The Career-Saving Surgery Behind the Saints' Super Bowl Win

At the end of last night's Super Bowl, CBS announcer Jim Nantz tried to convey the improbability of New Orleans' win over Indianapolis. Naturally, he mentioned the medical marvel that is Saints quarterback Drew Brees' shoulder.

A few years ago while playing for San Diego, Brees reached for a fumble while sprawled on the field, and a defensive lineman landed like a crushing boulder on his exposed arm. In that gruesome instant, Brees had nearly torn the rotator cuff in his throwing arm in two. Everyone assumed his career was over. Except for a certain orthopedic surgeon watching in Birmingham, Alabama.

Dr. James Andrews, widely considered the premiere surgeon in sports, used 12 anchors, the most he'd ever used, to reattach the tissue in Brees' shoulder. San Diego, unconvinced it would work, released the quarterback. The Miami Dolphins passed on him as well. But the Saints believed Andrews when he assured them months later that Brees had had a full recovery.

"Doc saved my career," Brees told me when I profiled Andrews in Fast Company. "What he was able to do with my shoulder was truly amazing. I thought for sure the injury was one of the worst things I could go through. But now I think it was one of the best things that ever happened to me, because of the commitment and work and dedication it took to come back."

Andrews repairs so many athletes that you could field an impressive fantasy league made up of his patients. In fact, on his way to a Super Bowl championship, Brees beat two of them, Brett Favre (bicep surgery prior to last season) and Peyton Manning (knee surgery in college).

"He's got something special going on down there," Brees said, speaking of Andrews, whose star patients have won more than 20 Super Bowls, World Series, and NBA Championships between them.

The same can be said of Brees, who tied a Super Bowl record for completions while leading the Saints to the franchise's first championship. For a city still rebuilding four and a half years after being crushed by Katrina, it was something undeniably special.