Football's a Breeze in The Big Breesy

NEW ORLEANS -- The players have started wearing T-shirts bearing the inscription, "SB44." It's not a Louisiana highway or some exotic local beer but the stated aspiration of the Saints, a franchise that has managed only eight winning seasons in more than four decades and long was known for humiliated fans who wore bags over their heads. One fan was a young Eli Manning, who was a baby when his father got beat up in his final seasons but later would venture to the Superdome with his brothers, Peyton and Cooper, to see the Saints get mauled.

These days, Manning is just the latest victim of a team that doesn't hesitate to think big, even when its pedigree suggests small, careful, quiet steps to a championship. The idea of the Saints reaching Super Bowl XLIV should have been the halftime theme of the House of Shock, a musical troupe that instead gave us a Michael Jackson Thriller compilation. But then, we never, ever should be shocked by the great Drew Brees, who played a mesmerizing game of pitch-and-catch with his numerous weapons Sunday and proved again that he's among the most electrifying quarterbacks the game has known.

The Mannings may be the royal football family in the Big Easy, but clearly, this is Drew's town -- the Big Breesy. What he did to the New York Giants and their previously No. 1-ranked defense on Sunday wasn't only a statement. This was a sonic blur, a jailbreak, a gifted craftsman picking his way through proud, talented defenders as if they were statues in City Park. Coming into the nationally hyped game of unbeaten NFC contenders, the Giants had allowed merely 210.6 yards and 104.8 passing yards a game, both league lows, and 14.2 points a game. Brees stung them early and often for 369 yards and four touchdown passes, this on a day when the Saints' much-improved defense forced Eli Manning into two costly turnovers in a 48-27 trashing.

All of which begs loaded questions: Can you imagine the chaos and voodoo-killing on Bourbon Street if the Saints actually won the Super Bowl? Would there be enough Hurricane mix to quench the Who Dat crowd in a city that has endured so much bad football and, in the big picture, the horror of Hurricane Katrina? And armed with a 5-0 start for the first time since 1993, don't the fans have a right to dream?

"To win it the way we did says a lot," Brees said. "Everybody showed up. The fans were awesome. The defense played great. The offense did what we had to do. Seven different guys scored touchdowns. That's big. That's the type of rhythm that, when you get in, you feel like you can call anything and it's going to work."

So, where is this joyride headed? "The past two seasons, we didn't achieve the goals we set being one of those playoff teams fighting for the No. 1 or 2 seed, knowing the formula of how to win, following it and being disciplined," Brees said. "We lacked consistency. I feel like we've learned from that."

In a season of scintillating individual performances -- such as the continuing mastery of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady's barrage of TD passes against the hopeless Titans and Brett Favre's ageless run with the Vikings -- Brees' chop-job on a premier defense rates at or near the top as the most impressive. With apologies to the Indy 500 racer playing quarterback for the Colts, Brees looked like the 2009 MVP, completing 15 consecutive passes in a clinic that even would have dropped jaws at the nearby Manning Passing Academy. It even trumps his six TD passes on opening day, which came against the still-sorry Lions. He was especially at his best on attempts of 10 yards or more, completing 14-of-18 for 289 yards and three touchdowns, with a perfect passer rating of 158.3. After two TD-pass-less weeks in which coach Sean Payton emphasized balance in the game plan, Brees came out smoking against a banged-up Giants secondary that misses cornerback Aaron Ross and safety Kenny Phillips. "We couldn't stop them," Giants coach Tom Coughlin moaned.

Like a kid having a blast in a backyard, Brees took turns choosing his targets. Early on, it was Lance Moore, who would stretch out for a catch and pose for a crowd that grew louder and rowdier with every throw. Then it was Jeremy Shockey, the former Giants problem child, who was particularly amped up in his first game against his old team, waving a towel on the sideline and gesturing to his ex-mates when he caught passes.

"I'd be lying if I said this didn't feel a little bit better than some teams," Shockey said of whipping his old team. "I'm sure we'll face these guys again somewhere down the road."

"All week, he was pretty tame," Brees said of Shockey, who did a rodeo-like dance after his touchdown catch. "You know the inner fire was burning and it was about to explode."

But the star receiver in The Big Breesy no doubt is Marques Colston. And when Brees goes deep and lets Colston climb the sky with his 6-4 frame, well, Corey Webster and few other cornerbacks have little chance to do anything but sigh. He finished with eight catches for 166 yards and a third-quarter TD that pushed the lead to 41-17 and ended any chance of a Giants rally, not that it ever was a possibility.

It wasn't how Manning envisioned his first game as a player in the big dome on Poydras Avenue, about 10 minutes from where he and his brothers grew up in the Garden District. He wore the same frazzled, beleaguered look that Archie Manning, his father, had all those years as he was smothered into the turf. He completed only 14-of-31 passes for 178 yards, committing a costly fumble on a sack that Reggie Bush converted into a 7-yard touchdown run just before halftime. The Saints' blitzers harassed him into an uncharacteristic loss of poise; Manning was seen chewing out Ahmad Bradshaw and slapping his shoulder pad after the running back continually missed blocking assignments, including one that led to a drive-ending interception in the third quarter. Oddly, though Peyton and Cooper had played in the Superdome, Eli never did as a high-school quarterback. The Giants were supposed to play there in 2005, but Katrina wrecked the fantasy.

