Does not seem like he is gonna be moved.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/canep...1s15canepa.html
What with the suddenly ascending Chargers about to fly to Atlanta without a plane, the talk this week has swirled around Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, and what might have been. But while Vick could be a Charger, he is not. Drew Brees is.
And Brees is going to remain one. For now. Imagine that.
I realize rumors are the mother's milk of Web sites, chat rooms and radio talk shows. But the one that's been going ear-to-ear – about Brees being traded to some quarterback-needy franchise before Tuesday's NFL trade deadline – is preposterous. Now.
It's a crazy world, the NFL. Brees has become an overnight commodity, but one that can't be traded.
It's sexy, tremendous gossip. But the Chargers can't do it. At this point in the season, moving Brees would be monumentally stupid. And although the Chargers hardly have been fraught with Nobel laureate-envy over the years, General Manager A.J. Smith has not flunked remedial football.
When the season started, it made nothing but sense. It still was making sense a few weeks ago, when Brees, already waist-deep in quicksand, struggled in consecutive losses to the Jets and Broncos.
But stuff happens. The Chargers are 3-2 and have won two consecutive games in the same season for the first time since 2002. So you should dump the quarterback?
I'll be the first to admit I haven't been Brees' champion or his Boswell, so it would be easy for me to say: "Trade him now, while he's worth something." Especially when the franchise isn't going to get anything for him after the deadline.
Brees becomes a free agent after this season, and he isn't going to return. I'm not sure he would want to if he led the club to the Super Bowl. He had to get an unwanted feeling on draft day.
Hence the rumors. Book was being made that first-round draft choice Philip Rivers would have supplanted Brees as starting quarterback by now, making the fourth-year pro expendable.
The Chargers, after all, didn't draft Rivers and make him one of the richest 22-year-olds in San Diego because they were taken with Brees.
"We were looking to upgrade the position," Smith says. "But Drew has been playing well. It's amazing when you add players through the draft and free agency how some of the other players perform."
There is one more quarterback here than there have been presidential debates. Unheard of. When the team decided to keep four QBs – Doug Flutie and Cleo Lemon are the others – on its 53-man roster, it became even more apparent one would be dealt (as it is, there are teams still interested in Flutie, who will turn 42 next week).
"There is a little sacrifice with the fourth quarterback," Smith acknowledges. "Somebody's not on your team."
Clubs coming off horrible seasons don't keep four quarterbacks because they plan on platooning them. One of the QBs was going to be gone. Brees was first choice.
But it can't be done now. Even if the Chargers were to lose Sunday it would be a hard sell. They would be 3-3. How could a .500 team with a schedule full of winnable games defend trading its starting QB, especially when he has been playing about as well as he can?
Even a stinker in Atlanta couldn't justify it. A trade would be a give-up play, and clubs sitting at .500 or above in October don't sell out.
Sure, there are teams dying to get their hands on Brees. Green Bay, with no one behind Brett Favre, is first on the rumor list. The Packers are looking for anyone with plasma. As is Miami, where Jay Fiedler has a broken rib, A.J. Feeley is concussed and Sage Rosenfels might get the call. Sage Rosenfels?
"All eyes are pointed toward us," says Smith, who refuses to discuss company business. But, really, why should other GMs bother to call Smith? They know he can't deal a QB who has been so efficient leading up to the deadline.
Besides, those teams don't deserve a chance at Brees, given the way he has played the past two weeks, his competitive fluid perhaps heated by the promotion of Rivers to No. 2.
Is that part of it coincidence? Brees is a competitor, and his two splendid efforts followed the elevation of Rivers. I still find Brees a limited quarterback, but when he doesn't overstep his limitations and is protected, when he thinks right and throws straight, he can win games.
And the Chargers must win games when they can win them. They're not in business to help out others when they actually have a chance to accomplish something after all these years. To hell with Green Bay and Miami. They've had their fun.
Having Brees around hardly guarantees a sure thing. He could be out of the loop by the end of the month. The Chargers are not playoff cinches. While they are 3-2, their history tells us to allow the bandwagon to go around the block once or twice.
"I've seen this movie before," says Smith, speaking of the entire team. "It's much too early to determine anything. In Drew's case, he has to be consistent. That's what makes a winning quarterback."
He has been consistent. For two weeks. But the Oct. 19 trade deadline comes much too quickly for a verdict on consistency.