Happy Birthday, Drew

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By The Times-Picayune Editorial Board
Hey, Drew ... we owe you one.

Super Bowl XLIV was your gift to New Orleans. Today, in honor of your 40th birthday, New Orleans has a gift for you: Super Bowl LIII.

It’s going to take some more work this Sunday. But we’re going to make sure you get there.

It’s the least we can do.

In 2006, when we were a broken city, you gave us everything you had. You and Brittany made New Orleans home. You healed your shoulder while we healed our homes. You invested in local businesses. You grew your family and enrolled your children in our schools. You became one of us, and in so doing, made us feel better about ourselves.
While some had given us up for dead, you made a life here. You brought hope and built a champion, offering us escape and inspiration. And at every stop on your journey to the top of the NFL, you gathered your team around you and delivered the rallying cry that lifted up an entire city:

“WE … ARE … NEW ORLEANS!”

Nine seasons after that Super Bowl, New Orleans is back. We’ve still got our share of problems – serious problems – but the post-Katrina despair that greeted you 13 years ago has been replaced with optimism and resolve. We know the city’s best days are ahead.
Your best days are unfolding in front of us, as your NFL record-setting completion rate in 2018 makes clear. But as you yourself have said, you’re running out of chances to win another ring.

And no one deserves another ring more than you, Drew. Not only for the way you have played, but for the way you have carried yourself and represented us.

So, we’ll do what New Orleans does best: Will it.

Sunday when the Rams come to town, we’ll create an environment so hostile, the NFL will probably have to change the rules again, just like they did after we beat the Vikings in overtime the last time we hosted the NFC Championship Game in 2010.

Rams QB Jared Goff played here in November, so he thinks he knows what to expect.

He has no freaking idea.

There is regular season home field advantage, and then there is playoff Dome field advantage. Not the same thing. Not even close.
And that was just the divisional round. Wait till the NFC crown is on the line.

It’s not much, Drew, but we promise you this: We’ll bring the noise on first down. And second down. And third down. And fourth down. We’ll bring it when the momentum swings our way. And when it swings their way, we’ll bring it even louder, until the momentum swings back. For 180 minutes Sunday, we’ll occupy that third stage that few fans ever reach.

We’ll be lethal.

Goff – who has never played in an NFL road playoff game, and whose only college bowl appearance for the University of California was against the Air Force Academy in the Armed Forces Bowl – won’t know what hit him.

You’ll know. It’s the sound of New Orleans regifting what you gave us 13 years ago: Everything we’ve got.

Happy Birthday, 9. See you in Atlanta.

Love,

NOLA.

Source: https://www.nola.com/opinions/2019/01/to-drew-brees-from-new-orleans-on-your-40th-birthday.html