Short Pitch
It’s called The Brees Way
It is a Sports Drama
In the vein of American Underdog
It is like Invictus meets We Are Marshell
It follows short free-agent quarterback Drew Brees
And practice squad member Lance Moore
As they build the cohesion and chemistry a team needs to have to win the Super Bowl.
Problems arise as Drew’s shoulder injury slowly heals, his elbow is dislocated, and he gets upset when he loses competitions.
Now together the team will learn to respect Drew’s competitive nature rubs off on the other players and drivers them to be the best Saints on and off the field.
The idea came to me when reading Bree’s Coming Back Stronger and I wanted to do more research on his career for a movie about Super Bowl XLIV.
My unique approach would be a football player challenging himself to excel at excellence not to win career accolades but to uplift a devastated city and region whose hopes and dreams were riding on his shoulders.
A set piece would be when Lance Moore has just received word that he has been loaned out to play for a football team in Germany for the 2006 season. He is sitting in the neglected corner of the locker room meant for the practice squad. Suddenly, Drew Brees, the star quarterback is tapping him on his shoulder “Hi, I’m Drew Brees, nice to meet you. Let me know if you need anything?” “Thank you,” replies Lance. “I’m Lance Moore.” “Lance Romance,” asks Drew, probing. “Yeah,” replies Lance. “You can call me that.”
The target audiences would be football fans, sports fans, athletes, fans of the great outdoors, men and women 20-80, Germans (because Lance played for the Berlin Thunders), Louisianans, the people of the Gulf Coast, and the Who Dat Nation.
Audiences would want to see it for its themes of hope, resilience, determination, personal sacrifice, and responsibility for a higher goal, community, and overcoming devastation and adversity.
Who Dat!
Today’s book I would like to pitch as a movie is The Brees Way: The Best of my hundreds of interviews with #9 complemented with perspective from those who know him best by Mike Nabors from CRTTT Publishing.
The Brees Way was published in 2022 and encompasses Brees’ career well afterwards the events leading up to the Saints’ victory at Super Bowl XLIV, which is the focus of my related That Should Be A Movie posts. Some of the information has nothing to do with his football career, like how he still wants to visit Eastern Europe and the Ukraine. So why read it? In Nabors’ 275 interviews with Brees, one finds references to incidents that occurred before 2010 or occurrences afterward that reveal his character and his impact on the City of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
An example is the generational divide in the Romigs family. The older generations remember the tough years when fans wore paper bags. The younger generations remember Drew Brees leading the team to victories. When members of the Romigs family lost three homes in Katrina, it was like a curtain opening as Drew took the stage at the Superdome, his presence delivering “joy and rapture, tremendous emotion.” The family used to leave Saints’ games in the third quarter or earlier as the team lost by several points. “Let’s beat the traffic,” the patriarch would say. “It’s not worth it.” Now they wait until the last play, “walking down the concourse with fans …everybody is excited and hopeful.” Now when people think of the Saints, they think of Drew Brees.
Reading a variety of books on a subject can help me glean new information or find information that I have read before but now it has been written in such a way that it clicks. For example, in Nabors’ book, I read about Brees’ dislocating his left elbow in the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. If I had read about this injury before, I must have overlooked it because it happened on February 10, 2007, two weeks after the emotionally climatic moment when thousands of Who Dats welcomed the Saints back to the Louis Armstrong International Airport despite their one game away from the Super Bowl loss to the Chicago Bears on January 21, 2007. His elbow injury has probably also been overshadowed by his near-career-ending shoulder injury. Perhaps artistic license could be taken in a film and his elbow could be dislocated during the game with the Bears. This would make the defeat more crushing as the team’s night flight through a winter storm is overshadowed by another injury to their quarterback. And the catharsis of the Who Dats meeting the team at the airport is even more emotional.
Before signing with the Saints, Drew had only visited New Orleans once before and that had been for a college buddy’s wedding, so naturally the only place he had visited was Bourbon Street. As he toured the city in 2006, what struck him the most was that when people stopped to greet and meet him, they didn’t want to talk about the Saints or football. They would thank him for “considering to be a part of this city and this community,” and “thank you for being a part of this city.” Drew soon began to feel the impact he was having on the team.
The impact was immediately felt by his teammates. Linebacker Scott Shanle didn’t know much about Brees when he first stood in front of their team. “When you’re in a group of grown men aged 21 to 25 or 35 and the man stands up and starts to talk, and the entire room shuts up, nobody says a thing you have your leader….a guy who will take you to the promised land.” Wide Receiver Marques Colston had already been a big fan of Brees, so it took him a while to build the courage to speak to him. He was comfortable once they took the field together. Lance Moore, still on the practice squad and about to be allocated to play for a team in Europe, even managed to become friends with the star quarterback who tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hi, I’m Drew Brees, nice to meet you, let me know if you need anything?” Eventually, Moore was letting Brees call him “Lance Romance.”
