The San Diego Chargers may be close to locking up Drew Brees for good soon. While Brees was discussing his shoulder surgery the other day in a conference call with San Diego reporters, he was asked if he felt he had a future with the team.

"They want to pursue me long-term," Brees said. "I know that's something that for the next few months everybody's going to be working on. As far as what's going on up to this point, it's not much, just the very beginning stages. I know they want me long-term and I want to be here long-term."

Before Brees broke the word of the interest to re-sign him, Chargers general manager A.J. Smith would not confirm that anyone in the organization spoke to Brees regarding his contract.

"We don't have any comment on our business until we're complete with our business," Smith told The Associated Press.

After Brees' conference, though, Smith confirmed that the Chargers are pursuing Brees.

"We are going to try to long-term him," Smith said. "We originally wanted to do this in early February, but I guess Drew was just answering the question honestly."

Brees suffered a season-ending injury in the final game of the season. Brees was trying to recover a fumble against the Denver Broncos when he tore his right labrum. Smith wants Brees to relax and get better before he has to worry about leading the Chargers to a championship.

"I just felt it was the perfect time to rest his mind that we were going to try to get a long-term deal done, and for him not to worry about it," Smith said. "I told him to just rehab, get better and lead us to a championship. And he said, 'Fine.'"

Despite the Chargers' interest to lock up Brees, they would sitll like to keep backup QB Phillip Rivers. Rivers still has four years left under his contract with the team, and with him sitting on the bench for so long, you have to wonder how effective he can be under a new system.