Maybe that’s why we heard the echoes of the classic-rock foursome of Pete, Roger, John and Keith as the Saints embarrassed the Patriots 38-17 in a game that cemented New Orleans as the NFL’s new boss and the team to beat here in 2009.
From Foxboro down to the Superdome, we’ve rarely seen a quarterback ring up the kind of numbers that Drew Brees did Monday – and we’ve never seen it against a Bill Belichick defense. Here are the pinball-tilting-sized numbers:
- 18 of 23 (78.3%), 371 yards, 16.13 YPA, 5 TD, 0 INT, 158.3 passer rating
The 78.3 completion percentage? Among the best ever against a Bill Belichick defense. The perfect passer rating? It tied a record against a Bill Belichick defense. The five TDs? A record against a Bill Belichick defense.
But the one number that leaps up to us is the 16.13 YPA. You know we love passing YPA as an indicator of success, and Brees' average Monday night is just awe-inspiring.
We knew 16.13 YPA was amazing the first time we looked at it in the postgame wrap-up. And thanks to the miracle of
the ProFootballReference game index, now we know how amazing: Brees last night became just one of five players in history to average more than 16.0 YPA (min. 20 attempts) – and he’s the first to do so in 34 years. Here’s the complete (and quite impressive) list:
Johnny Unitas, Colts vs. Falcons (1967)
20 attempts, 370 yards, 18.5 YPA
Joe Namath, Jets vs. Colts (1972)
28 attempts, 496 yards, 17.7 YPA
Charley Johnson, Broncos vs. Chiefs (1975)
20 attempts, 329 yards, 16.5 YPA
Sonny Jurgensen, Eagles vs. Cowboys (1962)
21 attempts, 342 yards, 16.3 YPA
Drew Brees, Saints vs. Patriots (2009)
23 attempts, 371 yards, 16.1 YPA
Put another way: Brees literally gave a performance for the ages Monday night. No coincidence that all these players (three of them in the HOF) earned high-scoring victories.
We don’t talk about injuries much here at Cold, Hard Football Facts, which often leads to a torrent of emails about so-and-so playing without what’s-his-face.
There’s a good reason for our system: 1) we look at numbers, not personalities, and it almost always works in our favor; and 2) there are very, very few players other than quarterbacks who have a material impact on the performance of their team. There are just too many moving parts in football. A team that’s prolific in a certain area is prolific because of the contributions of 11, 14, 15 different players.
This was one of those instances. Throughout the year, we’ve touted the
New Orleans pass defense as the best in the league, even though the offense generated all the attention and even though that defense was merely mediocre when measured by yards (a useless indicator of actual performance). In fact, some "pundits" were talking about the "average" New Orleans pass defense right up until kickoff Monday.
We got further evidence Monday night that we were right about the Saints D and right about football theory in general.
The Saints started two substitutes at cornerback, Randall Gay and Mike McKenzie. Gay even went out, and was replaced by another newly-hired, third-string newcomer.
It didn’t matter: the Saints system, the Gregg Williams system, the impact-player Darren Sharper system, shut down one of the best passing attacks in all of football. McKenzie, an NFL journeyman signed as a substitute by the Saints just last week, even recorded one of two picks for New Orleans.
New England's future Hall of Famer Tom Brady, future Hall of Famer Randy Moss and pint-sized pass-catching-machine Wes Welker were shut down the entire night.
Brady completed just 21 of 36 (58.3%) for 237 yards, 6.6 YPA, 0 TD, 2 INT and a 55.0 passer rating. It was one of the worst big-game performances of Brady’s career.
Moss was held to 3 catches for 67 yards and 0 TD. Welker caught 6 passes, but was immediately cut down after almost every single one, netting just 32 yards and 0 TD.
The substitute-filled Saints defense, meanwhile, continues to lead the league in Defensive Passer Rating (57.6) – a fact that only we pointed out last week – and continue to lead the league in INTs (22). Those are both winning numbers.
The brain behind Bill Belichick’s baby blues was once considered the best in the business. But that was a long time ago.
We caused a sh*t-storm among Patriots fans last year when we declared that
Bill Belichick had lost his mojo. These fans can apologize any time. Once again, in a big game, the Patriots defense folded like a paper airplane. In fact, this was embarrassing.
A Belichick defense Monday night surrendered five passing TDs for the first time in the coach’s career. In fact, only three other players had ever done it, and they were all named Manning: Peyton in 2003, Eli in 2007 and Peyton in 2009.
That’s two historically bad performances by Belichick’s D in the space of three games. That’s a trend, Patriots fans, and not a good one.
The days when Belichick could plug and play DBs like Hank Poteat and Randall Gay (who started for New Orleans Monday night) are long gone. And the coach has only himself to blame, thanks to a series of bad, bad drafts (and some questionable personnel decisions such as Richard Seymour/Mike Vrabel) that have haunted the Patriots since 2005 and will continue to do so in the years ahead.
Darren Sharper is and remains the Seeker for New Orleans, as in heat-seeker, as in missile, as in the destructive hit Sharper put on Kevin Faulk Monday night.
