how to come to gather as a team. They also set records. The single-season franchise records for both scoring (461) and yards (6,571). Drew joined Dan Marino as one of the only quarterbacks to throw 5,000 yards in a season. He was also named offensive player of the year. And, on a humorous note, Drew came up with a chant inspired by the movie 300. He would end it, “This Is New Orleans!” and the other players would reply, “Ha-ooh! Ha-ooh! Ha-ooh!”
During these seasons the film could have two human interest subplots.
The first human interest story would be Drew’s relationship with his wife and son. Because of Drew’s injury, he and Brittney had put off starting a family. During the 2008 season, they concluded it was time to plant roots in New Orleans. Baylen Brees was born January 15, 2009. His birth put things in perspective for Drew and reminded him to be committed to Brittany so that their marriage would not end in divorce like his parents had. In a comical moment, Drew, like Samson, grew his hair out in the off-season so that his team would have the strength to win. He also did so Baylen could look back at baby pictures and laugh at his dad the same way Drew looks back at his own baby pictures and laughs at his dad’s long hair.
The second human interest story would be Drew’s relationship with his mother. When in high school Drew did not think sitting on the bench was going to take his football pursuit anywhere and began thinking about baseball, his mother encouraged him to stick with it. She told him that “when you least expect, opportunity will present itself. You never know when it’s going to come, but all it takes is one play.” Sure enough, opportunity presented itself and he went from the bench to the field. However, as he grew older, he grew apart from her as she was strong willed and consumed with getting her own way. Their relationship deteriorated to the point that they barely spoke to each other for eight years and when they did, it resulted in emotionally charged confrontations.
Then after Brittny became pregnant, Drew began to look to salvage his relationship with his mother. Brittny was the main force, emailing back and forth with her. Things were looking up and plans were made to meet after she came back from a teaching trip in the Ukraine. But on August 7, 2009, Brittany came to the training camp unannounced. It was a closed practice, so when Sean told Drew that Brittany was there, he immediately new something was wrong. Brittany told him to hold Baylen. Then she informed him that his mother was gone. It appeared to be suicide. Sean had nothing but sympathy for him and told him to take the appropriate time off to grieve. Through counseling Drew came to terms with the fact that his mother had mental illness. Then the toxicity report came out four months later, proving that it was a suicide. The media’s attention was devastating. But Drew was able to find peace in that his mother was no longer in pain and was the one who had inspired him to pursue his football dream.
Drew’s personal blessings and tragedies could be juxtaposed with the vigor and excitement of the 2009 season.
In the game with the Detroit Lions, Drew made a record, throwing six touchdown passes on opening day, winning the game, 45-27. Then they plucked the feathers of the Philadelphia Eagles, 48-22. They defeated the Buffalo Bills, 27-7. Then they crashed the New York Jets, 24-10. They beat The New York Giants, 48-27. Jeremy Shockey, who had been traded from the Giants to the Saints in 2008, proved to be a deciding factor. Through these victories they kept focusing on marching ahead on one Sunday at a time. At the beginning of the season, Drew declared “Finish Strong” the team’s motto and gave them all wrist bracelets bearing the phrase. Their first adversity came with their game with the Miami Dolphins. The defense kept getting tougher to handle. The score was 24-3 for the Dolphins. With a touchdown with seconds left on the clock for the first half, the Saints scored a touchdown, sending the message that they were not done. They came back to score twenty-two points in the fourth quarter and won 46-34. There were 10,000 Saints fans decked out in black and gold, giving the team the momentum to keep going. They greeted the fans afterward with high fives.
In their game with the Carolina Panthers, the third quarter ended tied 20-20. By looking at their wrist bracelets that said Finish Strong, they came back in the middle of the fourth quarter with a field goal. Then Anthony Hargrove forced a fumble and jogged in for a touchdown, ending the game with 30-20 for the Saints. For the first time in history the Saints were 8-0, a franchise record.
They were able to defeat the St. Louis Rams 28-23 thanks to a ninety-seven-yard kickoff return by Courtney Roby that electrified the Saint’s sideline. Then they proved themselves for real with a victory over the New England Patriots, 38-17
With every game, Sean told the team the strength of the opposition and told them to stay focused on the here and now. The game with the Redskins started out 10-0, but with the clock running down, the Saints drove eighty yards in five plays in under thirty-three seconds to tie the score board with a touchdown. In overtime they recovered a fumble and then hit an eighteen-yard field goal to end the game, 33-30. The game with the Altana Falcons was low scoring, with a tie of 23-23 at the beginning of the fourth quarter. With a field goal, they were able to win it, 26-23.
Then came a game with the Dallas Cowboys, who had something to prove after they had been beaten so badly in the 2006 game. They proved it with a score of 24-17 over the Saints. Drew was going to throw a Hail Mary to run the game into overtime. Instead, he was sacked and fumbled the ball. The winning streak was over. Then they lost to the Buccaneers, 20-17. Then the Carolina Panthers, 23-10. The winning streak was over. Artistic License could be taken to have the toxicology report confirming Drew’s mother’s suicide becoming public at the same time of these losses. Drew’s grief is mirrored in the lost games. This would be the low point at the end of Act Two. Act Three would begin with a resolution.
It was hard to block out what the media and pundits were saying. No team could lose the last three games of the regular season and then win their first playoff. Sean told the players to focus on one game at a time, not to feel a sense of entitlement to a Super Bowl game, and to trust to the process. Their next game would be a statement.
The game was with the Arizona Cardinals, the previous year’s Super Bowl champions. During the game, after Reggie Bush made an eighty-three yard punt return for another touchdown, the Who Dats in the Superdome went electric, drowning out everything else in the stadium. With a final score of 45-14, the Saints knew they had put away the last three losses of the regular season. Now they would be hosting the NFC Championship Game for the first time in team history.
