Saints’ Alex Okafor on Drew Brees: ‘Nobody beats him to the facility. Nobody!’

It’s a favorite line when touting the leadership qualities of an NFL quarterback: First one to arrive, last one to leave.

It sounds good, but how much does it really mean?

‘He doesn’t take anything for granted, he puts the work in and it shows on the field’

In the view of New Orleans Saints defensive end Alex Okafor is concerned, when that point is made about Drew Brees, it means plenty.

“Nobody beats Drew to the facility. Nobody!” Okafor told Alex Marvez and Bill Polian on Late Hits. “You can try to beat him there, but you won’t do it. You might win one day, but over the course of the season, he will beat you to the facility every single day. That just shows why he’s so great. He doesn’t take anything to granted, he puts the work in and it shows on the field.”

‘Mickey and Sean have done a good job of building through the draft’

As is typically the case with a franchise quarterback, Brees consumes the lion’s share of the Saints’ salary cap. However, Okafor sees no reason why the team should be weak in other areas, and that includes defense. He believes the team’s hierarchy has done an excellent job of seeing the big picture.

“People say that you can’t win with a franchise eating up a chunk of the cap room,” Okafor said. “But if that player’s worth that money, you definitely can win and Drew’s worth every penny. Plus, we’ve done a great job. Mickey (Loomis), the GM, and Sean (Payton), the coach, have done a good job of building through the draft. And I think that’s definitely one of the keys to having a competitive ball club is having a quarterback, obviously, that can win some games and building some depth through the draft. And we’ve done that.”