Undersized Drew Brees Comes Up Big Again
New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees has had to overcome a size disadvantage as he plays a position that has been heavily reserved for men that are much taller than he.
Drew Brees is just 6-foot. On Sunday at home in the Superdome in front of thousands of Saints’ fans, it did not surprise anyone that Brees was able to out play his counterpart Cam Newton in a playoff matchup between two NFC South rivals.
Brees soon turns 39, which means he was giving away nearly 10 years to the much younger Newton. If that was not enough, Newton is six inches taller and weighs over 50 pounds more than Brees.
In the end, Newton’s numbers were strong. 24 completions in 40 attempts, 349 passing yards and a pair of touchdowns. Brees out did that by completing 23 of his 33 passes for 376 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Most importantly, at the end of the game Drew Brees’ team finished with five more points than did Newton’s team.
The 31-26 victory by the New Orleans Saints over the Carolina Panthers was well earned. It showed all that Brees has been during his improbable 17-year NFL career. Despite being 39, he showed everything he still has left.
Carolina was beaten in both of its regular season head-to-head games against the Saints. Carolina’s game plan was to stop or at least contain the offensive duo of Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara. They are first pair of running backs on the same team to each have over 1,500 yards from scrimmage during the same season.
The idea was to force Brees to be the one who beat them. They dared the league’s most accurate quarterback, not of this season but in NFL history, who has a career completion percentage of 66.9, a signal caller who could end his NFL career with more passing yards, completions, and touchdowns that Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, to beat them with his golden arm.
In the end, that is just what Brees ending up doing. After a pair of three and outs that began his game, and following a missed short field goal by Carolina, Brees took control of the game with a touchdown pass to his fastest wide receiver.
A defensive look made him shift his gaze toward the left side of the defensive secondary. What caught his eye was that the Panthers safety had left the middle of the field and Brees felt his wide out Ted Ginn Jr., who was just supposed to clear out the area in his route, could break free deep down the middle and he did resulting the team’s first touchdown.
For Brees, the play blew things open for the Saints. They took a 7-0 lead and never trailed in the game. Now they move on to the divisional playoff against the Minnesota Vikings.