That game was with the Vikings, one of the best teams of the 2009 season. The Saints were one game way from the Super Bowl. Things were looking bleak, but then a throw from Bret Favre was intercepted by Tracy Porter. The game went into overtime and the Saints won the coin toss. They got the first down and moved the ball down into field goal range. Sean Payton called for a field goal. This is dramatic as Garrett Hartley comes out to kick the ball from the exact location that he had missed a critical fourth-quarter field goal against Tampa Bay earlier in the season. This time Garrett struck it right down the middle. He later told Drew that the night before he had a dream that he would make a game-winning kick from the right hash thirty-yard line. Drew believes that the adversity Garret had faced in the game against Tampa Bay had given him the strength and focus to nail the field goal that would take the Saints to the Super Bowl. The crowd went wild as Who Dats screamed and hugged each other with joy in the rain of confetti.
Whenever the Saints flew out of town for a game, they had to drive a half-mile-long frontage road to the airport. Between 2006 and 2008 fans would line the road to welcome the team back from their game, win or lose. It became a block party in which people wore jerseys, played music and cooked food. During the 2009 season, the block party was supersized. Tens of thousands and eventually thirty thousand fans showed up. It would take the team 90 minutes to drive the half-mile road. It was a parade in which fans swarmed over the cars for autographs and to give the players baked goods such as pralines. Eventually the police had to barricade the road off for security reasons, but that did not stop the fans from honking and waving. For many years for the team had been derided as The Aints, even by faithful fans. Before the big game in Miami, Drew received a letter from a man who had been a ticket holder for forty-three years, declaring, “Well, we ain’t the Aints no more.”
At the beginning of Super Bowl XLIV, Sean’s advice was not to look at the scoreboard until the end of the game. They were to focus on each play and series one at a time. When the special team executed an onside kick, the team never thought about “what happens if we don’t get the ball,” they knew they going to get it. They got it and Drew hit the ball right in the middle of the Colt’s zone and Pierre Thomas did what he did best, took a screen pass and bobbed and weaved through the defenders for the touchdown. The Saints pulled ahead with a 13-10 lead, shifting the energy in their direction and keeping the Colt’s offense on the sidelines. Then the Colts were ahead 17-13. The Saints went for a field goal, bringing it up to 17-16. The Colts came back with a drive that took them into the fourth quarter, but their attempt for a fifty-one-yard field goal failed when the ball sailed left. The Saints got the ball back and methodically moved down the field. Jeremy Shockey ran a quick slant and Drew struck him in the chest with the ball. Shockey leaned across the goal line, giving the saints a 22-17 lead. They went for a two-point conversion. Drew threw the ball to Lance Moore, who had the presence of mind to step across the goal line. As soon as he did, a Colt’s defender kicked it out of Lance’s hands. The official on top of the play claimed that Lance did not have full control of the ball and called it incomplete. Drew went to the sideline and convinced Sean that Lance had caught it. Sean threw a challenge flag and after the officials reviewed the replay, revised the ruling, giving the Saints a 24-17 lead.
Now the clock was at 5:35. Drew watched from the sidelines as the Colts offensive drove down the field, completing passes and getting first downs. He was mentally preparing what plays to do if they got a touchdown. Then he heard an ovation. Tracy Porter had intercepted a pass and ran a touchdown, putting the score at 31-17. The crowd went wild! Again, the Colts drove an incredible drive to the Saints five-yard line. On forth and goal the Saints stopped them with forty-four seconds to go. Drew stopped and looked around. The fans were cheering louder than he had ever heard them before. The clock ran out and the Saints were the Super Bowl Champions!
Instead of gloating that he had received the MVP trophy, Drew ran to the sidelines and gave each player a hug. “We did it!” He held his real trophy, Baylen, up amid the confetti. The completion of his healing journey regarding his relationship with his mom and grief at her death can be expressed when a reporter askes him what he is going to do next. In a reference to the football games he used to play with his younger brother, Drew declares, “I’m going to Disney World!”
At the time of Super Bowl XLIV, the Big Easy’s population was 355,000, 80% of the pre-Katrina population. The turn out for the home coming parade was nearly a million, more than twice the city’s population. It would be an emotional euphoric, similar to the ending of Clint Eastwood’s Invictus, about the influence of rugby healing post-apartheid South African politics. Football had healed New Orleans’s wounds.
I could Clint Eastwood (Invictus), Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titians), John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side), Greg Gillespie (Million Dollar Arm), Niki Caro (McFarland, USA), Thomas Carter (When the Game Stands Tale), Michael Tollin (Radio), McG (We Are Marshall) or the Erwin brothers (American Underdog) at the helm of a film project based on Coming Back Stronger. Casting wise, Chris Pratt or Jake Gyllenhaal could play Drew, Britt Robertson or Teresa Palmer as Brittany Brees, Dennis Quaid as Sean Payton, Laura Dern as Drew’s mother Mina Brees, Charlie Plummer as Steve Gleason, Jon Voight as Tom Benson, David Oyelowo as Deuce McAllister, John Boyega as Tracy Porter, Alexander Ludwig as Garrett Hartley, Charlie Hunnam or Alexander Skarsgård as Jeremey Shockey, Quinton Aaron as Anthony Hargrove, Marcus Henderson as Pierre Thomas, Caleb Castille as Curtis Deloatch, and Rick Fox as Lance Moore.
Because it is an incredibly powerful comeback story about motivation, positive thinking, community spirit and not giving up no matter the odds is why Drew Brees’ Coming Back Stronger should an inspirational football movie filmed in Louisiana, of course, ya’ll! Who Dat!
If you enjoyed this post, please consider donating so I can continue to post in the future. Thank you.