Sunday, the Saints wrecked the real story. "It's not the way I imagined it during the week," Manning said. "But you're going to encounter all sorts of games and situations. I look at it as a loss. We need to go back and work on some things this week, fix some things and try to improve."

"Of course it's embarrassing," defensive end Osi Umenyiora said. "The Saints are a good team but they're not THAT good. It's a humbling experience. It's better it happens now than later."

He and the Giants will have to endure sniping this week about their true legitimacy. Some assumed this would be the game where they'd prove their NFC preeminence, but when a defense is embarrassed to the tune of 493 yards and 28 first downs -- Brees averaged 11.6 yards per pass attempt -- you wonder if they belong anywhere near the top. Four of their five victories came against Oakland, Kansas City, Tampa Bay and Washington, among the league's worst teams. Exposed by Brees, they allowed 34 points in the first half, the same number scored against them in the first half in their previous five games combined.

The Saints, meanwhile, have drubbed the Giants and Jets in successive games, which has hushed some of the premature, out-of-control enthusiasm for an all-New York Super Bowl. If anything, the New York media should be pumping the Saints, who have beaten every opponent by two touchdowns or more and haven't trailed in a game all season. Consider that the Giants, who had won 18 of their previous 23 road games, relinquished 315 yards in the first half. The Saints are the Aints no more. Rather, they're an operation to be taken very seriously.

The same should be said of Payton, who steadily has established himself as a strong branch on the Bill Parcells coaching tree. The New Orleans job was considered one of the NFL's worst when he replaced Jim Haslett in 2006. It was rough enough taking over a 3-13 team, but the city was still emotionally reeling from the devastation of Katrina, making life harder for a rookie coach. He shook off the adversity and quickly led the Saints to the NFC title game, but the last two years, the Saints have underachieved and lost close games while Brees was putting up insane numbers in a perfect system designed by Payton. Sitting at home last winter, beer in hand, Payton concocted a scheme in which he would woo Gregg Williams to town as defensive coordinator. When he asked for an above-market salary, Payton didn't say no. He went to owner Tom Benson and asked him to take a small portion of money from his contract and transfer it to Williams' deal. The rest is history: An attacking defense, true to the coordinator's past, has become respectable. Eli Manning had come to his hometown as an MVP candidate himself, flashing more efficiency and maturity than even during his championship run two years ago. He left New Orleans in tatters, replaced late by David Carr.

Come on, coach. Don't you have a Super Bowl contender here?

"I don't think you can talk about big pictures after five [games]," said Payton, who has his hard-ass moments but is a kinder, more refined Parcells. "We're going to have more big games and we've just got to continue to improve each week. It was a good win and I'm happy with that, but there's a lot of things I think we can do better. We know it's early in the season. We've got a lot of football ahead of us. We like starting off fast."

"Staying grounded us definitely not an issue in this locker room," Colston said. "We've got some great veteran leadership. We know exactly what we are in this locker room. We don't really feel an outside pressure to prove it to anyone. We were just able to come in and do some of the things we were able to do on offense today."

"Of course it's embarrassing. The Saints are a good team but they're not THAT good. It's a humbling experience. It's better it happens now than later."
- Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora It's still early to declare a Super Bowl favorite in a volatile league still defining itself. But in the power rankings that dominate sports Web sites, my pecking order goes: 3. Colts; 2. Vikings; 1. Saints. Don't be shocked if those two teams, assuming Favre stays healthy, play for the NFC championship in one dome or another. And don't be surprised if Brees enters that game as the league MVP. Since the Chargers foolishly decided that drafting Philip Rivers and discarding Brees was a bright idea, he has passed for 101 touchdowns and more than 15,000 yards in New Orleans. His six-year, $60 million contract has turned out to be a bargain in an age of $100 million contracts for quarterbacks.

But if there's one topic he won't discuss, it's himself, even though he's credited as a local hero for his work with children's charities and post-Katrina efforts. Brees is such a good guy, he took time as a Purdue alumnus Friday night to text the current Boilermakers QB, Joey Elliott. "Drew Brees texted me last night and said, 'Hey, go out there and shock the world, have fun. I'll be watching,' " he said. Behind Elliott's 281 passing yards and two touchdowns, Purdue shocked No. 7 Ohio State on Saturday in the program's biggest victory in years.

In New Orleans, where he and his wife bought a house in the city and are entrenched as New Orleans icons, he's all about the trophy -- the Vince Lombardi hardware. "We're ready to handle whatever's thrown at us," Brees said. "We've experienced a lot from the last two years especially -- the agony of defeat and losing some close games that we felt like we never should have lost. We've learned a lot from that. We don't want to be that team ever again. So I think there's always that fire burning inside of us that makes us feel like that part is in our past, but yet we needed to go through that in order to be where we're at now."

There's an NBA team that plays next door, a pretty good one led by a remarkable point guard. But you gather that an even better leader, somehow, is taking snaps for the Saints and playing a run-and-gun game better than anyone in pro football. You can laugh at the concept of "SB 44."

I won't.