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    Tom Brady Sets N.F.L. Career Passing Record in Return to New England

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    Brady, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ quarterback, returned to New England for the first time since leaving and surpassed Drew Brees’s mark on a first-quarter play.FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady became the N.F.L.’s career passing leader on Sunday in his first game back in New England to face his former team, the Patriots.In the first quarter, Brady completed a 28-yard pass to receiver Mike Evans to reach 80,359 yards and surpass the record of 80,358 yards set last year by Drew Brees, the New Orleans Saints quarterback who retired at the end of the season.The Patriots flashed the record on the stadium video screen and announced it to the crowd, which cheered, but they did not stop the game for a ceremony. Heading into the game, Brady needed just 68 yards to pass Brees. Brady will likely hold onto the record for several years. Among active players, Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers has the second-most career yards, but he trails Brady by about 20,000 yards.Brady’s record-setting throw was just one of many highlights in one of the most anticipated regular season games in years, as the Buccaneers sought to improve on their 2-1 record and the Patriots, at 1-2, struggled to get a foothold in their second season without Brady as their leader.Much of the drama before the game focused on the showdown between Brady and Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, and who was responsible for Brady’s departure after two decades, 249 wins and six Super Bowl championships together.One fan bought a billboard not far from the stadium that all but blamed Belichick for Brady’s decision to move to Tampa. Fans tailgating before the game at Gillette Stadium did not begrudge Brady for leaving.“I’m grateful for everything Tom did, but that’s in the past,” said Randy Greeley, a longtime season ticket holder who wore the jersey of Mac Jones, the team’s new quarterback. “My loyalty is to the Pats.”When the Buccaneers took the field to warm up about 50 minutes before kickoff, fans gave Brady a standing ovation and chanted his name. Before the game, the Patriots played a short video tribute on the stadium scoreboard that showed Brady’s exploits in New England. But when Brady took the field for Tampa’s opening drive, he was booed.Brady has been restrained about his relationship with Belichick and his reasons for moving to Tampa. But his father and trainer, interviewed separately, were more blunt, claiming that Belichick did not value Brady’s input and felt, at 44, that his best days were over.When he was in New England, Brady had said he wanted to play until he was 45. Tampa gave him a two-year contract. Having led the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title last season, and already off to a fast start this year, Brady has mused about potentially playing until he is 50.Local television stations and national networks like NBC’s “Today” show broadcast from the stadium parking lot days before the game, while one website listed the top 10 sports homecomings in Boston area history before Brady’s return.Brady’s fans greeted the quarterback at the airport in Providence, R.I., when the Buccaneers’ team plane arrived on Saturday. The team now includes cornerback Richard Sherman, the free agent former 49ers corner whom Brady recruited to the Buccaneers despite being mired in legal trouble stemming from an arrest this summer and five misdemeanor charges, including two for domestic violence. The Buccaneers were without tight end Rob Gronkowski, another former Patriots player, who has a rib injury. More

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      Saints Finally Return Home, to a City That Needed Them

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      The team evacuated New Orleans on Aug. 28, the day before Hurricane Ida made landfall, and returned to play its first true home game of the season, a 27-21 loss to the Giants.NEW ORLEANS — The locals streamed down Poydras Street toward the Superdome, walking past tree limbs, over downed poles and through intersections where lights blinked only red. Once they were inside together, they released what the jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins last week called the most beautiful sound in the world.“Like Mardi Gras and second line and church altogether,” Ruffins said.For nearly two years, that din had been languishing in the larynxes of Saints fans like Danaty Moses, silenced first by a viral scourge and then Hurricane Ida, which ravaged the region, displaced thousands of Louisianans and sent the team to Texas. As soon as the Saints announced their return, having played what amounted to three consecutive road games, Moses spent nearly $700 on eight tickets, and she delighted on Sunday in losing her voice while cheering from Section 635.“They are the glue that keeps the city and state together,” Moses, of Bogalusa, La., said of the Saints. “Day to day here is rough. You wake up like: ‘OK, what’s my next move? What’s my next step?’ That’s six days out of the week and it’s strenuous and it’s bothersome. But that mental break that you have with the Saints is exactly what you need in order to pull through, to get to the next week.”The Saints provided a respite from contractors and insurance adjusters, but the week will still dawn with gloom. No moments from Sunday’s game, a 27-21 overtime loss to the Giants, will be celebrated by a statue outside the Superdome, as was erected as a homage after the Saints’ first game in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The man immortalized for blocking a punt that night 15 years ago, Steve Gleason, watched his former team allow the final 17 points, a spree punctuated by Giants running back Saquon Barkley’s 6-yard score five minutes into overtime.Through four weeks, the Saints (2-2) have alternated wins and losses, as if co-opting the city’s chaotic energy. They evacuated on Aug. 28, the day before Ida made landfall and the day after they were ordered to gather family, pets and essential belongings for an absence of indeterminate length. From afar, they checked in on friends and neighbors, tracked the destruction on social media and reminded themselves of who — and what — they were playing for.