Brees can still sling with the rest of them

Published 7:00 pm Tuesday, January 9, 2018

OK, let us all put hat in hand, beg forgiveness and apologize profusely to Drew Brees following Saints 31, Carolina 26.

What in the world were we ever thinking?

No, it wasn’t like we ever doubted him.

Far from it.

Some of us even kind of think that if Brees ever stops being the Saints’ quarterback, then maybe it’s time to just shut down the New Orleans franchise and find some fleur-de-lis badminton rackets or cricket wickets.

But, you know, this year, this whole Who Dat turn-around from out of nowhere, was different.

Or so we were told.

Oh, the typical Brees numbers were there — 4,334 yards (fourth in the league) and an NFL-record 72 percent completion average.

But, to the eye test, watching it develop, it looked strangely like the Saints were winning more and more the old-fashioned way, with a strong running game and a defense — yes, a defense! —so unexplainable that nobody has figured out yet where it came from.

Brees was occasionally accused of being an innocent bystander to the new-found success, mostly handing off to Mark Ingram when he wasn’t dumping off a safe but potentially explosive screen pass to this rookie wunderkind, Alvin Kamara.

There wasn’t much derring-do there, but a lot of production.

You sometimes heard the condescending term “game manager” applied to Brees’ new role with the current Saints.

There have been weeks where the Saints were even content to “put the game in the hands of their defense.”

Hey, it was working. Brees certainly wasn’t complaining.

For that matter, after taking out large chunks of yardage during games, the Ingram & Kamara Show turned out to be quite a comedy routine in the postgame locker room.

Maybe Brees was still the face of the franchise, but at least there was an entertaining sideshow now. They almost needed an orchestra pit.

And maybe we all fell for it.

More shockingly, the Carolina Panthers fell for it hook, line and chin strap.

Really, Carolina?

Yeah, that running back duo makes the Saints a dicier proposition.

But when an opposing team’s defensive game plan against Drew Brees and the Saints is to stack the box— you know, sticking the whole team portrait into the immediate zip code of the line of scrimmage — you know these are different times we’re living in.

And this was no halfway measure. Nothing was sorta stacked.

The Panthers were all-in, all up front and steady sneaking in reinforcements, from the very start of the game.

You do that, of course, at the risk of opening up receivers, particularly in the middle of the field, for the most accurate NFL passer who ever lived.

Who knows. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

But silly them for forgetting.

Silly us for ever doubting.

The Panthers’ ploy worked for the opening two series where the Saints’ running game was stuffed for a pair of three-and-outs.

Then, on the third series — another Panther convention up front — you could almost see Brees’ eyes light up with the realization that: Oh, you want to play that game, huh? OK, we’re going to have some fun now.

 Brees promptly squeezed off an 80-yard touchdown pass to secondary target Ted Ginn. I thought TV cameras caught Brees licking his fingers as he trotted nonchalantly to the sidelines.

He was just getting warmed up.

The Panthers achieved their original objective. The Saints rushed for only 41 yards and it seemed like less. 

The Panthers must have felt good that there was nowhere to run.

But when did they also get the sinking feeling that, suddenly, there was nowhere for the Panthers’ secondary to hide either.

Good for the Saints that in a pinch they were able to dust off an old relic from the closet.

Brees doesn’t often have the luxury of such extreme defensive measures  to toy with. So he promptly put the Ingram & Kamara show on hold -— hey, get back to you soon, promise, but I got this one — and strafed the Panthers for 376 yards on  22 of 33 accuracy, much of it surgically precise, while spreading things around to just about every eligible receiver.

Sometimes it almost looked too easy, and of course nothing “throws receivers open” like a Brees back shoulder fade.

It truly might have been one of Brees’ best games as a Saint, admittedly a tough list to crack.

He even knew the perfect time to throw his only interception of the game — and danged if the Panthers didn’t fall for it on the Saints’ fool-hardy fourth-down gamble when a defender hung on to what amounted to a pooch punt when treating it like a hot potato would have given Carolina the ball at midfield.

That Saints’ running game is a nice novelty act, effective most of the season and still a pretty fair standup routine afterwards.

But, make no mistake, this is still Drew Brees’ Saints.

How did we ever doubt him?