Quarterback Drew Brees sets record, wins crown

Photo credit: Michael DeMocker, Times-Picayune

On the night after Christmas, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees broke an NFL record that had stood for nearly three decades, and New Orleans beat its archrival Atlanta 45-16 to clinch the fifth division crown in franchise history. The victory keeps the Saints (12-3) in the hunt for the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs, and its convincing nature offered further evidence no team in football is more explosive than New Orleans.

The Saints, undefeated at home this season, have now won seven in a row.

All of those heartwarming holiday milestones the team reached paled, however, to Brees breaking Dan Marino's record of 5,084 passing yards in a season. Brees threw for 307 yards in the game, but it was a 9-yard scoring pass to running back Darren Sproles with 2:51 remaining, and the Saints already holding a commanding lead, that gave him 5,087 for the season.

Brees thrust a fist into the air exultantly and then was mobbed by teammates led by guard Carl Nicks. Even referee Jeff Triplette came over and shook Brees' hand. The performance also left Brees as the only player in NFL history to throw for more than 5,000 yards in a season twice.

"It was a big win, a special night for us with all of it kind of culminating in one game," Coach Sean Payton said.

Brees' record overshadowed a more sustained assault the Saints are putting on the NFL's offensive record book, in an outing that left the already playoff-bound Falcons (9-6) completely outclassed by the divisional champ. For example, Brees also extended his streak of consecutive games throwing a touchdown pass to 42 as he chases a mark even older than Marino's -- Johnny Unitas' 47. Similarly, the Saints amassed 463 yards, leaving them with 6,857 yards for the season and 219 short of the all-time record set by the St. Louis Rams' "Greatest Show on Turf."

There's a lot still to be written, and we look forward to that," Payton said.

The Saints now host the Carolina Panthers on New Year's Day in a game that holds significance only if the San Francisco 49ers lose at St. Louis on the same day. In that case, a Saints' victory would give them the No. 2 seed and a bye in the playoffs before hosting a home game.

From the outset Monday night, a setting in which the Saints traditionally play superb football, it was clear New Orleans was a team on a mission.

While opening a 21-10 halftime lead, the Saints converted eight of eight third-down opportunities and scored touchdowns on three of their four trips inside the Falcons' 20-yard line. Running back Pierre Thomas began what would be the most points scored against Atlanta since 2004 with a 4-yard scoring run, and Atlanta sandwiched a field goal and touchdown around that to hold a 10-7 lead.

However, Brees then marched the Saints 81 yards in 10 plays, the last of them an 8-yard scoring toss to wide receiver Marques Colston, and though 70,086 in attendance didnt yet know it, the rout was on.

"It was a huge deal," Colston said of Brees' record and the win. "To be able to do it against the Falcons and for the division and on Monday night, all those things just make it more special. It was a huge win, and to be able to achieve that is obviously a great thing for us. But we've got higher places to go."

With just 24 seconds left in the first half, Jimmy Graham collared a 9-yard touchdown pass from Brees, a catch that made Graham the first Saints tight end to have 10 touchdown catches in a season.

In the second half, Brees added a 24-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Robert Meachem and then the record-breaker to Sproles, giving Brees four scoring strikes in the game.

Brees said that, after the Meachem score, he overheard a voice on the sideline saying, "you're really close," and it struck him as an improper vibe.

"Like jinxing a no-hitter," Brees said. "I mean, we were rolling at that point. Like a pitcher -- don't talk to him, leave him alone."

Yet, from a purely statistical standpoint, it wasn't his finest effort. Brees also threw two interceptions, one of them a bizarre pass to the end zone that Falcons safety William Moore batted high in the air and back toward the goal line, where it was caught by cornerback Dominique Franks.

The first of those picks ended a streak of 233 passes by Brees without an interception, the longest such streak of his career, and the second helped hold his quarterback rating for the game to 96.8. But all of that could not blemish the uncontestable fact Brees was commanding one of the best offenses football has ever seen.

Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, who completed 34 of 52 passes for 373 yards, managed to move the ball at times against a Saints defense that appeared to play with more and more emotion as New Orleans' lead widened and Brees closed on Marino's mark. Despite the Falcons best efforts, they managed two field goals by Matt Bryant in the second half -- the first a 51-yarder that made the score 28-13 and the second a meaningless 30-yarder that finished Atlanta's scoring.

The Saints' defensive spirit burst into flower after Bryant made that second field goal. After the Saints, playing conservatively with the big lead, went three-and-out, linebacker Scott Shanle stripped Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones of the ball. New Orleans safety Malcolm Jenkins scooped up the bouncing ball and raced 30 yards untouched for a touchdown that made the score 38-16.

That score also provided Payton the cushion he needed to give the green light to Brees push for the yardage record in the closing minutes. With the game and the divisional crown in hand, the team cast its steely gaze at Marino's venerable achievement when they took over on downs at the Atlanta 33 with 5:08 left.

Brees insisted he didn't know the exact number he needed at that point. Leading up to the game Brees said he strove to compartmentalize the record and the game itself, and that mindset carried over into the fourth quarter.