“I wouldn’t call it pressure, but we feel that responsibility,” defensive end Cameron Jordan, who has been with the Saints since 2011, said in an interview last week. “And we take pride in that.”After defeating New England last week, players rushed into the locker room chanting, “We’re going home,” and when their flight landed and a voice from the cockpit welcomed them back, the cabin erupted.Deonte Harris of the Saints rushed as Lorenzo Carter and Logan Ryan of the Giants defended.Jonathan Bachman/Getty ImagesPlayers returned to rotten groceries and moldy walls and withered plants. The storm uprooted Jordan’s fence and breached Deonte Harris’s roof. It ruined the steaks in Andrew Dowell’s freezer and swamped Pete Werner’s apartment with an unidentifiable stench. Four hours of scrubbing and some lavender-scented candles later, it was gone.The damage elsewhere transcended mere inconvenience. To Ruffins, Ida evoked Katrina’s little niece, coming back to check on everyone. High winds and floods pummeled areas south and west of New Orleans, like the town of Lafitte, where in the immediate aftermath Owen Belknap, a volunteer with Cajun Navy Relief, patrolled streets in a boat. Belknap grew up with a photo from that first game at the Superdome after Katrina hanging on a wall, and it followed his family across state lines, from home to home, at once a totem and a reminder.“No matter what storm hits us, we’re still going to be a community that cares about and loves one another and watches Saints together,” Belknap, 22, a student at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, said by phone on Saturday. “That tradition is comforting and reassuring. It tells people that things, as bad as they might seem, are going to be OK.”Not too long ago, had one typed “New Orleans Saints” into Google Maps, this is what would have spouted forth: “Religious institution.” The zeal for them is practically ecumenical, with cherished rhythms that endure even after natural disasters. Over FaceTime last week, Moses, 37, shared how after one of her close friends sustained serious damage to her home in Edgard — “everything was completely underwater” — she remarked how she had nowhere to watch the Saints.“No internet, no home, no cars, and people still were looking for a way to watch the Saints,” Moses said. “Everybody that could just opened their homes.”It had been 21 months since the Saints last played before a full Superdome crowd, when Minnesota ousted them from the postseason in January 2020. Drew Brees led New Orleans then, but no longer, succeeded by another quarterback who embraces his role in helping the city recover from devastation. Jameis Winston, a son of the Gulf, promised at his first news conference after being named the team’s starter to represent fans well, and he has donated water and thousands of dollars to aid rebuilding efforts.The Saints play in a stadium that is Louisiana’s most important building, a cultural touchstone that on home football Sundays feels less like a sporting venue than a spiritual revival. The Superdome doubled as a shelter during Katrina and has come to symbolize so many elements of the human condition: suffering, despair, rebirth. Its roof caught fire on Sept. 21 — “At this point, you’re thinking, like, ‘What else?’” Jordan said — and as Ruffins processed the absurdity of it all, he recalled a favorite saying: Only in New Orleans.Perched atop a stool one morning last week at Kermit’s Tremé Mother-in-Law Lounge, where after Ida he passed out free red beans and rice for almost a week, Ruffins mentioned how his parents used to wear paper bags on their heads at Tulane Stadium. His father, Lloyd, whom he said oversaw the cleaning crew at the Superdome when it opened in 1975, allowed him to run onto the Superdome turf, years before he would play “The Star-Spangled Banner.” After Katrina, his first purchase was a big-screen television, lest he miss his Saints.“It’s a day we don’t have to adult,” Ruffins said.Three weeks ago, when the Saints played their home opener not in New Orleans but at a stadium in Jacksonville, Fla., dominated by Packers fans, Allen Keller watched at a bar near the Superdome, and downtown felt empty, eerie and quiet. Knowing it wouldn’t feel that way on Sunday, Keller barely slept Saturday night.“This is a chance for us to reconnect,” Keller, 39, of Prairieville, La., said. He added: “For a few hours you don’t have to worry about the insurance claims or personal issues or anything. When the Saints are playing, that’s the only thing on your mind.”Keller planned to spend the day tailgating from his spot in a lot at Perdido and South Rampart. He did not have tickets, and he did not need them. Just being there was enough. More

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      On Loving Drew Brees, and Deciding Not to Cancel Him

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      While Brees was the New Orleans Saints’ quarterback, his deep connection to the predominantly Black city was threatened by his criticism of those who protested during the national anthem.New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees announced his retirement on Sunday in a family announcement posted to Instagram on the 15th anniversary of his signing with the N.F.L. franchise. The news brought to a close the most elite career in Saints history and a major chapter in the culture of the city, which lovingly revolves around the team’s ups and downs.Brees retired as a Super Bowl winner, the N.F.L.’s career leader in passing yards (80,358) and a shoo-in Hall of Famer — the only quarterback to have thrown for five 5,000-yard seasons. Still, the heartfelt send-offs on social media, from Saints fans and former teammates alike, tellingly teem with more personal odes than stat recitations.Receiver Michael Thomas, Brees’s go-to target for the last half-decade, called him the “definition of a leader,” in a lengthy, emotional statement. “You are my hero and many others’,” Thomas wrote. He concluded: “You’re an icon worldwide, but you’re my brother every day. I love you and I appreciate you.”It was a full-circle moment from Thomas, who despite his close relationship with Brees, or maybe because of it, called out the quarterback for comments he made after the police killed George Floyd, a Black man, last May. In June, Brees told an interviewer