More screen time would need to be allotted to the impact that Drew had on another major player in the Saints’ post-Katrina saga, Deuce McAllister. Both Brees and McAllister were going under shoulder and knee rehab, respectfully, under the care of Dr. James Andres. Even before they were teammates. McAllister watched him prepare for the rehab process and knew there was just something special about him.
Once they were teammates, McAllister went to the Saints training facility to rehab his knee at 6:45 AM. He took great pride in being the first one in the building. He walked into the training room and there was Brees.
“Dude what are you doing here,” he asked Brees. “Nothing is wrong with you?”
So, the next day he came in about fifteen minutes earlier just so he could beat him.
The next morning after that Brees was there before him.
“What are you doing,” an exasperated McAllister asked. “Why are you coming to rehab?
“I come to get maintenance,” Brees replied.
“Our first maintenance meeting isn’t until 8:30,” McAllister explained. “Why are you so early?”
“I want to be the first one in the building,” Drew smiled.
“Ah, you won,” replied Deuce.
Every other teammate also remembers him never arriving after them or leaving before them.
Another scene could be during practice when two teams are playing trashcan football. One team is led by Drew, another by backup quarterback Chase Daniel. The winner is the team that can move the ball up and down the field the fastest by completing passes into various trash cans. Daniel’s team beats that of Drew’s in overtime. The team gave Drew trash talk about how his being on the cover of the Madden football video game had cursed him.
The next day after workouts the players are in the weight room, which has a big window out to the practice field. They look out the window and see Drew. He is still out there throwing balls into trashcans. His teammates don’t see him being upset over something they had forgotten about twenty-four hours ago as petty. They see it as a competitiveness that makes him the best player on the field.
Another example would be a ping-pong game with offensive tackle backup Zach Strief. This actually happened during the 2012 Olympics but could be moved to 2008 for artistic license. While the Olympic Games were going on during the Saints training camp, special competitions were held for the players. A five-dollar medal was given out to the best ping-pong player. Usually after practice, Drew was on the field for another 45 minutes, then working out, then he talked to the media for another 30 minutes. He doesn’t spend a lot of time in the locker room. His decision to play ping pong was unusual. He challenges Strief, who has a history of tennis. Strief beats him. Brees tosses the paddle down without so much as a “Good Game” or anything. He just walks away.
He returns two weeks later, looks into the locker room before anyone else has arrived, and says “Strief, let’s go.” This time Drew is an entirely different type of player. He has learned a new backhand and all sorts of serves. Apparently, he has watched and practiced with some professional players over the last two weeks. He never reveals just how he learned his new serves. But he wins the game. For him, it was not revenge. It was mental. An internal satisfaction. He won and there was no trash-talking.
Drew also had a competitive but close relationship with his safety Roman “Rio” Harper. A quarterback having a close relationship with his safety was a rare thing in the NFL. They would lift weights together and challenge each other as to who could throw or roll a ball to a certain spot in the gym. They would make bets on the LSU-Alabama games, Drew for LSU, Rio for Bama, double or nothing. Because Drew and Rio gave themselves extra work to do in the gym on Fridays, like Rio trying to bench press 315 pounds, they were always the last players in the gym and would call out commentary as college games played on the gym’s TVs. All the competition was about keeping up the spirit of the game and keeping the training from falling into monotony.
Another thing a film could take artistic license would be to show Drew’s dedication to his change in diet and lifestyle to be the best player he could be.
When Drew started playing football he had a hard time staying focused and engaged in meetings. While watching the practice films he would often fall asleep. It seemed like he was being lazy or disrespectful, so he had his blood tested and found out what he was allergic to. He became very health conscious. After myriad tests he discovered he was allergic to wheat, gluten, dairy, eggs, and nuts. He completely changed his diet and added a lot of vegetables and proteins. He grew the mental toughness, focus, sharpness, and fitness for which he would come to be known. A film about Super Bowl l XLIV would show him making these dietary changes as proof of his dedication to the people of New Orleans.
It would also show him practicing visualization. He goes to the field, visualizes game situations, and prepares himself for which play he would need in response. Other times he stands on one leg in the gym blindfolded, visualizing a game’s worth of plays, and calling out to his teammates which way he is throwing the ball. By the time he is on the field, it is like the game has already been won.
Despite his preparations, there were critics. They followed him from San Diego to New Orleans just as Twitter was launching. He was picked at, from his height to his arm length. Drew looks at the Tweets and chuckles. He doesn’t have the big arms. Never will. But there are always going to be doubters and critics. It motivates him, fading in with the rest of the background music and noise.
At the beginning of the 2006 season training camp, everyone could see that Drew’s injured shoulder was still affecting him. Rio Harper could see that Drew could not throw a ball 20 yards. Brees could feel the tension from his head coach regarding his shoulder. Payton looked to Peter Carmicheal, the Saint’s offensive coordinator.
“Is this it,” he asks. “Like, are we there yet?”
