{"id":734212,"date":"2026-02-06T20:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/734212\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T20:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:38:16","slug":"former-westlake-qb-picked-for-pro-football-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/734212\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Westlake QB picked for Pro Football Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Westlake High School graduate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/story\/sports\/high-school\/2018\/10\/10\/former-chaparrals-knew-drew-brees-had-accuracy-work-ethic-to-succeed-after-high-school\/9586036007\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Drew Brees<\/a> will become the second Austin native to join the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.profootballhof.com\/\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Pro Football Hall of Fame<\/a> after being announced Thursday as a member of the 2026 class. He&#8217;ll be inducted in July.<\/p>\n<p>Brees, who led the New Orleans Saints to their only Super Bowl win after the 2009 season, retired after the 2020 season as a 13-time Pro Bowl selection. He led the league in passing seven times, had a record five 5,000-yard passing seasons and his 80,538 passing yards were an NFL record when he retired. He now ranks second all-time in passing yards after Tom Brady broke the record in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Undefeated as a high school quarterback at\u00a0Westlake, Brees led the Chaps to the first of their four <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/story\/news\/2016\/12\/20\/that-championship-season-remembering-westlakes-1996-title\/9779029007\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">state championships in 1996<\/a>. He played collegiately at Purdue after in-state powers such as Texas and Texas A&amp;M passed on a player listed at just 6 feet tall and coming off a serious high school knee injury. Last October,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/sports\/high-school\/football\/article\/drew-brees-westlake-saints-purdue-21119397.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brees returned to Westlake<\/a> for a jersey-retirement ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>Widely considered one of the top defensive players in the game\u2019s history, the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Lane starred on both sides of the ball for a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/story\/news\/2012\/09\/01\/old-anderson-highs-football-history-is-as-significant-as-it-is-elusive\/9897662007\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">powerhouse team from old Anderson<\/a> that played for one state title in the mid-1940s in the Prairie View Interscholastic League, the league for the state\u2019s Black schools in the segregation era. His decorated 14-year NFL career included an NFL-record 14 interceptions in a 12-game season as a rookie in 1952 and seven first-team, all-NFL selections.<\/p>\n<p>Lane and Brees ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/story\/sports\/high-school\/2021\/02\/10\/high-school-football-top-100-football-players-austins-history\/4458791001\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">American-Statesman\u2019s list<\/a> of top 100 football players from the Austin area released in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Westlake High School graduate Drew Brees will become the second Austin native to join the Pro Football Hall&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[13189,7,896,55,2572,2571,6,1371,397,58675,66991],"class_list":{"0":"post-734212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-drew-brees","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-saints","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanssaints","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-pro-football-hall-of-fame","16":"tag-saints","17":"tag-westlake-chaparrals","18":"tag-westlake-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116025616865923074","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}