Posted: Tuesday, January 03, 2012, 9:19 AM

Following their eighth consecutive win, New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith talks about how the team is playing going into the playoffs.

NEW ORLEANS (AP)—If Sean Payton’s New Orleans Saints are inclined to
reflect back on anything from 2011, it’s not so much their recently concluded
record-breaking regular season as their disappointing first-round playoff loss
to Seattle last January.

“You understand in our game that when you line up in the postseason,
there’s a finality to it,” Payton said Monday as the Saints began preparations
for their playoff opener against Detroit.

“There’s a lot of things that were positive and a lot of things that were
accomplished with the season we just had, and yet the reason you try to win as
many games as you can is to prepare yourself for what we’re getting ready to
accomplish now,” Payton continued. “I don’t think you reflect now. You are
still driven by the challenge ahead.”

The 2011 Saints might be better than the 2009 team that won the Super Bowl.
Both were 13-3 in the regular season, and this season’s squad set several NFL
and franchise records, mostly on offense.

The Saints 7,474 offensive yards set a new league mark by 399 yards. Drew
Brees’ 5,476 yards passing was the most for any quarterback by more than 200
yards, while his 468 completions and 71.2 completion rate also set new league
highs. Darren Sproles’ 2,696 combined yards rushing, receiving and on returns
also established a new NFL single-season best.

Those records were only a sampling of the history New Orleans made this
season, though all that will mean a lot less if they suffer an early exit from
the playoffs.

Last season, the Saints won 11 games and were expected to roll past a
Seahawks squad that was the first division winner in NFL history with a losing
record. The Seahawks wound up celebrating an upset, and the Saints like to think
now that they learned from it.

“It helps that you’ve been through it and experienced a tough loss in a
game you were expected to win in a crucial time,” safety Roman Harper said.
“If you don’t show up and play with a sense of urgency and discipline, a team
can beat you. … If you don’t come prepared with a sense of urgency, you will
get your tail kicked in this league.”

The Saints have been building momentum for two months now, winning eight
straight games, including six by double digits. They’ve outscored their last
three opponents 132-53 combined. Two of those victories came against division
foes who had been playing well lately in Atlanta and Carolina.

On Sunday against the Panthers, the Saints could have begun resting starters
early in the second half, when their chances of improving their No. 3 seeding
diminished as second-seed San Francisco pulled away from St. Louis. Instead, the
Saints chose an aggressive approach that turned a one-score halftime lead into a
45-17 blowout.

In the process, they solidified their credentials as a playoff favorite,
even if they didn’t get a top-two seeding in the NFC and will have to win three
postseason games to get back to the Super Bowl.

“Sean’s been saying for a couple of weeks now that if we just continue to
play like we’re playing and continue in the path we’re on, that a lot of teams
are not going to want to face us,” Harper said. “You can say that now, but
then if we go out and lose a game, it doesn’t really mean anything.”

Saints right tackle Zach Strief also was guarded about the significance of
the Saints’ recent sting of lopsided wins.

“This is a game that can turn quickly on you,” Strief said. “Us playing
well the last few weeks doesn’t give us anything but confidence going in. It
doesn’t give us a win.”

Payton said he was happy to see his players being recognized both for
individual and team records. For now, though, his message to his players is that
they need to maintain the team chemistry that helped them win big lately and
forget about the accolades already accrued—at least until the postseason ends.

“It’s such a team sport,” Payton said. “It seems like the last two weeks
there’s been a lot of talk about individual accomplishments, as there should be
with the passing record, Darren Sproles. … (But) this is the time of year when
the focus really shifts to us playing our best football as a team.”

It comes up a lot, the comparisons to the 2009 team, but this year’s New Orleans Saints are different in a lot of ways than that team that won the franchise’s first Super Bowl.

The Saints lost three straight to end the ’09 regular season and didn’t seem to be playing their best football.

“We kind of had our crisis situation at the end of the season,” said linebacker Scott Shanle. “This year it was early in the season against St. Louis. i think since that game we’ve gotten better every week. It feels good to be peaking right now, but we have a whole new season ahead of us. We’ll have to put this season behind us and get ready for the new season.”

That will probably be easy to do, at least according to Carolina coach Ron Rivera.

He says the Saints are a team nobody wants to face at this point.

“We caught a football team that is on a roll,” he said. “When you put the tape on and watch how they played against Atlanta and watch how they played against us and the first thing you say to yourself is ‘I hope that we don’t have to play them.’ That’s what’s going to happen.

“Whoever is playing them is playing a very good football team on a hot roll right now. They are gong to have a lot of momentum going forward.”

NEW ORLEANS — Drew Brees and the record-setting Saints held nothing back in their season finale, heading into the playoffs in dominant fashion.

Brees passed for 389 yards and five touchdowns, and the New Orleans Saints set a slew of NFL and club records in a 45-17 blowout of the Carolina Panthers today.

The NFL single-season records set by the Saints (13-3), who head into the playoffs on an eight-game winning streak, included offensive yards with 7,474, team yards passing with 5,347 and first downs with 416.

New Orleans will host the Lions in the opening round of the NFC playoffs.

Brees, who was 28 of 35, finished with a record 468 completions this season, breaking Peyton Manning’s 2010 mark of 450. He finished the season completing 71.6 percent of his passes, breaking his own 2009 NFL record 70.6 completion percentage.

Jimmy Graham had 97 yards receiving to finish with 1,310, exceeding Kellen Winslow’s 1980 record for a tight end. But New England’s Rob Gronkowski finished with 1,327 yards, establishing a new mark.

