A new report says 47-year-old Drew Brees almost returned from retirement to fill in for Denver’s injured Bo Nix in the 2025 AFC Championship Game. This apparently came as news to Broncos head coach Sean Payton.
After Bo Nix went down with a fractured ankle in the divisional round of the playoff against the Buffalo Bills, the Denver Broncos were faced with the prospect of having to start Jarrett Stidham at quarterback in the AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots.
At that point, Jarrett Stidham had made only four starts in the NFL over six years, and he hadn’t exactly lit the league on fire. So, according to ESPN, Denver’s then-offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi and offensive assistant Pete Carmichael reached out to Drew Brees to see if he would be interested in making a comeback. After all, Philip Rivers had come out of retirement with the Colts at the age of 44 after being retired for four full seasons earlier in the year.
Lombardi and Carmichael had been assistant coaches with the New Orleans Saints while Drew Brees was there, so they figured he would be able to quickly adapt. The funny thing is, Broncos head coach Sean Payton says he had no idea that they did such a thing.
“I just know that I was the odd man out,” Payton said after Monday night’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs. “I never heard anything about it. It never came to anything. I was only told about it later, so I was just like you guys.”
Drew Brees alluded to making a comeback in a February interview
The revelation that two of his former coaches reached out to Drew Brees about a playoff start at age 47 aligns with some of what the Hall of Fame quarterback said on the New Heights podcast back in February. He didn’t say which team reached out, but the fact that he seriously considered it suggests it had to be the Broncos.
“There was a moment this year, literally, I was drinking a tequila, and something happened where I thought there might be a chance I would play that week,” Brees told New Heights. “And I literally switched to water, and I started thinking about going to bed early and getting up the next day and getting my body nice and loose and going out and throwing to see if I could even pull it off.
“And boy, I was so mentally right. Got up, got the body loose, went out there, grabbed the ball, threw a couple. My 13-year-old son was catching for me. And it was just like… not there. I wouldn’t have been able to like break that glass 10 feet away.”
So, it didn’t happen. Jarrett Stidham ended up going 17-for-31 for 133 yards with one touchdown, an interception, and a fumble, and the Broncos lost 10-7. Drew Brees, meanwhile, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in July, with Sean Payton as his presenter. Had he made that one start for the Broncos, he likely would have had to wait another five years for that honor.