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.New OrleansFootball is all about timing.There’s the timing of the snap count.The speed and depth of the receiver running his route.The pause of the running back before he explodes toward the line.When I was lying on a gurney in the training room during the last game of 2005, my shoulder shredded and my career in jeopardy, I couldn’t imagine how anything good could come out of something so awful.But as I would soon learn, sometimes the way God works is all about timing too.I had to wait.I had to work.But in the end, he had a clear purpose in everything that happened.I’ll admit, his timing often felt slow—especially while I was going through rehab.When will I feel back to normal? When will I be able to play again? When will the right opportunity come my way? But no one ever said the Christian faith is about living according to your own terms or timetable.It’s about dropping anchor even when you’re in an unpredictable place.It’s about knowing that though things may not make sense on paper, you have to trust God to see the bigger picture.You have to choose to live from the heart and trust what you cannot see.Less than a year after my shoulder injury, I was already starting to experience the unexpected good that can come out of adversity.That event took me to new places in my faith, as I knew God was sharpening me for a significant task down the road.It marked a new place of vulnerability and openness in my relationship with Brittany.It was a time of growing closer to her parents while I lived with them in Alabama during rehab.And in terms of my career, this incident allowed me to discover the people who were really on my team.In a strange way, I’m grateful for it, because it was a catalyst to change that needed to happen.One of the most significant lessons I learned during that dark period of injury and rehab is this: if God leads you to it, he will lead you through it.Everything happens for a reason, and everything is part of his master plan.If you let adversity do its work in you, it will make you stronger.When you come out on the other side, you just may be amazed at the things God has allowed you to accomplish—things you might not have believed were possible.God’s refining process is never easy.It’s kind of like a blacksmith creating a sword.The metal is strengthened when it is repeatedly put in the fire and then pounded with a hammer.But the end result is perfection.All the heat and pounding create a strength and beauty, not only on the outside, but especially on the inside.God sometimes puts us in the fire, and it’s going to hurt, but it will mold and shape us into the people he intends for us to be.When I went through that fire, I didn’t know what was ahead for me, and I didn’t know what the end result would be.I had to trust and believe that there was a purpose for all this and take things one day at a time.Coming Back StrongerThe Obvious ChoiceI’ve been asked on a number of occasions what happened between head coach Nick Saban, the Dolphins, and me.To the outside observer, it must have seemed really obvious what my choice would be when it came down to Miami or New Orleans.But there were other factors at play besides geography and football.I met with Tom Condon, my agent, after things fell through on my contract with San Diego.Once the dust settled in the days prior to the start of free agency in early March 2006, it was clear that there were only two contenders who saw me as a starting quarterback in the NFL: the Dolphins and the Saints.Tom and I sat together and talked through the pros and cons of each.“Here’s how I see it,” Tom said.“For New Orleans, you have to factor in that the city has just been through the biggest natural disaster in the history of the country.More than 80 percent of the city was underwater.I don’t know how many good places there are to live.The whole city was devastated—it still is.” That was no exaggeration.At the time, the team had been relocated to San Antonio, Texas, and there had been talk of moving the team permanently.Plans had even been made to tear down the Superdome.The previous season had been played entirely on the road—San Antonio, Baton Rouge, even New Jersey.Tom went on, “Now, they have a brand-new coaching staff—but there are a lot of unknowns.” It was true: a lot of good things were being said about Sean Payton, but he had never been a head coach before.Then there was the clincher: “Drew, the overall reputation of the organization is not good.The team has been pretty dysfunctional for a long time.I like the general manager, Mickey Loomis, but he is going to have a hard time attracting talented players to come down there.”If you would have asked me in 2004, before Hurricane Katrina, “What one team in the league would you least want to play for?” I probably would have said the New Orleans Saints.That’s not a knock against the city.I had been through New Orleans once before, for a wedding, and the only thing I saw aside from the ceremony was Bourbon Street since our hotel was right there.That was my concept of the city.My impression of the team wasn’t much better.I didn’t know many of the players personally, but I’d heard about the team’s reputation from other players in the league and observed it from afar.Most people viewed the Saints as a dead-end organization at the time.When you thought of New Orleans, you just didn’t think of a great atmosphere conducive to winning and building a championship-caliber team.So before we even started talking, I had an overwhelmingly negative view of the club.After a successful 2000 season, in which the Saints won their first playoff game in franchise history, they followed it up with four consecutive mediocre seasons from 2001 to 2004.The Saints had a lot of talent, but they couldn’t figure out how to win consistently.They were streaky and unpredictable.They then went 3–13 in 2005, the Katrina year.Now here they were knocking on my door in 2006.Tom was trying to go through the pros and cons of New Orleans with me, but it was hard to see anything but the cons.The assignment was fraught with challenges and downsides—the rebuilding needed in the city, the uncertainty about the future of keeping the organization in New Orleans, and the fact that this was not where I had imagined starting a family.Besides, from a football perspective, it just didn’t seem like a great prospect.“Then there’s Miami,” Tom said.“First of all, there’s the obvious advantage: you’d get to live in Miami.It’s a great city, a great climate.” He had a point.Plus, there was no rebuilding needed there.“Second, there’s an unbelievable tradition with the Dolphins.They’ve won Super Bowls.They have a great ownership structure.And Nick Saban has a reputation as a winner.” Saban was a young head coach with a lot of energy and ideas, and he had turned the team around the previous season, his first as an NFL head coach [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]