With 2:44 left to play in a wildcard playoff game against the Detroit Lions, quarterback Drew Brees let loose a deep pass down the right sideline for wide receiver Marques Colston. Nothing about the play itself was all together that unusual for Saints offense built around an explosive and vertical passing game. What were unusual were the circumstances – the Saints were winning by 17 points; that’s three scoring drives in football strategy. Conventional football strategy would have suggested the Saints try to run the ball, grind down the clock and decrease the likelihood for comeback or injury during the final minutes of play in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
If you’ve followed the Saints, you know, head coach Sean Payton’s strategy is rarely conventional. Down 10-3 nearing the end of the first half in Super Bowl XLIV (that’s 44 to you non-Romans), Payton went for it on 4th and goal from the 1 yard-line, rather than take the points…and he missed. However, he followed up that decision with an even bolder one – going for an onside kick to start the second half. Football analysts from New York to New Orleans later stated that play changed the momentum of the game, and likely won New Orleans their first Super Bowl. The previous incident was written about ad nauseam two years ago. But a similar seed of unconventional thinking was sewn on Monday, Dec. 26, 2011, and continued to grow on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012.
That idea grew into one simple assertion: If you are a fan of nature, then you likely have to recognize the beauty of roses and sunsets. Similarly, if you are a fan of video game football, you must be a fan of the New Orleans Saints.
That’s because with 2:44 left to play in a game that was no longer in doubt, Drew Brees let a pass fly down the sidelines, not to try to win the game, but to try to break a record. Brees needed just 24 yards to break the NFL postseason single-game passing yards mark, set by Bernie Kosar in 1986 against the New York Jets (and Kosar needed overtime to get that high). Breeds needed 24, and the Saints were 30 yards away. Ultimately, the pass was incomplete and a pass interference penalty was called against Lions defender Aaron Berry. NFL pass interference penalties are assessed at the spot of the foul, which means that they count for the amount of yardage a receiver would have gained on the play. The yardage on this penalty? Twenty-three yards. Brees threw a perfect (albeit otherwise meaningless) pass at the end of the game to try to get him the exact yards needed to break the record while trying not to score, thus further embarrassing the Lions. That is simply incredible.
The Saints are playing on another level right now. They’re like a delinquent 7th grader who beats up on the computer AI of Madden football. Their offense is so good; they team is trying to find other ways to amuse themselves. It’s as if the discussion in the coaches’ box and huddles goes something like this:
“What’s the record again? Oh…we can beat that.”
And then the Saints go out and do it.
They did just that when Brees broke Dan Marino’s single-season passing record against the Atlanta Falcons in week 16 of the regular season. The record meant so much to the Saints, that Payton even called a timeout after the pass to allow the team to celebrate on the sideline (1:33):
The Saints offense is on a Asteroids run right now, seemingly having already beat the game, now they’re concerned about engraving their initials into the high score of the 80’s arcade game. Like Tommy, Brees’ & Co. sure plays a mean pinball. If you’ve ever truly mastered one-dimensional video game, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Have you ever become so good at something so mundane that you have to find ways to continue to make it fun? Did you ever play Tecmo Bowl with Bo Jackson, and run around the fields so many times it was laughably unrealistic?
Did you ever learn how to drop Mike Tyson in the first round of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!?
Or were you the one who got so bored with Tiger Woods golf that you learned how to get a hole-in-one on a par 5?
I myself, once spent an entire season of NCAA Football ‘06, on Playstation 2, refusing to score touchdowns and trying to get a kicker to win the Heisman by kicking only field goals. What was my kicker’s name? Alden Brown, the supposed real name of porn star Peter North (who refuses to let women touch his hair), not to be confused with Food Network personality Alton Brown… See you learn something new everyday, right kids?
Every Sunday, so many football coaches and players come to the press conference podium with sanitized answers and the same hackneyed response:
“We’re just trying to win the game.”
“Gotta take ‘em one at a time.”
“Records and stats don’t matter, all that matters is the ‘W’ in the win column.”
And while that may still all be true for the Saints, by now, they’d be sheepishly lying if they said that records didn’t matter. In a year in which offenses in the NFL can’t be stopped, the Saints are elite. They’ve become so good at what they do that records do matter. You may not be a fan of football, but if you’ve ever mastered something, from the trivial, to the magnificent, you have to feel compelled to be a fan of the Saints.
The Marital Blitz 