Drew Brees Believes He'll Return to Saints Sooner Than 6 Weeks After Thumb Surgery

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is expected to miss at least six weeks of action after having surgery on his right thumb. However, he thinks he will back sooner than anticipated. Brees was recently on WWL Radio and said he could beat the recovery window given to him.

"As far as the timetable for getting back though, they say six-to-eight weeks," Brees said per NOLA.com via CBS Sports. "I think I can beat that, but I'm just gonna take it one week at a time and see how things go."

Brees, who led the Saints to a Super Bowl win in 2009 is expected to return in Week 11 when they host the Atlanta Falcons. However, if he's able to return sooner, we could see him for the Week Nine contest against the Arizona Cardinals. But based on the way backup quarterback Teddy Bridgewater played on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks, the Saints may not try to rush Brees back into action. In the 33-27 win, Bridgewater completed 19 of his 27 passes and he threw for 177 yards and two touchdowns.

"There's a handful of things that we think he does particularly well, so you might feature or work a little bit more specifically on," Saints head coach Sean Payton said of Bridgewater. "There's a general philosophy offensively and then there's some things that we think he does really well. It's trying to put those in a plan that fits the opponent you're playing."

As far as moving forward, Bridgewater expects to have a bigger role in the offense as the season rolls on.

"I'm pretty sure, last week as well, given the circumstances we wanted to try to cut back on some things with all the crowd noise," Bridgewater said when talking about Sunday's home matchup against the Dallas Cowboys via Pro Football Talk. "Being back home, being able to do our own cadence, we can do more."

The Saints are 100 percent behind Bridgewater, but missing Brees is big. Along with leading New Orleans to the Super Bowl, Brees has thrown for over 520 touchdowns and he's the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards. Brees has led the NFL in passing yards in a season seven times and has thrown for at least 5,000 yards five times.