Brees finishing “second” is a facade when you compare by how many votes he lost by as it was never close for any of those years.
My personal opinion is that Brees never had a chance because most voters never saw Brees as the prototypical QB. He would’ve needed a year where no one performed as close as he did and unfortunately 2009 and 2011 had Rodgers and Manning have great years and the media loved them.