that while he supported social justice, he would oppose any N.F.L. protest that involved kneeling during the national anthem: “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country,” he said in comments that reiterated his stance in 2016, when players around the league joined Colin Kaepernick in kneeling during the anthem.In 2020, Brees clarified, then walked back the comment, in part because of the backlash from teammates like Thomas, who posted his own response on Twitter: “He don’t know no better.”As a born and raised New Orleanian, a young Black man and a near-rabid Saints fan, I both hold unreserved joy over Brees’s career and clearly understand the lingering ambivalence about his conservatism among progressive fans. Some of them, including close friends in my Saints fans’ group text, never bought Brees’s public penance last season, when he went on a virtual learning trek of sorts, joining in on the organization’s team-wide pivot to embracing calls for social justice and personally donating money to related causes. A couple referred to it as a redemption tour with scornful irony.The recompense was, however, enough for Thomas, who in a follow-up post on Twitter said of Brees: “He apologized and I accept it because that’s what we are taught to do as Christians. Now back to the movement! #GeorgeFloyd.”A critical mass of us who were turned off by the quarterback’s comments about the flag seemed to end up with sentiments closer to Thomas’s — wondering if we couldn’t lend the man a bit of grace and allow for growth in others once they are called out for taboos.After all, particularly for those of us who grew up in the Deep South, our list of friends and family members who only changed their minds about seminal social issues — segregation, interracial marriage, gay marriage, women’s rights and much else — once social mores had liberalized, is long. People can evolve. It’s also true that evolution is much more likely to happen if society is threatening to leave them behind.Brees joined with teammates in supporting the #SayHerName initiative to bring awareness to racial inequalities experienced by Black women in the wake of the police shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesWhether we — or Thomas and the rest of the team — would have been in such a forgiving mood if Brees wasn’t performing at an incredibly high level, despite his age, is a counterfactual we will never fully be able to test. Still, there is a more ineffable connection to the city that Brees sincerely earned, one that garnered a well of good will deep enough to squelch any serious threat to how he will be remembered: the connection between his comeback and New Orleans’s hard-fought rebirth.As every televised segment recapping his career will show, when Brees came to our downtrodden franchise (habitually called the ’Aints), he was widely seen as damaged goods after tearing the labrum in his throwing shoulder. The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina only months before his arrival had left New Orleans a deeply injured old river town, whose recovery many thought was unlikely, and that some actively bet against. In essence, each party — Brees, the fans rebuilding their homes and the failing franchise that nevertheless decided against relocation — was an underdog taking a chance on the others.After all the parties were repaid with winning seasons, a championship and nationally televised games — more excuses to tailgate and party in a city that loves nothing more — a natural, defensive bond was formed. “You told me that if I loved New Orleans, you would love me back,” Brees’s open letter saying goodbye reads. “No truer words have ever been spoken.” Maybe our shared memories, those created at holiday dinner tables or in the Superdome on Sundays (with people just as complicated), are why we give Brees and others more slack than some think is merited.At the height of my frustration with Brees, in 2016, I remember asking my mother — who desegregated her elementary school in New Orleans and was picketed for it (“Two, four, six, eight. We don’t want to integrate!”) — if it was right for me, for her, for our family, to keep cheering for Brees during games, to keep our season tickets, when he was being insensitive to our community’s grievances off the field?“Tal,” she told me with a rueful smile and a dash of resignation, “I’m sure if I talked with Drew I’d tell him, ‘I appreciate you being a good quarterback and a leader in this city, but I really, really think you’re wrong about such and such,’ and I’m sure he’d tell me, ‘Well, Sheryl, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support and maybe we don’t see eye to eye on every issue, but I love this city and the Saints and hope we can make y’all fans proud.’”It was a lesson in how empathy and compartmentalization can trickily coexist: How fandom, for many, isn’t strictly contingent on sharing your favorite athlete’s politics. With the growing sense that the stakes are too high for such a truce, that may be changing.I met Brees soon after he’d taken the team to its first N.F.C. championship game in January 2007. He was roughly the age I am now and had come to meet a few middle schoolers in the rocky backyard of Lusher Charter School, an area that is now the Brees Family Field. I don’t remember caring about his politics, or any adults in my very civically active community caring much, either.When I think of Drew Brees now, I don’t think of him, the man, as much as I think of how many hugs, high-fives, kisses, conversation starters, weekend celebrations, indelible memories and lifelong doses of hometown pride for which he is responsible.There is no convenient equation that can take the balance of those sweeter realities and subtract from them the bitterness of his pre-2021 politics, to give us an answer on how we should feel. Maybe that’s OK. Maybe that’s just being human.Talmon Joseph Smith is a staff editor at The Times. More

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      Drew Brees Retires, His Focus on the Details Until the End

