New Orleans Saints

The New Orleans Saints have played at such a high level lately that there’s been more drama about which records would be broken rather than whether or not the Saints would win. As a Saints fan, the last two weeks have been surreal as one NFL record after another fell by the wayside. That trend continued on Sunday as the Saints dominated the Panthers 45-17 and laid waste to more records.

New Orleans Saints vs. Carolina Panthers

Despite the incessant stat watch that took place during the FOX broadcast of the Saints vs. Panthers game, I was much more interested in scoreboard watching. As nice as it is for the Saints to now own all these records, it was more important for New Orleans to keep their fleeting chances at a first round bye alive.

Personally, I was glad to see New Orleans give 100% because I despise the Panthers loud-mouths Steve Smith and Jeremy Shockey. Also, it seems like every year, an NFC South also-ran picks up a cheap win over the Saints in the last game because New Orleans rests its starters. However, the Panthers received no such gift from the Saints today.

I believe New Orleans has been playing so well that Sean Payton wanted to keep that momentum going against the Panthers. Brees was on fire and torched the Panthers for 389 yards and 5 TDs. He finished the regular season with 5,476 passing yards. And it was nice seeing the Atlanta Falcons and Panthers get humbled in the last two games.

I was also happy to see New Orleans feed the ball to Darren Sproles so he could break the NFL all-purpose yardage record. I wonder if the critics will complain about that too. All in all, it was a great day for the Saints. New Orleans stayed sharp by dismantling the Panthers, they broke some more records and most importantly they stayed healthy.

Looking ahead

Thanks to the St. Louis Rams, the Saints will have to play next week. The Green Bay Packers defeated the Detroit Lions and the Falcons embarrassed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who quit a long time ago. So now the Saints get to face the Lions as New Orleans begins its quest to win a second Super Bowl in three years.

Patrick Michael was born and raised in New Orleans and currently resides in the Big Easy. As such, he is a lifelong, diehard New Orleans Saints fan. His highlight as a Saints fan was experiencing the magical Super Bowl season of 2009.

Sources

FOX broadcast of Carolina Panthers vs. New Orleans Saints

“Week 17 Scoreboard,” yahoo.com

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The New Orleans Saints’ 45-16 demolition of the visiting Atlanta Falcons on Dec. 26 took me to another place and time. As ESPN aired footage of the 1984 Miami Dolphins and quarterback Dan Marino’s record-setting season, my mind was stuck elsewhere.

It felt like 2009 all over again.

The relentless and precise passing attack.

The power running game.

The opportunistic defense.

The steady special teams.

And the aggressive attitude from start to finish.

The formula was devastatingly effective in 2009, and it’s working for the Saints again this season. Build big leads with the high-powered offense, force the opponent to play a one-dimensional game of catch-up, turn the defense loose and finish the job with a power rushing attack.

“It’s the same thing we did in 2009,” linebacker Scott Shanle said. “I’m seeing the chemistry and the confidence that we had when we were going on that run in 2009.”

And that should be a scary thought for the rest of the NFL.

A win against the visiting Carolina Panthers today would vault the Saints into select company, matching the Super Bowl XLIV champs for the best mark in club history at 13-3.

And while this season’s team might never be as special as the 2009 group, they might be better. They’re unquestionably deeper, but whether they can play with the same raison d’être the 2009 bunch did remains to be seen.

Regardless, you can make a strong case that the Saints are the best team in the NFL, and the league is much stronger top to bottom than it was two years ago. The Saints’ running game is better than the Green Bay Packers’ running game, their defense is better than the New England Patriots’ defense, and their offense is better than the San Francisco 49ers’ offense.

These Saints have followed a different arc then they did in 2009, when they opened with 13 consecutive wins and stumbled home with three consecutive losses.

This season the Saints are doing exactly the opposite. They piddled around for much of the first half of the season, going 5-3, which included a stunning loss at woeful St. Louis on Oct. 30.

