Take this with a grain of salt, but there's a story out there that Drew Brees -- 43-year-old, noodle-armed future Hall of Famer Brees -- might be contemplating a comeback. It's a pretty thin story, but the fact that Brees himself didn't dismiss it gives it some degree of possibility.
Brees' own Tweet about the speculation can be taken as tongue-in-cheek. "I’m currently undecided. I may work for NBC, I may play football again, I may focus on business and philanthropy, I may train for the pickleball tour, senior golf tour, coach my kids or all of the above." The fact that playing football is lumped in the same breath with pickleball would seem to suggest this is much ado about nothing.
But there are teams out there -- or team, specifically, the Seattle Seahawks -- who do not have an NFL starter on their roster, and may be interested in signing a veteran game manager who completed 70 percent of his passes in each of his last five seasons. He may be old and brittle and with a popgun arm, but at least it would spare us watching Drew Lock or Geno Smith start half the season for Seattle.
Table below shows all the 40-year-old quarterbacks since the merger to start at least half an NFL season. The king, of course, is Tom Brady, who has three top-7 (fantasy) seasons since turning 40 years old. Brett Favre did it once, in his first Vikings season, and so did Warren Moon (with Seattle).
Every other 40-year-old quarterback to start at least 8 games finished outside the top 15 at the position. That includes Brees himself his final two seasons in New Orleans.
| 40-YEAR-OLD QUARTERBACK STARTERS | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Age | GS | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int | Rk |
| 2021 | Tom Brady, T.B. | 44 | 17 | 485 | 719 | 5316 | 43 | 12 | 3 |
| 2017 | Tom Brady, N.E. | 40 | 16 | 385 | 581 | 4577 | 32 | 8 | 3 |
| 2020 | Tom Brady, T.B. | 43 | 16 | 401 | 610 | 4633 | 40 | 12 | 7 |
| 2009 | Brett Favre, Min. | 40 | 16 | 363 | 531 | 4202 | 33 | 7 | 7 |
| 1997 | Warren Moon, Sea. | 41 | 14 | 313 | 528 | 3678 | 25 | 16 | 7 |
| 2018 | Tom Brady, N.E. | 41 | 16 | 375 | 570 | 4355 | 29 | 11 | 13 |
| 2019 | Tom Brady, N.E. | 42 | 16 | 373 | 613 | 4057 | 24 | 8 | 15 |
| 2004 | Vinny Testaverde, Dall. | 41 | 15 | 297 | 495 | 3532 | 17 | 20 | 16 |
| 2020 | Drew Brees, N.O. | 41 | 12 | 275 | 390 | 2942 | 24 | 6 | 22 |
| 2019 | Drew Brees, N.O. | 40 | 11 | 281 | 378 | 2979 | 27 | 4 | 25 |
| 2010 | Brett Favre, Min. | 41 | 13 | 217 | 358 | 2509 | 11 | 19 | 28 |
| 1998 | Warren Moon, Sea. | 42 | 10 | 145 | 258 | 1632 | 11 | 8 | 28 |
| 2015 | Matt Hasselbeck, Ind. | 40 | 8 | 156 | 256 | 1690 | 9 | 5 | 35 |
| 1996 | Warren Moon, Min. | 40 | 8 | 134 | 247 | 1610 | 7 | 9 | 35 |
I don't really think Brees is coming back. He looked pretty washed his last two seasons in the league. But I can definitely see Pete Carroll thinking it would be a good idea, and maybe Brees himself would see it as a fun way to make $40 million this season, throwing to Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf and dumping it off to various running backs. Unlikely it happens and unlikely there's much fantasy appeal even if it does, but stranger things have happened.
--Andy Richardson