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn Pro FootballDrew Brees Retires, His Focus on the Details Until the EndBrees, who won seven division titles as the Saints’ quarterback, including the most recent four, retired after 20 seasons with the most completions and passing yards in N.F.L. history.Drew Brees waved to fans after a playoff loss to the Buccaneers in the divisional round.Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressMarch 14, 2021Updated 6:03 p.m. ETEvery great quarterback has a defining characteristic.Tom Brady, even at 43, still excels in big games. Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes, with their prodigious arms, complete throws others wouldn’t dare attempt. Peyton Manning, a presnap savant, could decode the most complex of defenses.Many will never come close to knowing what such excellence feels like, in any field. But when it comes to Drew Brees, another member of that exalted group of quarterbacks, trying to understand what distinguished him as he retired Sunday, exactly 15 years after he signed with the Saints — that feels a bit more accessible: Just grab a toothbrush and some toothpaste.“I’ve challenged people to do this before,” said Zach Strief, a former offensive tackle who helped protect Brees for 12 seasons in New Orleans. “Brush your teeth with 275 strokes tomorrow. Do it that many times, then try to repeat it for 20 years. That’s how he lives his life. His attention to detail is his superpower.”Over those 20 years, as Brees overcame a career-threatening shoulder injury to become one of the most statistically productive quarterbacks in N.FL. history, he trained his body and brain for optimal performance.Because he couldn’t dislodge his head from his shoulders to see over towering linemen, the 6-foot Brees often threw passes blind. “You just see a ball appear out of nowhere,” said the former receiver Lance Moore, who played eight seasons with Brees.Brees knew the coverage, the routes and where the ball was supposed to go, so it didn’t seem peculiar. It’s why every repetition in practice had to be perfect, and if it wasn’t, Brees and his receivers would stay after — communicating that need telepathically — until they aced it.Brees’s wife, Brittany, with their sons Bowen, left, and Baylen, middle, in 2012. Credit…Gerald Herbert/Associated PressHe reviewed the entire game plan after Saturday walk-throughs, drilling his cadence and progressions, dropping back without holding a ball, toiling alone in the Saints’ practice bubble. He arrived at the team’s training facility at 6 a.m. even if he played the night before. His wife, Brittany, would bring their children over at a certain time, and Brees would chase them around for a certain amount of time, and then they would leave at a certain time, so he could retreat to the darkness of the film room.“It’s unnerving at first to watch him as a young player, because you’re like, ‘Damn, how do I replicate this?’” said Marques Colston, a Saints receiver from 2006 to 2015. “It put you in a mode where you had to match his intensity.”Brees and Colston joined the Saints within weeks of each other in 2006. New Orleans drafted Colston that year, but Brees, after five seasons with the San Diego Chargers, chose the city. Identifying with its resilient spirit, he signed with the Saints to rebuild — his shoulder, his career, the organization, a region reeling from Hurricane Katrina.With those projects long complete, Brees, 42, leaves the game after 20 years of unbridling his superpower to maximum effect.“Over and above his outstanding performance, Drew came to represent the resolve, passion, and drive that resonates not only with Saints fans and football fans but our entire community,” Gayle Benson, the team’s principal owner, said in a statement.When Brees arrived, the Saints were a woebegone franchise coming off a 3-13 season in 2005, with one playoff victory in 39 years. Brees reached the N.F.C. championship game in his first year, delivered a Super Bowl in his fourth — beating the Hall of Fame quarterbacks Kurt Warner, Brett Favre and Manning along the way — and won seven division titles, including in each of the last four seasons. He transformed the national perception of the Saints and recalibrated locals’ expectations of offensive proficiency.Brees celebrating with the Super Bowl trophy in February 2010. The Saints had one playoff win in 39 years before his arrival.Credit…Barton Silverman/The New York TimesWhen Brees arrived, New Orleans was recovering from the devastation wrought by Katrina, so much so that after Coach Sean Payton got lost while showing Brees around the area on his free-agent visit, driving past ravaged communities, he figured Brees would sign with Miami. Instead, Brees settled in Uptown New Orleans, restored a century-old home, and committed to raising millions of dollars to refurbish parks, schools and athletic fields.When Brees arrived, his surgically repaired right shoulder was still ailing, and all throughout training camp and into the preseason his passes wobbled. Some teammates wondered whether he would ever recover. Payton did, too.As Strief remembers it, Brees went to throw a 20-yard out route early in the Saints’ third preseason game, and his pass skipped 5 yards short of the receiver. Payton asked the quarterbacks coach, Pete Carmichael, who coached Brees in San Diego, “Is this as good as he gets?”“I remember standing there thinking, like, oh wow,” Strief, who was hired last month as the Saints’ assistant offensive line coach, said. “Like, asking myself: ‘He’s an N.F.L. quarterback. How is that possible?’”As Strief discovered, Brees progressed at his own pace. Meshing with Payton, he threw for 4,418 yards that season, the first of seven times he led the N.F.L. in that category. No one has completed more passes or thrown for more yards, and only Brady has thrown more touchdowns.Some of Brees’s totals are bloated by the era, facilitated by rules changes, schematic innovations and a short-passing ethos. But in many years, the Saints needed Brees to throw just to offset their horrific defenses: Each of the five times New Orleans finished in the bottom seven in scoring defense, Brees led the league in passing. Over the last four seasons, as the Saints leaned more on their running game and a strong defense, Brees reinvented himself, throwing (even) shorter passes and fewer interceptions, never reaching double digits in that statistic after throwing 15 in 2016.