Since then, the Saints have been unbeatable. They’ve blitzed through the second half of their schedule, outscoring their opponents by an eye-popping average of two touchdowns per game. Their current seven-game winning streak is tied for the best in the NFL. Moreover, they might be healthier than any team in the league.

“We’re extremely confident,” quarterback Drew Brees said.

They should be. The past two months have been the most consistent stretch of dominant football we’ve seen since the first two months of 2009.

The offense is scary good. The Saints have converted an astonishing 56.3 percent of their third downs and will eclipse the 2000 Rams’ NFL record for most yards gained in a season during today’s game.

The passing attack is more prolific, and the running game has transformed from afterthought to weapon. The Saints have rushed for 100 or more yards in six of seven games since the ugly loss to the Rams in Week 8. They’ve topped 160 yards the past two weeks. They’re averaging 4.8 yards per carry, fifth best in the NFL. Their fourth running back, Chris Ivory, led them in rushing a year ago and would start for many teams.

Likewise, the defense has improved dramatically. The Saints have allowed just three first-half touchdowns in the second half of the season and have once again become stout in the red zone. The only teams to score more than 20 points on them in regulation were the Falcons in Atlanta (23) and the Giants (24), and most of New York’s damage was done in fourth-quarter mop-up time.

Once a sieve, the Saints’ run defense now is a stone wall. In successive weeks, they’ve rendered Tennessee’s Chris Johnson, Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson and Atlanta’s Michael Turner non-factors, while holding their past four opponents to just 71.5 rushing yards per game.

“We’re swarming to the ball as well as we have all year,” Shanle said. “You know you’re playing good defense when you come out of the game saying, ‘Man, I didn’t have any open-field tackles in this game.’”

The improved defense and running game have elevated the Saints into the league’s elite ranks. They now stand toe to toe with anyone, including Green Bay.

Make no mistake, the Packers remain the team to beat. They’ve secured a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Someone will have to beat them at Lambeau Field, where they’ve won 12 consecutive games and beaten their seven opponents this season by an average of 20.5 points. And they’ll have to do it in January, when the tundra almost surely will be frozen.

But the second half of the season has shown the Packers are vulnerable. A Week 15 loss to the woeful Kansas City Chiefs exposed cracks in the armor. Injuries continue to be an issue, as does Green Bay’s leaky run defense.

As the Packers have regressed, albeit ever so slightly, the Saints have surged. The hallmark of a good team is the improvement it makes over the course of the season, and the Saints are much stronger than they were in Week 1. And they’ll need to be because unlike 2009, they’ll likely have to go on the road in inclement conditions to reach the big game. Their improved defense and running game will make them a much tougher out than they were a year ago.

Indeed, if anyone can knock off the Packers in Green Bay, it’s the Saints. The teams have been a collision course with the NFC championship game since opening night.

But first, the Saints must handle the Panthers.

For all of the records, awards and accomplishments of the Sean Payton era, one relatively simple feat has eluded them. They’ve never won a regular-season finale. Amazingly, they’re 0-5 in season finales during the Payton-Brees era. Three of those losses came to Panthers, a fact Payton undoubtedly has mentioned this week.

That’s not the reason why Payton said he plans to play his regulars today, but it’s certainly a worthy incentive. The Saints proved in 2009 late-season momentum is overrated. For this team at this time, though, it’s imperative they maintain their upward arc.

For the Saints to accomplish what the 2009 team did, they must keep their foot on the accelerator.

New Orleans Saints offensive tackle Jermon Bushrod said he was “pretty shocked” to learn he had been named to the NFC’s Pro Bowl roster Tuesday. “But,” he said, “it was definitely awesome news.”

“Just having the opportunity to be voted in is such an extreme blessing,” said Bushrod, a fourth-round draft pick out of Towson in 2007 who became a starter during the 2009 preseason. “I never would’ve thought in a million years I’d have this opportunity, in the same way as winning a Super Bowl two years ago.”