On a third-and-9, Brees went to Colston on the left side for 12 yards, then hit Devery Henderson for 11 more. After a bullet to Henderson on the next snap went incomplete, Brees and Sproles hooked up for the memorable touchdown.

"That's when I knew I had done it," Brees said. "Just an amazing feeling."

Nicks said the pretzel he put his quarterback in when he "bum- rushed" him after the record was set was a labor of love.

"If Hollywood were to make a movie I don't know if Tom Cruise could play him," Nicks said. "This guy is out of this world. Probably one of the best guys I know, period. If I could put him on my shoulders and parade him around the whole stadium I would have done that."

Afterward, even the media broke into applause when Brees entered the postgame interview room.

"Not as tough a crowd as I thought," Brees joked, before immediately turning to the rewards the team had reaped. "It feels great to be division champs. It feels great to have done what we just did, especially on Monday night before a national audience."

But he did permit himself a personal note.

"I haven't had a whole lot of time for reflection," he said. "For now, I just feel like there's still so much to be done. I do feel life his short and you have to enjoy these things. I'm never going to take it for granted."

James Varney can be reached at jvarney@timespicayune.com or 504.717.1156.

Brees is Our Sportsman of the Year

The Saints' QB is a 'brilliant choice' for prestigious award

By James Varney

Times-Picayune

Drew Brees, who brought his rebuilt shoulder to a city some thought would never rebuild after Hurricane Katrina and led the Saints to a Super Bowl title last season, was selected Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year on Tuesday.

As Sports Illustrated Group Editor Terry McDonell, who personally made the pick, put it, Brees didn't win because his admirable work is done. Rather, more is to come with Brees, he said. His artistry on the field is inseparable from his work off. All of which, McDonell said with undisguised astonishment, is genuine.

"If you look at the oldest definition we have for the Sportsman of the Year -- that it's not only about victory but the quality of the effort -- then you see why Drew Brees is a brilliant choice," McDonell said. "There's something old-fashioned about Drew Brees. He's aware this honor is for him, but he's aware and we're all aware that this award is really for the city, too."

Brees is the 57th honoree since the magazine's founding in 1954, joining a transcendent group of athletes and sports figures including Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe, Derek Jeter, John Wooden, Cal Ripken Jr. and Jack Nicklaus.

Brees is the first New Orleanian to win the accolade, which is arguably the most prestigious in sports. And in some respects, the fact he can be called a New Orleanian without an eyebrow raised from Riverbend to the 9th Ward underscores why he won. After a Texas childhood, college at Purdue, and a professional start in San Diego, Brees is at home in New Orleans.

Even before the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV, Brees had been enormously successfully. He has been selected to the Pro Bowl four times -- with the Chargers in 2004 and with the Saints in 2006, 2008 and 2009. He was the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year in 2004, the Offensive Player of the Year in 2008, and he was the Super Bowl MVP this past February.

Reflecting on that odyssey Tuesday night, Brees said it doesn't strike him as odd. The world offers few examples of people as great at what they do as he, but it wasn't something planned when he was young, Brees said, and it's not something achieved unilaterally.

"None of this happens without Ncw Orleans," Brees said.

Brees began Tuesday in New York on the Today Show and then ran from one event to another, and even the polished Sports Illustrated public relations team was scrambling to keep up.

Brees was honored Tuesday night at a downtown Manhattan dinner where Katie Couric was his introductory speaker.

Enough to scramble the average mind. Which, and this is the point reinforced by the Sportsman of the Year award, is not the Brees mind.

"You know, I don't take things in that way," he said when asked if he had ever envisioned a day when he would be Super Bowl MVP and Sportsman of the Year. "In fact, I never even knew Purdue was a storied place for quarterbacks when I went there."

Brees has talked at length about his introduction to New Orleans, how Saints Coach Sean Payton gave Brees and his wife, Brittany, an unintended car tour of the gashed post-Katrina city. And how, when Payton thought for sure his pitch was blown, Drew and Brittany caught an immediate vibe that said, no, actually, this is the place.

As unlikely as that tale may seem, Brees insisted Tuesday night it is a piece of his development as a man and an athlete. He conceded his competitive fire burns at a high degree -- some of his Saints teammates will roll their eyes and say Brees is off the top of the competitive meter -- but he said what has happened now wasn't planned.

And that goes to another Brees element that McDonell mentioned: New Orleans spies a fake a mile away. McDonell has friends in the Big Easy who called him down to see the notes fans had left around the Brees' Uptown home.

"We knew about all the stuff he had been doing in the community," McDonell said. "But when you go down there you realize it's more and more powerful and less and less ostentatious."

In Manhattan, Brees was reflective.

"I don't know -- I mean, I think about all the people who have been part of this journey," he said. "But the truth is something I've said many times, that the best way to describe New Orleans is that if you love them, they will love you back."

. . . . . . .

James Varney can be reached at jvarney@timespicayune.com or 504.717.1156.

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