“You just knew the ball was going to be perfect coming from Drew Brees,” the former All-Pro cornerback Aqib Talib said in a telephone interview. “He’ll just find ways to kill you.”Brees became more reliant on short passes in his final four seasons.Credit…Sean Gardner/Getty ImagesConsistent as Brees was, sometimes that focus blinded him from change swirling around him. Long a vocal supporter of the military, he equated kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality with denigrating the flag.As civil unrest roiled the country last summer, and as the league and its players grew more proactive about addressing systemic racism and social injustice, Brees reiterated that he considered it disrespectful to kneel. His comments angered teammates past and present, many of whom were mystified that someone generally so aware could be so insensitive. Brees later apologized, saying his comments “missed the mark.”“It hurt — like, dang, Drew, really? No way,” Moore said. “But sometimes it takes a situation like that for somebody to grow. I’m not going to allow something like that to erase the history we had together. I had to help teach him a lesson, and I think it was a moment of reflection for him.”Brees had ample time to ponder his future after the last three seasons, which all ended with a playoff defeat at the Superdome. Eliminated by the Rams in the playoffs after the 2018 season after officials missed a pass-interference call against Los Angeles, and by Minnesota in overtime after the 2019 season, when he missed five games with a thumb injury, the Saints lost to Tampa Bay at home in the divisional round in January in part because the Buccaneers converted two of Brees’s three interceptions into touchdowns.That day Brees, already managing the aftermath of the 11 fractured ribs and punctured lung he sustained in Week 10, was also playing with — as revealed in an Instagram post Brittany Brees would make two days later — a torn fascia in his foot and a torn rotator cuff. Struggling to move the offense downfield against Tampa Bay, Brees passed for 134 yards, his fewest in 18 postseason games by far, and if it all seemed like a discordant conclusion to a career steeped in splendor, that’s because it was — but yet it still sort of misses the point.So much of the Brees mythology focuses on what he lacks, things out of his control — the prototypical height of a quarterback, an Elway-esque arm, a second championship to enhance his legacy — instead of what he is, what he has, what he could do. And over the last two decades, as the N.F.L. transitioned into a passing league, no one summoned his superpower better to fulfill the position’s elemental responsibility — throwing a football accurately and consistently — finer than he did.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Drew Brees Considering Retirement After Playoff Ouster

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDrew Brees Considering Retirement After Playoff OusterBrees, 42, said he will weigh ending his 20-year career after the Saints’ loss to Tom Brady’s Buccaneers in the divisional round.“I’ll answer this question one time, and that is I’m going to give myself an opportunity to think about the season, think about a lot of things, just like I did last year, and make the decision,” Brees said after Sunday’s game.Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressJan. 17, 2021Drew Brees, who overcame a career-threatening shoulder injury to become the most statistically prolific quarterback in N.F.L. history, likely played the final game of his 20-year career Sunday, when his Saints lost, 30-20, to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a divisional round playoff game in New Orleans.For his part, Brees declined to discuss his future, and said the outcome of Sunday’s game will have no bearing on whether or not he’ll choose to keep playing.“I’ll answer this question one time, and that is I’m going to give myself an opportunity to think about the season, think about a lot of things, just like I did last year, and make the decision,” Brees said.Brees, 42, has a year remaining on the two-year, $50 million contract extension he signed last March and has been approaching his status on a season-by-season basis. But in April he agreed to join NBC Sports as a football analyst, raising speculation that the 2020 season would be his last.“You find out so much about yourself, and you fight through so much when you play this game,” Brees said. “I’d say this season, I probably had to fight through more than I’ve ever had to in any other season in my career, from injuries to all the Covid stuff to just crazy circumstances, and it was worth every moment of it, absolutely.”Brees missed a month with 11 broken ribs and a punctured lung but returned for the Saints’ final three games of the regular season, winning two to help them capture the No. 2 seed in the N.F.C. playoffs. Instead of rounding out his career with a second championship to further elevate his legacy, Brees delivered a jarring conclusion, throwing three interceptions Sunday — including on both of the Saints’ fourth-quarter possessions.Over his 20 N.F.L. seasons, Brees set numerous passing records, including most career passing yards and completions, and won his only Super Bowl appearance, with New Orleans after the 2009 season. He ranks second in completion percentage, passing yards per game and touchdown passes, in that category trailing only Tom Brady, who threw two on Sunday to help eliminate the Saints.A second-round pick in 2001 by the Chargers out of Purdue, Brees made a Pro Bowl in San Diego but was discarded in favor of Philip Rivers. In the final game of the 2005 season, Brees, an impending free agent, dislocated his right shoulder and tore his rotator cuff and labrum, an injury so severe that he wondered whether he would ever play again.Only two teams pursued him that off-season — Miami and New Orleans, which had a 3-13 record in 2005 after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Undeterred by both the state of the city and the uncertain state of the organization, Brees chose to revive his career in New Orleans, where he joined forces with new coach Sean Payton.Together, they brought respectability to the franchise and hope to a devastated region. In his first season, Brees led the Saints, who had made the playoffs five times in 39 seasons before he came, to the N.F.C. championship game. In his fourth season, he led the Saints to a Super Bowl, beating three Hall of Fame quarterbacks — Kurt Warner, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning — in the playoffs to do so.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      NFL Playoff Predictions: Our Picks in the Divisional Round

