Drew Brees Enshrined in Pro Football Hall of Fame, Gets Gold Jacket From Joe Montana

Drew Brees is officially a Pro Football Hall of Famer. The former New Orleans Saints quarterback was enshrined in Canton, Ohio on Saturday, capping a weekend that included a Mardi Gras-style parade float, dozens of former teammates, and a gold jacket presented by five-time Super Bowl champion Joe Montana. It’s the final, permanent chapter of a 20-year career that redefined what a franchise quarterback could mean to a city.

Brees spent 15 of those 20 seasons in New Orleans after beginning his career as a second-round pick of the San Diego Chargers in 2001. He retired with 80,358 passing yards and 571 touchdown passes, both of which stood as NFL records at the time and still rank second all-time. He led the league in passing yards seven times, made 13 Pro Bowls, won two NFL Offensive Player of the Year awards, and delivered the signature achievement of his career with a Super Bowl XLIV title and MVP honors over the Indianapolis Colts. He was a first-ballot selection, part of a 2026 class that also includes Larry Fitzgerald, Adam Vinatieri, Roger Craig and Luke Kuechly.

A Gold Jacket From a Fellow Legend

Friday night’s gold jacket ceremony carried its own symbolism. Montana, widely regarded as one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play, placed the jacket on Brees’ shoulders in a passing-of-the-torch moment between two of the most prolific passers the league has seen. On Saturday, with an assist from his former head coach Sean Payton, Brees unveiled his bronze bust before delivering the induction speech, introduced and presented by Payton himself, the coach who built the offense that turned Brees into a legend.

Brees used much of his speech to reflect on the arc of his career, from his roots in Austin, Texas, where he won a state championship at Westlake High School, through his college years at Purdue and his early pro seasons with the Chargers. But the emotional center of his remarks was New Orleans, the city that embraced him after Hurricane Katrina and became the backdrop for the most productive stretch of his career. “If you love New Orleans, it will love you back,” Brees told the crowd, a line that drew some of the loudest applause of the ceremony.

Records That Still Stand

Even years removed from his final snap, Brees’ fingerprints remain all over the NFL record book. He still holds the mark for most seasons with 5,000 or more passing yards, with five, no other quarterback in league history has more than two. From 2009 through 2012, Brees threw a touchdown pass in 54 consecutive games, a streak that has never been matched. Those numbers, paired with a Super Bowl ring and a legacy of rebuilding a city’s identity through football, made his enshrinement one of the most anticipated of the weekend.

The moment also serves as a reminder of just how quickly quarterback play has evolved since Brees’ prime, with his once-record passing totals already eclipsed by the current generation even as his consistency records remain untouched. For bettors studying the NFL betting guide ahead of the new season, Brees’ induction is also a useful gut-check on how rare his kind of sustained excellence at the position really was, a bar that current-era passers featured across this fall’s NFL odds are still chasing.

What Comes Next

With his bust now permanently displayed at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Brees joins a New Orleans-centric class of enshrinees that reinforces how central the Saints’ 2009 championship run has become to modern NFL history. Payton, Brees’ presenter, was inducted into the Hall of Fame himself last year, meaning the two men who transformed the Saints from perennial also-rans into champions are now both immortalized in Canton. Saturday’s ceremony closes the book on one of the most decorated quarterback careers of the 21st century, but for Saints fans and NFL historians alike, Brees’ influence on the position, and on a city, is far from finished being told.