METAIRIE, La. -- Drew Brees just led the New Orleans Saints to another big victory.

The Saints deserve congratulations because they essentially "won" their contract standoff with Brees on Wednesday.

They got exactly what they wanted by limiting his extension to just one year for a fully guaranteed $24.25 million, according to league sources. The extension takes Brees through the end of the 2018 season. The Saints got to lock up their Hall of Fame quarterback for a little while longer, but they didn't have to commit to the 37-year-old beyond 2017.

Brees, meanwhile, deserves a ton of kudos for playing ball instead of playing hardball.

Instead of maxing out his value -- which could have been enormous if he hit the open market next March -- Brees left money on the table and turned this deal into a win-win.

"I plan to play for longer than two years, so yeah, I think my mindset going into this was to be able to secure a deal that would take me for as long as I plan on playing," Brees admitted Wednesday. "But this is what was in the best interest of the team. And so that's why it was a two-year deal [one year left on his current contract plus the extension]."

The deal is a "win" for Brees, too, for a few reasons.

First, he got fair market value for an elite quarterback -- whether you want to consider it a one-year, $24.25 million extension or a two-year deal worth $44.25 million.

Second, he got to shelve the distraction of all this contract talk in time to focus on the 2016 season and Sunday's opener with the Oakland Raiders. Brees had said all summer that he wouldn't talk contract once the season kicked off.

But more than anything, Brees wanted to get this deal done because he didn't want to leave New Orleans.

It's not great for "market value" when a player limits his market to just one team. Another team might have backed up the money truck for Brees next spring.

But Brees wanted to make it work here in New Orleans -- even if that meant tying one hand behind agent Tom Condon's back.

"This allows me to be around here for a bit longer, and I'll be here as long as they'll have me," said Brees, who has thrown for more yards in any 10-year span than any quarterback in NFL history since signing with the Saints in 2006. "Both sides are very happy. Certainly, I am. I'm very happy. I want to play my entire career here."

In retrospect, if Brees knew he would settle for a one-year extension that also included a great deal of salary-cap savings for the Saints in the short term, he probably should have just done this back in March.

But Brees was hoping for a longer-term deal. So it's understandable why he didn't make that concession until right before his self-imposed deadline.

"It's probably a bit more complicated than it should be. And again, there's a lot of factors along the way," Brees said. "At the end of the day, [general manager Mickey Loomis] has a job and a responsibility to do, as does Coach [Sean] Payton, as do I. And the thing we are all very much aligned on is what puts this team in the best position to win, and in the best position to make a run at a championship."

Brees is also betting on himself -- because he is scheduled to hit the open market again in 2018, when he turns 39. (And who knows, maybe he will be ready to bail out then if the Saints don't get things turned around).

Brees has insisted repeatedly that he plans to keep playing at a high level into his 40s. And if he keeps playing near his current level, teams will probably be just as willing to back up those money trucks two years from now.

And I'll probably implore the Saints to re-sign him again, just as I did this offseason.

This is the Saints' 50th year of existence -- and they've had exactly one Hall of Fame quarterback during those five decades. They were wise not to push him out of the building.

I loved defensive end Cameron Jordan's reaction Wednesday when he was asked if it would be hard to be in the running without Brees.

"We don't have to worry about that, do we?" Jordan said.