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.F.L. Playoff Predictions: Our Picks in the Divisional RoundThe A.F.C.’s young quarterbacks fight for a trip to the conference championship, while veterans, and defense, lead the way in the N.F.C.Jalen Ramsey of the Los Angeles Rams, foreground, largely nullified D.K. Metcalf of the Seattle Seahawks, lying on field, in three meetings this season. Can he neutralize Green Bay receiver Davante Adams?Credit…Steph Chambers/Getty ImagesJan. 14, 2021, 12:01 a.m. ETFew thought the Los Angeles Rams or the Cleveland Browns would get this far, and the Buffalo Bills had far more success than could be expected. The Baltimore Ravens stormed back into contention, a pair of 40-something quarterbacks will face off in New Orleans and everyone is (or should be) scared of the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. The wheat has been separated from the chaff, and the divisional round will narrow things further.Here is a look at this weekend’s N.F.L. playoff matchups. Unlike in the regular season, the picks are not made against the point spread.Saturday’s GamesLos Angeles Rams at Green Bay Packers, 4:35 p.m., FoxLine: Packers -6.5 | Total: 45.5Much will be made about the relationship between Coach Sean McVay of the Rams and Coach Matt LaFleur of the Packers. LaFleur served as McVay’s offensive coordinator in 2017, and they were offensive assistants together on Washington’s staff from 2010 to 2013. They are key figures in an offensive revolution, but if you are hoping for a high-scoring affair, you might want to try another game.Green Bay led the N.F.L. in scoring thanks to a turn-the-clock-way-back season from Aaron Rodgers that has him in contention for the Most Valuable Player Award. His success came with help from the running of Aaron Jones (1,459 yards from scrimmage), the vertical threat of Marquez Valdes-Scantling (20.9 yards per reception) and the all-around brilliance of Davante Adams (115 catches, 1,374 yards and 18 touchdowns).But if there is a team designed to slow the Packers, it is the Rams.Few defenses can match the relentless pass rush of Aaron Donald and Leonard Floyd, and while Rodgers does not fluster easily, the few times he has shown weakness in recent years have come when he is under consistent pressure. Complicating matters is the absence of the star left tackle David Bakhtiari, whose season ended with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in Week 16.Jones could be neutralized by a Rams front seven that ranked third in the N.F.L. in run defense — yes, Donald leads the way there too. Green Bay relying on the home run threat of Valdes-Scantling is risky thanks to his propensity for dropped passes.That leaves the most intriguing matchup as the one between the shutdown cornerback Jalen Ramsey and Adams, who can make a case as the N.F.L.’s best, and most underappreciated, current receiver.“You know me, I’d like to go against anybody and have good-on-good as much as possible,” Adams said this week when asked about Ramsey.On neutral ground, and with equal health, this could add up to a Rams upset. But Green Bay fought hard to gain the home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, and that hard work could be the team’s saving grace. It is expected to be around 30 degrees at kickoff in Green Bay, Wis., and Rams quarterback Jared Goff is only a few weeks removed from surgery on the thumb of his throwing hand. He appeared to struggle with his grip last week, and the cold, combined with a good-enough Packers defense, should give Green Bay all the edge it needs. Pick: PackersLooking for his first playoff win against the Titans, Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens took care of things himself. He led his team with 136 yards rushing last week.Credit…Wesley Hitt/Getty ImagesBaltimore Ravens at Buffalo Bills, 8:15 p.m., NBCLine: Bills -2.5 | Total: 50The Ravens have not lost a game since Dec. 2. The Bills have not lost one since Nov. 15. Both have weatherproof offenses and defenses capable of game-changing plays. And both overcame some psychological weight in the wild-card round — Buffalo got its first postseason victory since the 1995 season; Lamar Jackson of the Ravens won a playoff game for the first time.There are myriad reasons to pull for both teams — and a persistent belief that either team advancing is just signing up to lose to Kansas City in the next round — but it is hard to believe that Buffalo, even at home, can slow Baltimore’s juggernaut running game.When the Ravens hit the “reset button” after a midseason lull, the team focused nearly all of its attack on the running of quarterback Lamar Jackson and running backs J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards. That led to Baltimore’s rushing for 230 or more yards in four of its final five games of the regular season, including a ludicrous 404 — the fifth-most rushing yards in N.F.L. history — in a Week 17 win over Cincinnati. That kept up in the wild-card round, with the Ravens running for 236 yards.Buffalo ranked 17th in run defense this season, but that ranking would have been worse had teams not been forced to pass to keep up with the Bills’ electric offense. That shows up in the fact that Buffalo ranked among the N.F.L.’s six worst run defenses in yards per carry (4.6) and rushing touchdowns allowed (21).The Bills’ defense has several players capable of serious disruption, but much of that comes in the secondary. On a chilly day in Orchard Park, N.Y., the Ravens could focus on running the ball, and it is hard to see the Bills being able to stop them. Buffalo’s offense can’t be counted out, even against a solid Ravens defense, but Baltimore should control the clock and the game. Pick: RavensSunday’s GamesM.J. Stewart of the Cleveland Browns made an incredible interception of a Ben Roethlisberger pass last week. It was Cleveland’s second takeaway in the first five minutes of the game.Credit…Joe Sargent/Getty ImagesCleveland Browns at Kansas City Chiefs, 3:05 p.m., CBSLine: Chiefs -10 | Total: 56.5For all intents and purposes, Cleveland advanced to the divisional round after slightly more than 13 minutes of its wild-card game against Pittsburgh. A playoff game has rarely gone sideways so quickly, with the Browns’ defense forcing three