Nick Saban Blames Miami Dolphins Doctors For Costing Him Drew Brees And Ending His NFL Tenure

When it’s all said and done, Nick Saban will likely be considered the greatest college football coach of all-time. But his run with the Miami Dolphins in the early to mid 2000s was an utter disaster.

However, we might be in a completely different sports scenario if Saban and the Dolphins had signed Drew Brees in 2006.

Nick Saban revealed on Wednesday that it was after the team decided not to sign Brees because of health issues that he knew he had to go back to college football.

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“Look when the Miami Dolphins were going to sign Drew Brees, Drew was coming to Miami when I was the coach there,” Nick Saban said via PFT. “He was going to be the quarterback. That’s all we needed. We just went 9-7 and all we needed was a quarterback to be a playoff team. We were going to sign Drew Brees as a free agent. Dr. [James] Andrews operated on [his shoulder] and I went to Birmingham to see Dr. Andrews, and he said it’ll be fine. Our doctors failed him on the physical. [Drew] was there to sign with us. . . .

“So I decided right then when that happened that we don’t have a quarterback in the NFL, we’re not going to win. I’m getting out of here. I’m not staying here. I’m not going to be responsible for this. That doctor didn’t know his ass from a handful of sand. Drew Brees plays 15 more years, wins a Super Bowl, goes to nine Pro Bowls. And we didn’t take him in Miami, where he wanted to go. Some things you can’t control. When we left there nobody understood why. Well that was why. There’s always a reason.”

Perhaps all is well that end’s well.

Nick Saban ended up starting the greatest college football dynasty of all-time. And Drew Brees joined Sean Payton to make magic happen in New Orleans.

Maybe if Brees goes to Miami, Saban is still in the NFL. Maybe Alabama never catches fire.

Bottom line: we’ll never truly know how drastically the sports world would be different had Miami listened to Nick Saban and Signed Drew Brees in 2006.

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