NEW ORLEANS -- For the first nine games and 54 minutes of this season, Drew Brees was building a decent case for “Best Supporting Actor” in the 2017 NFL season.
He wasn’t playing badly -- not at all. He just hasn’t been needed much during the New Orleans Saints' eight-game win streak because the defense and run game have played so well.
But Brees was always lurking as a “break open in case of emergency” option if the Saints ever needed a Hall of Fame quarterback to bail them out of a jam. And that’s exactly how things played out in Sunday’s improbable 34-31 overtime win against the Washington Redskins.
The Saints (8-2) trailed 31-16 with less than six minutes remaining before Brees completed 11 of 11 passes for 164 yards and two touchdowns to tie the game in the next two drives.
“Elite,” Saints running back Mark Ingram said when asked how Brees was playing at the end of the game. “That boy is a first-ballot Hall of Famer for a reason. … That man is amazing, he’s great, he’s elite. He’s the best quarterback that I’ve ever played with. He’s the best quarterback in the league.”
Sitting at the next locker, rookie running back Alvin Kamara chimed in, “When you come into the huddle and you hear Drew say, ‘All right, here we go,’ that’s when you know there’s about to be some magic.”
“It doesn’t really surprise me,” Saints receiver Michael Thomas added. “He gets in that moment and dials in. I love to be a witness to that.”
Before Sunday’s heroics, Brees was on pace to throw for the fewest yards and TD passes in his 12 years with the Saints. After throwing for 385 yards Sunday, he is now on pace for his fourth-fewest yards in New Orleans (4,453) and is still on pace for his lowest TD total (24).
But he is on pace for the highest completion percentage of his career (71.6 -- just a fraction shy of the NFL record). And he ranks third in the NFL this year with a passer rating of 104.3.
When asked how personally gratifying it was for him to come through in the first moment when the Saints have really needed him in the past two months, Brees sidestepped the question with a smile.
“Listen, I’m ready and willing and able to do whatever I need to help this team win,” Brees said. “And some games, that can be a little different. But I think we all have the confidence here to win in a lot of different ways. We have the right personnel to do it, we’ve got the right attitude to do it, and we’ve done it before. There’s a validation from past experiences, so we come into each game with a lot of confidence.”
One of the biggest things that has been missing from Brees’ game this year is the consistent deep-ball accuracy. But again, the Saints haven’t needed him to fire away too much. Coach Sean Payton said he just got done telling his team this past week how unusual it was that the Saints hadn’t really been in a hurry-up two-minute-drill situation at the end of games this year since they lost their first two games by wide margins before winning seven straight by wide margins.
But during those two hurry-up TD drives, Brees completed six passes of 17-plus yards (three of them to tight end Coby Fleener -- who also emerged as a break-open-in-case-of-emergency option with five catches for 91 yards over those two drives after a quiet season).
There was one scary hiccup -- when Brees threw an apparent interception on the first pass of the second TD drive, with 1 minute, 53 seconds remaining and the Saints on their own 13-yard line, trailing by eight points. But the pick was nullified by an illegal use of hands penalty.
After that, Brees made the Redskins pay in the blink of an eye: 17 yards to Thomas, 18 to Ted Ginn Jr., 29 to Fleener and 18 yards to Kamara, who bobbled the ball for a brief, frightening moment before containing it on his way into the end zone.
“Just finding different ways to win,” said Brees, who also threw an interception that counted on the opening drive Sunday as part of New Orleans’ rough start. “We haven’t encountered a game like this in a while, and it was great to watch the team rally, come together. These are wins that you build on and develop confidence ... and you realize we can win anywhere, anytime.”
For years, we've been saying how potent the Saints would be if they could just support Brees with a decent defense and run game.
On Sunday, we were reminded of just how potent they are with Brees in the "supporting" role.