quick turnovers and their offense handling its end of the deal by running up a 28-0 lead with 1 minute 56 seconds left in the first quarter.The Browns’ 48-37 win should not be written off as a fluke — Cleveland has its best team since Coach Bill Belichick was roaming the sideline in the mid-1990s — but taking advantage of Ben Roethlisberger’s mistakes is a lot different from forcing Patrick Mahomes into some, so expecting a repeat of that lightning-fast start would be foolish.Kansas City might get running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire back from a scary-looking hip injury in Week 15. Even if they don’t, a combination of Le’Veon Bell and Damien Williams provides enough balance that Mahomes should be able to shred Cleveland’s secondary with deep passes to wide receiver Tyreek Hill and throws underneath to tight end Travis Kelce.Cleveland’s offense has occasionally shown some burst — last week’s effort was the franchise’s highest-scoring postseason game since the 1954 N.F.L. championship — and the Browns can chew up the clock thanks to the superb combination of running backs Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. But even Baker Mayfield’s most ardent believers should struggle to take him in a head-to-head matchup with Mahomes. The Browns aren’t pushovers, but they probably cannot do much to stand in Kansas City’s way. Pick: ChiefsTampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints, 6:40 p.m., FoxLine: Saints -3 | Total: 52The oldest starting quarterback left in the A.F.C. playoffs is Baker Mayfield, who doesn’t turn 26 until April. Three of the four starters in that conference were first-round picks in the 2018 draft. By the time any of the four had started a game in the N.F.L., Tom Brady had already won five Super Bowls and Drew Brees was closing in on Dan Marino’s record for career passing yards.The young players have largely reimagined the quarterback position, using their mobility to empower their passing while contributing to a leaguewide scoring explosion. Yet Brady and Brees, museum-quality examples of a forgotten age of pocket passers, carry on, leading serious Super Bowl contenders in the second week of the playoffs.In truth, this game shouldn’t be defined just by its famous quarterbacks. Brees’s Saints had plenty of offense this season — running back Alvin Kamara led the N.F.L. with 21 total touchdowns — but relied just as much on the defense, which Dennis Allen, the team’s defensive coordinator, built into a powerhouse.Tampa Bay has a talented young defense as well — the support on that side of the ball undoubtedly played a role in Brady’s decision to sign there — and in recent weeks, the Buccaneers have started to truly click on offense. The team’s wealth of receiving options — wide receivers Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Antonio Brown; tight end Rob Gronkowski — powered Brady to his best statistical season since at least 2017 and one of the best of his career.The regular-season meetings between these teams were laughable. The Saints won both, with a combined score of 72-26. And they are playing at home, which plays a role for them even if the impact is lessened by the tiny crowds that the team is allowed to host. The Buccaneers are a good enough team that they should be respected — in many ways, this feels like a tossup — but the Saints are rightly narrow favorites in what could be the most competitive game of the weekend. Pick: Saints.All times are Eastern.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      What to Watch for in Sunday’s N.F.L. Wild-Card Games

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccination StrategiesVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat to Watch for in Sunday’s N.F.L. Wild-Card GamesLamar Jackson will try to get over the playoff hump against the Titans, the Saints will try to avoid any surprises, and the Steelers and the Browns circle each other for the third time this season.Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson will try to win his first playoff game in his third try when the Ravens face the Titans in a rematch of last year’s divisional-round contest.Credit…Bryan Woolston/Associated PressJan. 10, 2021, 8:00 a.m. ETSunday brings another day chock-full of N.F.L. playoff football, with three games kicking off roughly 14 hours after the last of Saturday’s trio of postseason contests ended. Distinct, pitched rivalries heighten the stakes of two of the matchups — Baltimore at Tennessee at 1:05 p.m. Eastern, and Cleveland at Pittsburgh at 8:15 p.m. — but the middle game, which has Chicago visiting New Orleans at 4:40 p.m., is seen as an apparent mismatch since it includes the erratic Bears, one of only two teams without winning records that have barged into the playoffs.Lamar Jackson will try to finally win a playoff game.Near the midpoint of the 2018 season, Lamar Jackson was named Baltimore’s starting quarterback and took the N.F.L. by storm, running the football (79.4 rushing yards per game in seven starts, six of which were victories) as well as he threw it (he averaged 159 passing yards per game during that stretch). Viewed as a team that nobody in the postseason wanted to play, the Ravens were instead upset at home by the Los Angeles Chargers in their opening playoff game, in which Jackson looked out of sorts and ruined two critical drives with an interception and a fumble.Last season, Jackson was the league’s most valuable player, and the Ravens were the top playoff seed in the A.F.C. But Baltimore was routed at home by the Titans as Jackson again struggled with two interceptions and a lost fumble.This season, the Ravens (11-5), a fifth seed, have looked unbeatable in their last five games, when they averaged 37.2 points per game. Jackson has regained his usual regular-season form. But another playoff loss, especially against a Tennessee (11-5) defense that ranked among the N.F.L.’s worst against the run and the pass, will amplify the spotlight on Jackson’s winless playoff record.In the Titans’ playoff victory over the Ravens last season, running back Derrick Henry rushed for 195 yards on 30 carries. It will be fascinating to see if Baltimore Coach John Harbaugh and his proud, physical defense have come up with an answer for stopping Henry — as they must. When the teams met in late November this season, Henry was kept under 100 rushing yards as the fourth quarter ended in a tie, but he took over in overtime, winning the game with a bulldozing 29-yard touchdown dash through most of the Ravens defense.The Saints hope for a miracle-less postseason.The bad mojo haunting the Saints in the last three postseasons has been well-documented. If Mitchell Trubisky and the Bears (8-8) were able to add to the franchise’s sense of playoff doom, it would be a sign that something really odd was afoot in New Orleans. The Bears backed into the playoffs as the N.F.C.’s seventh and last seed on a tiebreaker when matched against the equally inconsistent Arizona Cardinals (8-8). The Saints, winners of 11 of their last 13 games, are the second seed, trailing only the Green Bay Packers.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Alvin Kamara Runs for Six Touchdowns Against Vikings

