The New Orleans Saints have won six straight Monday Night Football games, dating back to 2008, which is the longest streak in the NFL according to ESPN.com. That streak includes a dominating 49-24 victory over the New York Giants last month, and they Saints are hoping to keep it alive Monday against the Atlanta Falcons in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

Saints Coach Sean Payton has a simple explanation for the Saints’ Monday night streak: The Saints have simply been a good team in general over that stretch.

“I think we’ve been able to that because I think we’re a better football team than maybe in years past,” Payton said. “And we get comfortable to a schedule or a routine, I think, like all the teams do. I think it comes down to the execution and understanding how to focus for that three-hour period to play your best football. And chances are the team that does that this upcoming Monday night will be the team that’s most successful.”

There is the quick update of the day.

The New Orleans Saints’ final injury report looks promising for Monday night’s showdown against the Atlanta Falcons in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Guard Jahri Evans (knee) returned to practice on a limited basis Saturday and is listed as probable. Linebackers Jonathan Vilma (knee) and Ramon Humber (knee) and defensive tackles Sedrick Ellis (hamstring) and Aubrayo Franklin (ankle) are also probable.

Receiver Lance Moore (hamstring) is listed as questionable after being held out of team drills on Saturday. His hamstring tightened up on him during the week, according to Coach Sean Payton, but the team is hoping he’ll have enough time to get better before Monday night’s game.

Tailback Mark Ingram (turf toe) and linebacker Jonathan Casillas (knee) are both listed as doubtful for Monday’s game, but both players are on the mend. Casillas participated in team drills on a limited basis Friday, while Ingram participated in individual drills.

When asked if it might be getting too late for Ingram to return to action this season after being sidelined for the past three weeks, Payton said, “No, not at all. Not at all. He’s getting better, and I think he has a good chance to play next week.”

The Falcons’ biggest injury concerns are at cornerback. Top corner Brent Grimes is questionable with a knee injury after being limited in practice all week. Veteran corner Kelvin Hayden is doubtful with a toe injury.

Linebacker Stephen Nicholas (toe) and receiver Kerry Meier (groin) are also doubtful. Everyone else on the Falcons’ injury report is listed as probable.

What are your opinions.

Posted: Monday, December 05, 2011, 12:02 AM

Times-Picayune columnist Jeff Duncan breaks down the Saints’ 31-17 victory against the Detroit Lions at the Superdome on Sunday night.

If anybody needs tickets to games, remember to click the tickets link at the top.

The encomiums are pouring in for Saints quarterback Drew Brees almost as quickly as he accumulates passing yards. After his Monday night performance, a five-touchdown masterpiece that earned Brees NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors, pundits throughout the land have apparently rediscovered his excellence and overnight have anointed the Saints as the one team that can perhaps knock off the undefeated Green Bay juggernaut.

Brees’ latest outing was the most heralded and one of the most watched in what could be a season for the NFL record book. Brees’ 2011 exploits have penciled his name there in several categories, but should he continue at the same torrid pace he will be on the verge of some marks believed to have been written in indelible ink.

Brees is already fielding questions about such milestones — most noticeably, Dan Marino’s single-season record of 5,084 passing yards that has stood since 1984 — and has handled them with his characteristic candor.

“Absolutely,” he said again Monday night when asked if he covets such records personally. “But only in the framework of winning.”

There is no doubt, however, that internally Brees considers himself capable of setting such lofty records, and that, less probably, he felt like he could have moved further toward reaching them and done more Monday night to help the Saints in their 49-24 rout of the Giants to move to 8-3.

“I could have been more efficient,” Brees said. “I’m hard on myself. Obviously, I expect perfection. I understand that’s impossible to achieve, yet you’re always striving for it.”

Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers and New England’s Tom Brady also are on pace to break Marino’s record, which has perhaps made Brees’ statistics less glittering. Certainly it has made the spotlight on that record less of a distraction than it was when Brees made a solo run at it in 2008, a fact he noted last week.

In other areas, however, he stands alone. And those records underline a truth coming into clearer focus, namely that Brees’ career now travels two, albeit mutually inclusive, tracks. One is the team track, which Brees always proclaims paramount; the one that leads to Super Bowls and the chance for Saints players to slide yet another championship ring on a finger. The second is a solo track, and its final stop is in Canton, Ohio, where Brees may one day don a golden blazer and cradle a bust of himself as he is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Brees doesn’t talk about Canton, but his peers now do. After Monday night’s game, former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer brought it up while praising Brees’ accuracy, which he put on a par with San Francisco’s Hall of Fame signal-callers Joe Montana and Steve Young.

“There’s a foundation to the position that all the greats have it, all the Hall of Famers have it,” Dilfer said. “Anticipation, timing, but most important location — where you locate the ball. These balls are so perfectly thrown to very good players, it allows them to work after the catch. So when you add a bunch of perfect throws up in the course of a football game, what separates the great quarterbacks from the good quarterback and the good from the average is the ability to put the ball exactly where you’re looking.”

As might be expected, Brees owns virtually all of the Saints’ passing records. On Tuesday morning, much was made of individual records he set against the Giants, such as becoming the first player to throw for more than 350 yards and four touchdowns and also run for a touchdown on “Monday Night Football.”

Such arcane marks are of no concern to Brees. If it means he is the first Purdue or Big Ten quarterback to set them, two associations in which he takes enormous pride, then Brees would profess some satisfaction. Otherwise, he brushes aside postgame questions about them, especially after a loss.