Bushrod, who has only allowed three sacks this season, has developed into a major part of the Saints’ offensive success. He was one of five members of that prolific offense selected to the Pro Bowl on Tuesday, joining quarterback Drew Brees, guards Jahri Evans and Carl Nicks and tight end Jimmy Graham, a fellow first-timer.

“Guys have good seasons if the team’s doing well,” Bushrod said. “And I just think as a team, we’re jelling right now. We just have to keep it up.”

After obliterating the NFL record books this year, the New Orleans Saints’ offense is now taking over the Pro Bowl too. For the first time in franchise history, five offensive players were invited to the annual all-star game, including first-time selections tight end Jimmy Graham and offensive tackle Jermon Bushrod.

They joined quarterback Drew Brees and guards Carl Nicks and Jahri Evans, thanks to a combination of votes by fans, players and coaches. Graham, Evans and Nicks are starters. No defensive players or special teamers made the team.

This is the third straight year the Saints have had at least five Pro Bowlers, though they’re all hoping to skip the game to play in the Super Bowl instead, like they did two years ago. This year’s game will be played in Honolulu on Sunday, Jan. 29, one week before Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis.

It’s no surprise that the Saints landed five offensive players in the game – including Brees, who was selected for the fifth time in the last six years. Brees broke Dan Marino’s NFL record for the most passing yards in a single season on Monday night, reaching 5,087 yards with one game to spare. And the entire offense is on pace to break the 2000 St. Louis Rams’ NFL record of 7,075 yards in a season, among other marks.

Graham also has a shot at NFL history. He needs 68 yards in Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Carolina Panthers to break Kellen Winslow’s 31-year-old NFL record of 1,290 receiving yards by a tight end. However, Graham also needs to pass up New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who is six yards ahead of him right now during a league-wide tight end revolution.

In just his second NFL season, Graham has put together one of the most prolific seasons by a tight end in NFL history, with 91 catches for 1,213 yards and 10 touchdowns.

 

“Being selected to represent the NFC team in the Pro Bowl is a tremendous honor,” Graham said in a statement released by the team. “If you look around the NFC, you see a ton of amazing and talented players at tight end and to be thought of in that company by my peers, the head coaches and the fans who follow the NFL is something I take seriously. I think it goes without saying that there are many people to thank–starting with my position coach, Terry Malone, our offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael and Coach (Sean) Payton. None of this would be possible without working with guys like Drew Brees, our running backs and receivers and the guys in the tight ends room. David Thomas has been a great mentor, as was Jeremy Shockey, and I have learned a lot from each guy who has worked with me over the past two seasons. My focus right now isn’t on going to Hawaii, it’s on the Carolina Panthers and getting ready for the playoffs, but I think any guy who gets named to the Pro Bowl realizes that it’s a heck of compliment and I am grateful and humbled by it.”

Bushrod’s selection was a breakthrough moment for the fifth-year pro and third-year starter. The recognition is certainly due after he’s flown mostly under the radar in his young career. He has only allowed three sacks this season while protecting Brees’ blind side.

Evans and Nicks are widely considered the NFL’s best guard tandem, thanks to the way they create a secure pocket for Brees to step into, as well as the way the block for run plays and screen passes. This is the third straight Pro Bowl selection for Evans and the second straight for Nicks.

The list of Pro Bowl alternates was not immediately released, though it’s likely the Saints could earn more invites down the road when replacement players are needed.

One day Baylen and Bowen Brees will tell their friends about the night their father broke the NFL record for passing yards in a season. They’ll talk about how it came on the day after Christmas against the archrival Atlanta Falcons on the game’s biggest stage, “Monday Night Football.”

But the Brees boys won’t tell the whole story, because they might have been the only ones in New Orleans who didn’t actually see Drew Brees break Dan Marino’s hallowed 27-year-old milestone in dramatic fashion, making America and an anxious crowd wait until his final pass to eclipse the mark of 5,084 yards set in 1984.

“They were home sleeping,” Brees said of his sons, minutes after his record-setting performance in a euphoric 45-16 rout of the Falcons. “But they may have felt the reverberation in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.”

