Chiefs at Saints: Drew Brees reportedly has no idea how healed up his ribs are due to radiation issue

Drew Brees won't be at 100% Sunday

When Saints coach Sean Payton announced on Friday that Drew Brees would be the starting quarterback for New Orleans on Sunday, the decision came as a surprise and that's mostly because it had barely been a month since Brees suffered 11 broken ribs and a punctured lung during a Week 10 win over the 49ers. 

Although Brees will be starting for the Saints against the Chiefs, it appears he's going to be playing even though he's not 100%, and that's not even the crazy part. The crazy part is that Brees apparently has no idea how healed up his ribs are. 

According to Jay Glazer of Fox Sports, Brees wasn't able to scan his ribs this week, because he had already scanned them too many times over the past month. 

"Because he got his ribs scanned three times already, he couldn't go back and look at them again, because it's just too much radiation," Glazer said Sunday on Fox. "So he doesn't really know how healed up those ribs are. He can only go by how he feels."

Basically, Brees doesn't even know if he's completely healed and he still decided to play. Despite not knowing his exact health, Brees was able to throw without experiencing any pain this week, which convinced him and Payton that he could play. Brees also wanted to be on the field because he didn't want to let his team down. 

"This is when my team really needs me out there," Brees told Glazer. 

The big risk here for the Saints is that if Brees gets injured this week or if he gets hurt because of the short turnaround to Week 16 (The Saints play on Christmas next week), then you lose him for the playoffs and you've thrown away your season. The other issue for the Saints is that backup quarterback Jameis Winston won't be dressing for Sunday's game. Winston was placed on the COVID list early Sunday morning, which means Taysom Hill will be Brees' backup against the Chiefs.