NEW ORLEANS – Tom Brady and Drew Brees will do something next week that they’ve never accomplished in their historic NFL careers: face each other in a playoff game.
The New Orleans Saints with second place will receive the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the fifth place in the ranking, in the final of the divisional round fights next weekend, on Sunday afternoon.
“I think it was inevitable,” said Brees, who said he knew the Buccaneers would be a significant rival since Brady decided to move to NFC South in the past off-season. “Listen, the minute he signed with the Bucs and entered the division, you felt it would be a team to fight against. It would be a team that had aspirations for playoffs and more, just like us.”
Brees, who turns 42 on Friday and is expected to retire after this season, said: “I don’t take that for granted. I am very grateful for the opportunity.”
The Saints, who became the first team to sweep the NFC Southern division in the regular season, beat Brady and the Bucs in their first two clashes – a 34-23 victory in New Orleans in Week 1 and an impressive one, 38-3 defeat in Tampa in week 9.
Brees and Brady, 43, became the first pair of defenders to start a game against each other at age 40 or older in an NFL game in the first two matches. Now, they will be the first to do this in a playoff game.
Their rivalry has been going on for four decades, ever since Brady’s Michigan Wolverines defeated Brees’s Purdue Boilermakers in 1999.
Brees actually won five of his seven career fights in the NFL – and Brees ranks first in league history in passing yards. However, Brady ranks first in touchdown passes in his career and has the ultimate microphone drop when it comes to Super Bowl rings (six to one).
Brady and the Buccaneers are on a recent winning streak, winning five in a row, including a 31-23 victory Saturday night on the Washington Football Team.
But Brees and the Saints striker expect them to reach their peak in the playoffs, after getting wide receivers Michael Thomas and Deonte Harris back from the injured reserve and Alvin Kamara’s running back from the reserve list / COVID-19 in time to Sunday’s 21-9 wild card victory over visitor Chicago Bears.
Thomas managed five passes for 73 yards and his first touchdown of the season after being limited to just seven games in the regular season with a persistent ankle injury. Brees and Thomas played a total of just 10 rooms together in the regular season, thanks to Brees having missed four games of his own week 11 through 14 with a punctured lung and 11 broken ribs.
“It was great [to get Thomas back]. It was great to put him in the final zone too. Hopefully, we broke the seal and there’s a lot more where it came from, “said Brees, who shot for 265 yards and two TDs on Sunday, but acknowledged that the attack has room for improvement after scoring just seven points in the first 40 minutes.
“Listen, we have a job to do,” said Brees. “I think it is still the first time that we have brought everyone together again. Hopefully, we will be able to [wideout] Tre’Quan Smith is back this week too. There is a lot of time and pace in the passing game and so many small nuances of things like that. “
Kamara ran for 99 yards and a TD despite not being able to practice with the team all week. But he said he felt he “really didn’t miss a beat” after barely feeling any symptoms from COVID-19 and following Saints’ training through a live video with trainers with microphones.
Kamara said he and Brees exchanged text messages and talked during the week about the nuances of the game plan.
“I waved goodbye in the first round. I waved goodbye in the week,” joked Kamara, who was unable to play in week 17 after a positive coronavirus test late last week. “So it helps, obviously, just to have that time of rest. You have no choice but to sit and recover and kind of recover your body. So I felt good there today.
“With me, it didn’t really affect me much. Only the taste and smell are eliminated. No real side effects, no real symptoms. I felt good there today. My wind wasn’t really affected. Thank God for health. It was just something that I had to deal with. “