On the other hand, Brees is chasing or holds some other records that speak about his professional consistency and that place him solidly among the game’s greatest. For example, although it is under threat in 2011 (by Brees himself, among others) his 70.6 percent completion rate in the 2009 season is the best ever.

In addition, he is the second NFL quarterback to throw for more than 25 touchdowns in six straight seasons. That only places him second all-time to a mark that might be as unbreakable as Cy Young’s 511 wins in baseball: Peyton Manning threw for more than 25 touchdowns in 13 consecutive seasons.

Brees is much closer to equaling Manning in another impressive category in which they now stand 1 and 2 all-time. Brees is the second player in NFL history to throw for more than 4,000 yards in five consecutive seasons, and, with 3,689 yards already accumulated in 2011, he is virtually a lock to push that streak to six seasons. That would tie him with Manning, who did so from 1999 to 2004.

Brees also is in range of a record long thought to be unbreakable: Johnny Unitas’ mark of throwing a touchdown pass in 47 consecutive games. Brees has done so in 38 consecutive games. He passed Brett Favre for second at Atlanta in Week 10 and would break the record in his fifth game of the 2012 season.

The game against the Giants showcased Brees at his best, and not only in his terrific overall stats. On one play, for instance, Brees somehow eluded the grasp of one Giants defensive lineman, scrambled toward the Saints’ sideline where he stiff-armed a second defender aside, and then launched a short pass to running back Pierre Thomas while airborne over the line of scrimmage.

The Giants challenged the play, alleging Brees had crossed the line of scrimmage when he threw, but it stood after further review, and in his postgame analysis Young used it as a prime example of how Brees is sometimes shortchanged for his pure athleticism.

The second example came toward the end of the first half. After a Giants’ punt, the Saints took possession on their 12-yard line. Brees needed just 34 seconds to take the Saints to the end zone, using a 10-yard pass to wide receiver Lance Moore for a touchdown that polished off an extraordinary drive that left New York reeling at halftime.

Afterward, Brees acknowledged his first thought on that drive was to seek a field goal. But after he and Marques Colston got 50 yards on the first play, his goal changed.

The goals of the team, on the other hand, have not. Cornerback Jabari Greer spoke Tuesday about how Brees fits into that mold on a team that has “no larger-than-life personalities, Drew included.” It’s that mind-set, Greer said, much more than records, that appear to have the Saints operating at something close to peak form as the season enters its critical final phase.

“These guys are humble, they’re approachable, and they’re men of character,” Greer said. “We relate to him just like we relate to each other. Drew’s one of those guys that’s highly respected in the locker room and among the league. When he says something, we truly pay attention with any aspect. He’s a guy we truly listen to. Whatever role he decides to take on, I think he has our commitment to him and what he brings to this table.”

•••••••

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

That’s all the news for today.

Oxnard, Calif. — In “Last Resort,” the epic final track of Hotel California, the Eagles sang about the early settlers to the Golden State: “They called it paradise, the place to be.”

And for almost two centuries, Americans have trekked across the continent to enjoy the sand, surf and spectacular climate. Southern California has become the place to be for NFL teams seeking training camp heaven in recent years.

Like the Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys before them, the New Orleans Saints frolicked in football paradise Monday, the first of five days of workouts along the Pacific Coast.

The Saints whisked so efficiently through their practice they actually finished 20 minutes early.

The temperature when the workout ended was a crisp 67 degrees, and most important, the heat index said it “felt like” 67 degrees.

No one had to twist the arms of the 160 Saints players, coaches and staff to come here this week. There were smiles plastered on nearly every sun-tanned face in black-and-gold team issue gear Monday.

“It’s great,” said defensive tackle Sedrick Ellis, a native of nearby Chino Hills. “As soon as we got off the plane you could instantly feel that California air.”

The concern, of course, is this whole set-up might be too idyllic, that the Saints will have their heads on the sun and surf and less on blocking and tackling.

Indeed, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say Oxnard was as problematic as Houston in the Saints’ ugly 27-14 exhibition loss Saturday night. The Saints played like team with one cleat in the Texas turf and another in the California beaches. They were about as focused as a group of third-graders in their final class before spring break.

Saints players and coaches said Monday that wasn’t the case but their denials fell flat.

“Credit Houston,” linebacker Scott Shanle said. “They just steamrolled us.”

The pathetic performance might have been just what the Saints’ coaching staff ordered for this week.

“Camp is breaking for everybody else,” defensive line coach Bill Johnson said as he walked through the facility Monday afternoon. “We’re just starting; we’re ready to grind.”

Brees insisted the character of the Saints’ leaders will not allow the club to lose focus, “especially coming off a game like Saturday. We know we’ve got a lot of things we need to work on. There’s a huge sense of urgency while we’re here to make sure we get the work done.”

That’s the attitude the Saints need. Saturday’s ugly effort showed this team needs to focus on football and not folderol.

“With the way the schedule is set up, this isn’t a vacation by any means,” Shanle said.

Still, some Saints fans wondered when they read the tweets of some players on the day after the debacle.

Brees took in a surf contest Sunday morning, then took a group of more than a dozen teammates down the coast to see the ponies at Del Mar Race Track.

But they were hard at work Monday, and players and coaches insisted the weather would allow them to work harder and longer. They noted that there would be less distractions than at home.

Focus, they insisted, would not be a problem.

“Why not?” Ellis said. “If anything, you’re more focused. You’re not sweating a gallon of sweat.”

Of course, they said different things when they trained in steamy Jackson, Miss. There, the Saints talked about how the oppressive heat and humidity bolstered their mental toughness.

Training camp is training camp, regardless of the setting.

You get out of it what you put in. This is a week for work and not California dreamin’.

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