New Orleans Saints quarterback Chase Daniel played an essential role on the night that Drew Brees broke Dan Marino’s passing yardage record. Daniel was the go-to guy on the sideline for teammates who wanted to know how close Brees was to the record.

Or as Brees often calls him, he was “Statman.”

During the season, Daniel said he always kept up with the various records that Brees and the team were chasing, since he’s so active on Twitter and follows various media reports.

“Then he’ll always come up to me and say, ‘Do you want to know what record you just set,’” Brees said, chiding Daniel from the next locker.

Daniel said he found out how many yards Brees needed during halftime of the Saints’ Week 16 game against the Atlanta Falcons, then he kept the running tally in his head after that. He said teammates kept coming up to him to find out the target number.

Brees outed Daniel as the team’s mathematician during pregame interviews last week with FOX, which then revealed the details during last week’s broadcast.

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 Saints quarterback Drew Bree’s records set on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.

· Brees, who set the NFL single-season record for passing yards last Monday night against Atlanta, set two more single-season marks Sunday, for completions and completion percentage. Brees’ final season totals: 468 completions (an NFL record), 657 attempts, 71.2 percent completion percentage (NFL record), 5,476 yards (NFL record) and 46 touchdowns.

· Brees broke his own record for completion percentage (70.6, 2009) and topped Peyton Manning’s mark for completions (450, 2010).

· Sunday marked Brees’ 13th 300-yard passing game of the season, extending his own NFL record, and his seventh consecutive 300-yard game, another NFL mark. Brees has 50 games of 300 yards or more in six seasons with the Saints.

· Brees’ franchise-record 46 touchdown passes are the most in the NFL this season and the fourth most in NFL history (Tom Brady 50, 2007; Peyton Manning 49, 2004; Dan Marino 48, 1984).

· Brees will take a streak of 43 consecutive games with a touchdown pass, second-longest in NFL history, into the 2012 season. Johnny Unitas holds the NFL record of 47 consecutive games.

· Brees also extended his NFL-record streak of games with 20 or more completions to 35.

· Brees’ big day elevated his season passer rating to 110.6, breaking his own franchise record of 109.4 set in 2009.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — Coach Sean Payton has spent the past year regretting how he handled the Saints’ 2010 regular-season finale. He hopes he can get it right this time when New Orleans (12-3) hosts the Carolina Panthers (6-9).

As the 2011 season comes to a close, Payton’s dilemma is similar to one he faced when the Saints closed last season with a loss to Tampa Bay that turned out to have no effect on playoff seeding, but was costly nonetheless because of injuries to emerging tight end Jimmy Graham, starting safety Malcolm Jenkins and then-leading rusher Chris Ivory.

The next week, the short-handed Saints opened the playoffs in Seattle and went home with a loss.

Today, the Saints could climb as high as the No. 2 seed in the NFC — worth a bye and a second-round home game — if they win, but only if heavily favored San Francisco also loses at 2-13 St. Louis in a game going on at the same time as the Saints’.

While Payton has been known to say one thing during the week and do another on game day, it sounds as though he’s preparing his top players for significant action — regardless of the San Francisco score — with the aim of riding the momentum of an eight-game winning streak into the playoffs.

“We talked about it at length,” Payton said. “We’re going to play all of our guys. There’s still seeding at stake. I know it’s similar to a year ago. I think we’re getting better as a team week to week right now, and there’s a value in that. … That progress might be something we need going into this postseason.”

There are also matters of pride.

The Saints’ offense has been a history-making group this season. Drew Brees on Monday night took over the NFL single-season record for passing yards with 5,087, eclipsing Dan Marino’s 1984 mark of 5,084.

Although it took 27 years for Marino’s mark to fall, New England’s Tom Brady is one game away from passing Brees if the Saints quarterback either doesn’t play well or sits out a significant portion today.

Meanwhile, the Saints also are only 219 yards from breaking the 2000 Rams’ NFL record of 7,075 offensive yards in a season.

The Saints also have a chance to finish a regular season with a perfect home record for the first time.

Panthers coach Ron Rivera said he will prepare for New Orleans’ best, but would understand if Payton played it safe and limited playing time for some of his stars.

“They’ve got a chance to do all those things, but he’s got to look at what happened last year (when) they had a couple guys getting nicked up before their playoff game,” Rivera said. “He’s got to make a decision, and whatever decision he makes is what he believes is right for his team. Believe me, it’s a hard decision, too.”

Rivera said his experience shows there is no definite pattern, which makes finding the right answer so difficult.

Rivera was defensive coordinator for the 2009 San Diego Chargers, who finished the regular season on an 11-game winning streak, then came off their bye week flat and lost their first playoff game.

“It’s all about winning,” Rivera said. “There’s only going to be one happy team out of 32, and I think what (Payton is) thinking about is that (playoff) run.”

Rivera is thinking about next season, which looks increasingly promising for his club. Quarterback Cam Newton has set a rookie record with 3,893 passing yards and the Panthers have the third-best running game in the NFL with DeAngelo Williams, Jonathan Stewart and the dynamic Newton leading the way.

Earlier this season, the Panthers were competitive in several close games that got away from them in crunch time. Lately, they’ve been able to close out games, winning four of five.

“It’s just kind of things developing and coming together and our maturing process,” Rivera said, adding that a win over the Saints could send his players into the offseason with the belief that they’re on the cusp of contention.

“You can help set a tempo for your team going into next year by playing well against a playoff-caliber team.”

Payton and Brees agreed that recent game film of Carolina shows a team that has improved since losing to the Saints 30-27 in October.

Payton said Newton is a unique quarterback whose running ability is nearly impossible to simulate in practice.

Brees said Carolina’s recent ascent is all the more reason for the Saints to take today’s game seriously.

“We understand how good this Carolina team is coming here and how even though we don’t necessarily control our own destiny … our mindset is we want to go into the playoffs playing our best football,” Brees said. “We don’t feel like we did that last year.”

The Panthers may be 6-9 entering today’s game, but one thing in certain — they have plenty of optimism.

The team is buoyed by the thought of what Newton might accomplish with a full offseason to work with coaches. What’s more, 16 players are coming off injuries and the bulk of the roster is under contract.

“I don’t think there’s any question, everyone in this locker room is excited about next year,” tight end Greg Olsen said.

For the second consecutive week, fans have voted Saints quarterback Drew Brees the FedEx Air player of the week. With the prize goes another $2,000 contribution in Brees’ name to local Junior Achievement chapters.

Brees broke Dan Marino’s NFL single season passing yardage record last Monday night as the Saints clinched the NFC South title with a 45-16 whipping of the Atlanta Falcons. For the night, Brees completed 23 of 39 passes for 307 yards and four touchdowns.