Brees: Victory is for whole city

Drew Brees
12 April 2012

Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees dedicated victory to the city of New Orleans as the Saints began celebrating their 31-17 win over Indianapolis Colts in Miami.

Quarterback Brees completed 32 of his 39 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns to earn the Most Valuable Player award, with the Saints winning in their first Super Bowl appearance after 42 years in the National Football League - and four-and-a-half years after their city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

"Four years ago whoever thought this would be happening," Brees said. "When 85 per cent of the city was under water, all of its residents evacuated to places all over the country, most people were wondering if New Orleans would ever come back or if the team would ever come back."

He added: "But not only did the team come back and the city come back, so many players that are our core group of players came in that year as free agents and looked at one another and said 'we're going to rebuild together; we're going to lean on each other'.

"That's what we've done here for the last four years and this is the culmination of all that belief and that faith."

Brees moved to the Saints less than six months after Katrina hit New Orleans and has been a part of his team's efforts to help rebuild the city.

"It's unbelievable, I don't think it's sunk in yet," he said. "Just to think of the road that we've all travelled to get to this point and how much we've invested, how much adversity we faced along the way; but then again, how many people believed in us and gave us the strength to go out and do what we did.

"It's really what we've done all year long and in the four years since I've been in New Orleans. To have been given the opportunity there when not a lot of people wanted to give you that opportunity and starting from scratch with building a team, building a mindset and setting those goals that we knew we could achieve through hard work and trusting one another.

"We played for so much more than ourselves, we played for our city and we played for the entire Gulf Coast region.

"They were behind us every step of the way and we've been blessed with so much. Just to have this opportunity is unbelievable."

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