Brees breaks Unitas’ passing record

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Drew Brees threw a long touch­down pass to take own­er­ship of another pres­ti­gious NFL pass­ing record, hit three more scor­ing passes in an emo­tional vic­tory, and then spoke hope­fully of sal­vaging a sea­son that had looked lost after defeats in New Orleans’ first four games.

“While you never want to start 0–4, if you do, you’ve got the right guys in the locker room to turn that thing around and cer­tainly not turn on each other,” Brees said. “We under­stand we have a lit­tle bit of a moun­tain to climb here. … We got the right peo­ple in the locker room, and that makes you feel you always have a chance.”

Brees broke Hall of Fame quar­ter­back Johnny Uni­tas’ half-century-old record by throw­ing a touch­down pass in his 48th straight game, and the Saints beat the San Diego Charg­ers, Brees’ for­mer team, 31–24 on Sun­day night.

“I guess you really couldn’t have writ­ten a bet­ter script,” Brees said.

Brees’ 40-yard pass to Dev­ery Hen­der­son eclipsed the mark of 47 con­sec­u­tive games with a touch­down pass Uni­tas set from 1956–60.

Brees’ last three scor­ing passes went to Mar­ques Col­ston, giv­ing the seventh-year receiver a franchise-record 52 TD catches with the Saints (1–4).

At Brees’ request, the NFL allowed head coach Sean Pay­ton, assis­tant head coach Joe Vitt and gen­eral man­ager Mickey Loomis — all serv­ing var­i­ous sus­pen­sions in con­nec­tion with the NFL’s bounty inves­ti­ga­tion — to attend the game. They and Uni­tas’ son, Joe, saw Brees pass for 370 yards, enough to put him over 30,000 yards pass­ing as a Saint in his 100th game with the club.

After­ward, Brees took an ele­va­tor to the Superdome’s suite level to share a few moments with Pay­ton, Loomis and Vitt.

“It was great to see him. He looks good,” Brees said of Pay­ton. “Obvi­ously, I felt like this night wouldn’t have been the same with­out him in the build­ing. And Mickey Loomis and Joe Vitt — to have all those guys (here) and to spend a lit­tle time with them, to share in the his­toric moment, was special.”

NFL Com­mis­sioner Roger Good­ell, the one who sus­pended Saints per­son­nel in the bounty mat­ter but also granted Brees’ request for Pay­ton, Vitt and Loomis to attend the game, chimed in on his Twit­ter page shortly after the record fell, writ­ing, “Con­grats to (at)drewbrees & his team­mates on break­ing Uni­tas’ record. Amaz­ing accom­plish­ment by great QB & leader. We’re proud of you, Drew.”

Philip Rivers passed for 354 yards and two touch­downs to for­mer Saints receiver Robert Meachem, but had two costly turnovers in the final quarter.

“I can’t tell you how tough it is to lose a game like this,” Rivers said. “We were right there. We were up by 10 points and just didn’t get it done. We have a great team, a championship-caliber team. But we have to win close games like this.”

Rivers’ first turnover came on Roman Harper’s inter­cep­tion and 41-yard return on a pass tipped by fel­low safety Mal­colm Jenk­ins. That set up the Saints’ final score on Gar­rett Hartley’s field goal. San Diego (3–2) still had a chance to tie in the final minute until defen­sive end Martez Wil­son stripped Rivers and recov­ered the fumble.

The Saints’ defense, which entered the game ranked last in the league, had a hand in the vic­tory not only with the turnovers but five sacks.

“I’ve stood up here for four weeks and talked about the team stay­ing together,” Interim head coach Aaron Kromer said. “We knew we were close to get­ting a win.”

After his record-setting com­ple­tion, Brees trot­ted to the end zone to greet Hen­der­son, who gave him the ball. The rest of New Orleans’ offense pur­sued and swarmed around Brees in cel­e­bra­tion while the jubi­lant Super­dome crowd roared and then howled an elon­gated, “Dreeeeeeew!”

Brees took the game ball to the sidelie, where he con­tin­ued to accept con­grat­u­la­tions. The record-setting scor­ing pass capped an 80-yard drive in which Brees com­pleted all three of his third-down passes, includ­ing the touchdown.

Col­ston fin­ished with nine catches for 131 yards, while Hen­der­son had eight catches for 123 yards.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Oct 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.