“There’s more, there’s more in the tank,” Peter replies. “Don’t worry. Trust the process.’
The preseason games do not go well for the Saints. The game against the Dallas Cowboys in Shreveport ends with Drew’s performance of 12 for only 67 yards passing. The third season game against the Indianapolis Colts, foreshadowing Super Bowl XLIV, goes badly as well.
Scott Shanle called his wife and told her he didn’t think they “were gonna win a game this year.” In a postgame interview, Payton admitted, “We’re not a ready product right now as you guys can see.” He was so upset that he made the starters work overtime. “I’m leaving you in there until I tell you that’s enough,” he said, probably smacking down on a Juicy Fruit.
But for Drew, there had been a magic moment in the game. It had occurred when he threw a deep Q, an 18-yard route to Donte Stallworth, and when the ball came out of his hand, it was like, that is ‘IT” and he had not felt it up to that moment. It was like a finger-snap moment. Even though they lost, Drew was upbeat.
Here’s how I would write Drew telling Sean about it in a screenplay.
It the conversion could also be written during the game when Sean is keeping the starters in and it convinces him to take them out. Or it could occur right after the press conference.
The differences between the two men and their similarities become distinct as Super Bowl XLIV drawls closer. Drew is poised, even keel, and ready for whatever happens, constantly thinking and accessing whatever might occur right in front of him.
Payton is aggressive, dealing with many things at one moment. Calling the next play while challenging flags and checking on injured players. On the road, he constantly checks on the players. “How’s your hotel suites? How’s your sleep? You are 20% more likely to get injured if you don’t get enough sleep.”
To both of them, body language is paramount. They keep their cool and posture during games. They do not want the other side to see anything and get the best of them. Drew especially has to do this when being assailed by critics. He lets the chip on his shoulder help him play with more passion like he has something to prove, with vigor to block out the noise. He reminds himself that he has nothing to prove except to himself and his teammates to the people of New Orleans and the legacy of the Who Dats.
He does this with a collaboration of players. In 2006 they were trying to figure out what they had gotten themselves into at that time. They were not the most talented, not the most sought-after guys. They were castaways of other teams, who had come together for a purpose. By 2007 Lance Moore had moved up from the practice squad to wide receiver and was joined by Robert Meachem and Devery Henderson. For four years straight they followed the same rules and guidelines and built chemistry with Drew which would help them win Super Bowl XLIV. Brees earns their respect when he takes responsibility for his actions. During games when he comes off the field after making a mistake, he slams his helmet and breaks a piece. Usually, someone grabs the helmet and fixes it. However, when someone tries to grab his helmet, Drew will say “Don’t grab my helmet! don’t touch my helmet. I’ll fix it. I made the mistake, I’ll fix it.” Shanle, Colston, and the other players believe Drew makes the rest of them the best players they could be because he motivates them to keep pace with him.
The audience would watch this time through high and low moments with Drew. High moments, like Drew beating the Dolphins, who turned him down, and the Chargers in a 2008 game in London. Then low moments like a changing culture as cellphones become more prevalent in locker rooms and around the ping-pong table threaten to break team cohesiveness and chemistry. And the newfound hazards that a whole franchise faces when one team or staff member posts something controversial online. All this until winning Super Bowl XLIV.
Nabors’ interviews with Drew Brees give a lot of human-interest tidbits that could be included in a movie about the Saints’ journey to the Promised Land. Drew liked to impersonate Jim Carrey, imitating his Ace Ventura “Alrighty Then” motto and “so you’re saying there’s a chance, there’s always a chance,” from Dumb and Dumber. Since his favorite athlete is Ted Willaims, a professional baseball player and Marine Corps pilot who flew air missions during the Korean War, Drew could be shown reading his biography. (Willaims also flew missions during the same battles in which Sergeant Reckless fought, that should also be a movie) He likes music from the 80s and one-hit wonders from the 90s. His favorite other Drew in the world is Drew Barrymore because he grew up watching her in E. T. He likes watching Saturday Night Live and The Mentalist. His favorite movies are Hoosiers and Remember The Titans. He likes watching Jeopardy with Zach Strief. When Brittany is pregnant, and Baylen is born he could mention that the wide receivers would make the best babysitters. He and Lance Moore share a special meal of chicken covered in A.1 sauce and honey before games. They have a superstition that that gave them victory over Atlanta (an A.I. sponsorship could also supplement a small part of a film budget, 5%-10%, as one of several product placements).
In one interview Nabors asks Drew who should play him in a movie. At first, he said Matthew McConaughey, then he changed it to an action star, like Jason Statham. When I was taking a workshop in producing with the New York Film Academy and had to make a faux producer’s package for Coming Back Stronger, the actor I proposed to play Brees was Jake Gyllenhaal.
Who do you think should play Brees who with the rest of the New Orleans Saints and Who Dat Nation Should Be Honored With A Movie for Helping The Big Easy and The Gulf Coast Recover from The Destruction of Hurricane Katrina?
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