The Saints (12-3) have played a lot of big games in the Dome during the Brees-Sean Payton era. And this one will rank right up there with the cathartic NFC championship game victory against the Vikings, the astonishing rout of the Patriots in 2009 and the inspirational come-from-behind win against the Texans on the five-year anniversary of the Dome-coming game with Steve Gleason in the house.

The stakes were bigger but as far as moments go, only Gleason’s blocked punt, Garrett Hartley’s field goal and Tracy Porter’s interception might match this one for sheer dramatics.

Few in the stadium will forget the moment when the record fell. Let the record show the milestone tumbled on a 9-yard touchdown reception to Darren Sproles with 2 minutes, 51 seconds remaining.

“Just an amazing feeling, an amazing moment,” Brees said after the exclamation point of his 307-yard, four-touchdown night that leaves him with 5,087 yards for the season. “We couldn’t have made it more dramatic could we? … It makes me feel good. I think we made a lot of people happy tonight.”

Brees went out of his way to deflect talk of the record last week. He said he was trying to numb himself to conversation. But it was a futile effort. Everywhere he went it was the topic of discussion.

Afterward it was clear how important it was to him. He carried the game ball from the touchdown under his left arm for several minutes on the sideline as a parade of teammates lined up for congratulatory hugs. He addressed his teammates for several minutes in the post-game locker room after receiving the game ball.

Payton appropriately made a point of recognizing the history of the occasion afterward in the locker room. Marino’s record, after all, had stood for 27 years. Some of the game’s greatest quarterbacks ­– Joe Montana; Steve Young; Brett Favre; Kurt Warner; Peyton Manning; Tom Brady — have aired it out in the league since then and not broken it.

“Obviously, it’s a special moment for the players and especially Drew,” said Payton, still sporting a large smudge of eye black from his emotional hug with Brees after the record. “I couldn’t be more proud of him. … It was special. There are certain things you remember. It was significant.”

In 2008, Brees fell 15 yards and one incompletion to Lance Moore short of the record. That year, he insisted he was unaware of how close he was to the mark as the Saints frantically tried to rally in a close loss to the Panthers.

This time, there was no doubt about it. Everyone in the stadium held their collective breath as Brees methodically marched down the field.

As Sproles streaked into the end zone, Brees thrust his fists into the air and was swarmed by the entire offense into a roiling dogpile. Payton and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael thrust their fists into the air simultaneously.

“That was one of the best feelings I’ve had as a Saint,” said guard Carl Nicks, who wrapped Brees in a bear hug and lifted him over his head as teammates swarmed to congratulate him. “This was probably better than the NFC championship. It was like a movie. It’s a beautiful ending.”

Afterward, Payton admitted he eschewed traditional end-of-game strategy to make a run at the record down the stretch. He said he felt it was appropriate to go for the mark at that time. And I agree wholeheartedly.

With all due respect to the Falcons (9-6), the Saints needed to get the record out of the way. It had become the 500-pound elephant in the locker room for the past month. The last thing they needed was to deal with the issue for another week.

Now they can focus on the playoffs and the main priority: another Super Bowl run.

Indeed, the record became so big it eclipsed the game, which, in itself, was substantial. The Saints secured the NFC South Division title with the win and clinched either the No. 2 or No. 3 seed along with it.

They still have an outside shot at the No. 2 seed but would need help from an unlikely source Sunday to earn it. They need to defeat the Carolina Panthers and hope the 2-13 St. Louis Rams can somehow upset San Francisco (12-3) to knock the 49ers out of the No. 2 seed.

That means Brees and company will be forced to play most of the way in their battle with the Panthers. He’ll get a chance to add to his record and keep distance between himself and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who trails him by only 190 passing yards.

“You do have to enjoy these things because you don’t how often they are going to come around,” Brees said. “They’re rare.”

Indeed, it was a rare night. And even rarer was the quarterback who made it so special.