Darren Sproles had 40 yards rushing, 29 yards receiving and 99 yards on kickoff and punt returns to finish with season with an NFL record 2,969 combined yards, easily breaking the previous mark of 2,690, set by Derrick Mason with Tennessee in 2000.

Carolina (6-10), which had won four of five, kept up for much of the first half but wilted over the final two quarters.

Marques Colston caught Brees’ first two scoring passes, making a spectacular, spinning catch with arms outstretched on the first one from 15 yards out.

Colston’s second touchdown went for 42 yards, and he finished with seven catches for 145 yards. He broke the 1,000-yard mark for the fifth time in his six pro seasons.

Brees also connected with Graham on a 19-yard scoring strike, and added TD passes of 9 yards to Darren Sproles and 1 yard to fullback Jed Collins.

Graham’s TD catch was his 11th, matching a club record also reached by Joe Horn in 2004 and Colston in 2007.

Brees surpassed 300 yards passing for the seventh straight game and 13th time this season, both NFL records he already held and simply extended.

The records come one week after Brees passed Dan Marino’s 27-yard-old single-season record of 5,084 yards passing.

Brees finished the season with 5,476 yards to go with 46 touchdown passes.
Remarkably, Brees didn’t even play most of the fourth quarter for the second time in three games. As was the case in a 42-20 win at Minnesota two weeks earlier, Brees was relieved by Chase Daniel after the Saints had built a commanding lead.

Although San Francisco’s lopsided victory means the Saints could not improve their No. 3 seeding in the NFC playoffs, coach Sean Payton had said during the past week that he wanted his team to continue building on the torrid pace it established during its second-half winning streak. He was true to his word, with aggressive play calling that produced a franchise record 617 yards of total offense. It was the 13th 400-yard game for the Saints this season.

With six touchdowns against Carolina, the Saints finished with 66 this season breaking the 2009 record of 64.

Cam Newton closed out an otherwise spectacular rookie season 15 of 25 for 158 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

The Saints had 360 yards of total offense in the first half, when they easily blew past the Rams’ 2000 yardage mark.

Brees passed for 249 yards in the half, when he hit Colston for the Saints’ first two passing touchdowns.

Both defenses struggled for much of the half, and the each time might have scored more if not for Patrick Robinson’s interception of Newton in the Saints’ end zone and R.J. Stanford’s interception of Brees deep in Panthers territory.

Chris Ivory gave the Saints a 7-0 lead on the opening series of the game with his 35-yard touchdown.

The improving Panthers hit right back with Newton’s 12-yard timing pass to Smith to tie it. Later, Jonathan Stewart’s 29-yard scoring run pulled the Panthers into a tie at 17 with 1:18 to go in the second quarter.

That was too much time for Brees and the Saints’ high-flying offense, as Brees connected on his long TD pass to Colston with 7 seconds on the clock to make it 24-17 at halftime.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The New Orleans Saints set an NFL record for the most yards of offense in a season on Sunday, while Drew Brees broke Peyton Manning‘s 2010 mark for single-season completions.

The 2000 St. Louis Rams held the previous net yardage mark of 7,075. New Orleans eclipsed that in the second quarter of Sunday’s season finale against the Carolina Panthers on a pass from Brees to Robert Meachem before finishing with 7,474.

Brees also wound up completing 71.2 percent of his passes for the season, eclipsing his own 2009 record of 70.6.

Brees completed 28 of 35 passes for 389 yards, giving him 468 completions, which easily broke Peyton Manning’s record 250 completions last season.

In the third quarter, Brees surpassed 300 yards passing for the seventh straight game and 13th time this season, both NFL records he already held and simply extended.

Having broken Dan Marino’s 27-yard-old single-season record 5,084 yards passing last week, Brees maintained the record by increasing his final season total to 5,476 yards, 241 yards ahead of New England’s Tom Brady, who became only the third NFL quarterback to pass for more than 5,000 yards in a season.

The Saints closed out 2011 with 5,347 net yards passing, another NFL record, again topping the 2000 Rams, who passed for 5,232. New Orleans team completion percentage for the season of 71.3 was yet another league record, breaking the mark of 70.7 set by the 1982 Cincinnati Bengals in a strike-shortened season.

Darren Sproles had 40 yards rushing, 29 yards receiving and 99 yards on kickoff and punt returns to finish with season with an NFL record 2,969 combined yards, easily breaking the previous mark of 2,690, set by Derrick Mason with Tennessee in 2000.

Jimmy Graham caught eight passes for 97 yards, giving him 1,310 on the season, surpassing Kellen Winslow’s 1980 record of 1,290 yards receiving by a tight end. However, New England tight end Rob Gronkowski finished the day with the record in his possession at 1,327 yards.

By not fumbling once against Carolina, the Saints set a league mark for fewest fumbles in a season with six.

They also had 416 first downs for the season, 18 more than the previous record set by Kansas City in 2004.

With their 45-17 victory over the Panthers, New Orleans boosted its season point total to 547, smashing the 2009 franchise record of 510. The Saints’ 2011 point total ranks third in NFL history. New England holds that record with 589 points in 2007.

Combined with Chris Ivory’s TD run, Brees’ five scoring passes gave the Saints 66 touchdowns on the season, surpassing the 2009 club record of 64.

Brees’ 46 touchdown passes are a franchise record and led the NFL this season, one ahead of Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, who did not play in the Packers’ season finale.

Saints punter Thomas Morstead broke his own franchise record of 45.9 yards per punt last year with an average of 47.9 this season.

Other club records for a season included yards per play (6.7), yards per rush (4.9), fewest turnovers (19), punting average (46.9) and third-down conversions (118).