It’s a miracle Faulk walked off the field under his own power. It’s a miracle he returned to the game pretty quickly. Hell, it’s a miracle he lived.
The hit symbolized the brute power the Saints have on defense to go with their explosive offense.
Oh, and the Seeker added another pick, his eighth of the season and the 62nd of his career, the most by an active player. Sharper is now tied with Dick LeBeau and Dave Brown for seventh on the all-time pick list, just one INT behind Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott.
We declared Sharper the league's MVP earlier this season and easily the best off-season acquisition of 2009. If there is a single person to point to on the New Orleans defense that's sparked the turnaround from the mediocrity of 2008 and helped keep it all together amid the carnage of your average NFL season, he's the one.
New England quarterback Tom Brady hardly surrounded himself in glory Monday night. But if we were Brady and if we had emotion, we’d be furious over what’s become of the New England defense.
Brady can win with serviceable defenses. He can win with bad running games.
He can’t win with defenses that habitually collapse in the biggest games of the year. A defensive collapse in the 2006 AFC title game most likely cost Brady his fourth Super Bowl ring.
A defensive collapse in Super Bowl XLII – two long fourth-quarter TD drives to Eli Manning – cost Brady what could have been his record fifth Super Bowl ring.
And a pair of defensive collapses against the Colts (21 fourth-quarter points) and the Saints this year keep the Patriots a rung below the NFL elites and will keep the team from fighting for a Super Bowl – again – here in 2009.
Quarterbacks typically have precious few years in their prime, from their late 20s through their early to mid 30s. Brady is now 32, and you could argue that the Patriots are wasting the prime years of the career of their Hall of Fame QB thanks to their draft-day defensive failures.
The most impressive aspect of the New Orleans offense (and of the team in general) is that it’s prospered behind guys most people don’t know or didn't want.
Marques Colston? Who are you? Who, who, who who? He’s been a great NFL player, but nobody had heard of him coming out of Hofstra, except the Saints. They grabbed him in the seventh round of the 2006 draft and he stands today as one of the best value picks of the decade, perhaps since Tom Brady in 2000. Colston caught four passes for 121 yards and a touchdown Monday night. With 808 yards through 11 games, he's well on his way to his third 1,000-yard campaign in four NFL seasons.
Robert Meachem and Devery Henderson? Who are you? Who, who, who who? Both were highly drafted players who had done little in the NFL. This year, they're virtually unstoppable and both lit up New England for long scores Monday night. Meachem scored a 38-yard TD Monday night on a beautifully thrown ball by Brees and averages an awesome 19.1 yards per catch this year. Henderson hauled in an embarrassingly wide-open 75-yard TD Monday night and averages a nearly-as-awesome 18.7 YPC.
Those are averages we saw back in the deep-strike era of the 1960s, not here in the ball-control offenses of the 21st century.
Pierre Thomas? Who the f*ck are you? He was a free agent nobody had heard of when signed by the Saints in 2007. This year, he’s virtually unstoppable, with 116 attempts for 648 yards, an awesome 5.6 yards per attempt. He rumbled through the New England defense Monday night, with 11 rushes for 64 yards (5.8 YPA) and an 18-yard TD reception in which he spun around and split through half the New England defense.
Even the offense’s trigger man, Pro Bowler Brees, is something of an after thought. He was cast off by the Chargers back in 2006, after suffering a shoulder injury that threatened to end, or at least interrupt, his career. Today, you can argue that he's the best quarterback in football. He leads an offense right now that averages 37.0 PPG, a pace that would break the modern-record 36.8 PPG set by the 2007 Patriots. (The 1950 Rams own the all-time record, with 38.8 PPG.)
Belichick was at his classic non-descriptive best in the wake of the defeat. Some
lowlights from his press conference (or highlights for those of us who love to watch him bob and weave against the press):
"They're a good football team. They’re a lot better than us."
"They did a good job defensively. They did what they do."
Pressed further: What did the Saints do to contain Randy Moss? "They did what they do."
Here's betting that "they did what they do" could soon join "it is what it is" as a classic Belichick-ism that gains wider public acceptance.
Of course, "I can't explain" isn't exactly the best way to describe a Belichick presser. "I won't explain" is more accurate.
It’s officially time to join together with the New Orleans bandwagon. We've been on board since about Week 3, pointing to the Saints dominance in so many areas on both sides of the ball, even though it was the offense that generated all the attention.
But here's where the Saints stack up in all of our Quality Stats after Monday night's game:
That's No. 1 in six of eight league-wide indicators for the Saints, for those of you keeping score at home.
Sean Payton clearly outclassed Bill Belichick Monday night, piecing together a game plan that embarrassed the New England defense. He's winning with a quarterback who some thought couldn't play in the NFL. He's winning with unknown journeymen on offense and defense. He's winning with secondaries that are duct-taped together. He's winning with the most prolific offense in NFL history. Hell, he's winning with Randall Gay.
So meet the new boss. Sounds a lot like old boss, Bill Belichick, back in his glory years.
The NFL announced last week that the legendary Brit band The Who (or at least its remnants) will entertain America at halftime of the Super Bowl in February.
