Drew Brees, after perhaps the finest season of his 18-year NFL career, finished a distant second to Patrick Mahomes for the NFL's Most Valuable Player award. The New Orleans Saints quarterback received just nine of the 50 total tallies, with the remainder going to his junior Kansas City Chiefs counterpart.

That disappointment was just the second Brees has endured recently, after his team was robbed late in the fourth quarter of their controversial loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game. But Brees' life is far bigger than football, and the recognition he did end up receiving no doubt eases the pain, even if temporarily, inevitably lingering after such a disheartening end to the 2018 season.

Earlier this week, Brees was named the recipient of the Art Rooney Sportsmanship award, given annually since 2015 in recognition of sportsmanship on the playing field.

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“Extremely humbled & honored to receive the Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award as voted by my fellow NFL players,” Brees wrote on Instagram. “It’s our job to continue the legacy of this great game as men like Art Rooney did before us. Thank you.”

Brees, 40, beat out a field of finalists including the Arizona Cardinals' Calais Campbell, Washington Redskins' Vernon Davis, San Diego Chargers' Antonio Gates, Indianapolis Colts' Andrew Luck, San Francisco 49ers' Joe Staley, Baltimore Ravens' Eric Weddle, and Green Bay Packers' Tramon Williams. Previous winners of the honor are the Carolina Panthers' Luke Kuechly, Arizona Cardinals' Larry Fitzgerald, the Colts' Frank Gore, and retired Oakland Raiders and Green Bay Packers legend Charles Woodson.