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAlvin Kamara Runs for Six Touchdowns Against VikingsThe Saints running back tied an N.F.L. record set in 1929 in New Orleans’ 52-33 win over the Minnesota Vikings.Alvin Kamara rushed for a career-high 155 yards.Credit…Butch Dill/Associated PressDec. 25, 2020NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Alvin Kamara expects to be fined for wearing a pair of Christmas-themed cleats that, as it turned out, would also be worthy of a Hall of Fame display.With a red shoe on his right foot and a green one on his left, Kamara tied an N.F.L. record set in 1929 by running for six touchdowns in a game. He finished with a career-high 155 yards rushing to help the New Orleans Saints beat the Minnesota Vikings 52-33 on Friday and clinch their fourth straight N.F.C. South title.“It just feels good to have one of those days, just for the team,” Kamara said, showering credit on the Saints’ offensive line.“I’m not focused on personal, like, goals and yards and stuff like that,” Kamara continued. “As long as the team has success, then personal success will come.”That personal success has come all season for Kamara, who during training camp signed a five-year contract worth up to $75 million. He has since set franchise records for rushing touchdowns in a season with 16 and total touchdowns with 21.A possible fine would come from wearing shoes that didn’t conform to the N.F.L.’s uniform codes.“If they fine me, whatever it is, I’ll just match it and donate to charity,” he said. “You know, the Grinch always tries to steal Christmas.”Kamara slipped a couple of tackle attempts and then sprinted into the clear for a 40-yard touchdown on the game’s opening drive. He added scoring runs of 1, 5, 6, 7 and 3 yards against a Minnesota defensive front hit hard by injuries, and equaled the Hall of Fame fullback Ernie Nevers’ achievement.“It was awesome,” Saints quarterback Drew Brees said. “Six touchdowns for a running back is just astounding.”The Saints celebrated Kamara’s final touchdown by making snow angels in the end zone.Credit…Butch Dill/Associated PressMinnesota (6-9) was eliminated from playoff contention while allowing the most points by any Vikings team since 1963, the franchise’s third N.F.L. season. The Vikings also allowed the most yards in a game at 583. The Saints (11-4) never punted.“They just mashed us up front,” Vikings Coach Mike Zimmer said, calling his defense “the worst one I’ve ever had” as a coach. “We couldn’t slow them down. It would be 8-yard gain, 7-yard gain.”Saints Coach Sean Payton said it felt like a Canadian Football League game, with many first-down conversions coming before New Orleans even got to third down. The Saints might have won by a greater margin if not for two interceptions of Drew Brees, one of them on a pass that deflected off receiver Emmanuel Sanders’ hands.Brees completed 19 of 26 throws for 311 yards in his second game back from rib and lung injuries that had sidelined him for four games.Sanders had four catches for 83 yards, while tight end Jared Cook caught three passes for 82 yards. New Orleans’ 264 yards rushing were the most by a Vikings opponent in Zimmer’s seven seasons.New Orleans native Irv Smith Jr. caught a pair of touchdown passes in the third quarter for the Vikings, with the second pulling Minnesota to within 31-27. But the Saints responded with two short touchdown runs by Kamara and one by the versatile Taysom Hill in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.Kirk Cousins passed for 283 yards and three touchdowns for the Vikings, who never led and trailed for good after Kamara’s second touchdown in the first quarter.Saints players celebrated the last Kamara touchdown by pretending to make snow angels on the Superdome turf, which center Erik McCoy planned during the final drive as something that stuck with the Christmas theme.Payton, who spent part of his youth in the Chicago area, was thinking about Gale Sayers’ six-touchdown game (four rushing, two receiving) against San Francisco in 1965 when he called the play that led to Kamara’s final score with just less than two minutes left.“I’d say most of these players have no idea how good Gale Sayers was,” Payton said, adding that Kamara’s touchdown total “was a big deal. He played fantastic.”The Saints will visit the Carolina Panthers on Jan. 3, the final Sunday of the regular season, while Minnesota will visit the Detroit Lions.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Tested Again, the Chiefs Flex Their Survival Skills

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyChiefs 32, Saints 29Tested Again, the Chiefs Flex Their Survival SkillsKansas City (13-1) has come back in four of its last six games, winning all six, and while the Chiefs do not seem invincible, they hardly seem beatable.Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes reacted after throwing a touchdown pass in the first half.Credit…Brett Duke/Associated PressDec. 20, 2020, 9:17 p.m. ETTo an exclusive cohort in the N.F.L., the regular season serves as preamble, offering those powerful teams 16 opportunities to tinker, learn and adapt. What might work in September might not in January, when the playoffs beckon.At every checkpoint this season but one, the Kansas City Chiefs have scanned their irises and flashed their credentials. They beat lesser opponents and good ones. They outlasted legendary quarterbacks and overwhelmed ferocious defenses.That happened again on Sunday, when the Chiefs defeated the Saints, 32-29, in New Orleans, a win that flaunted their toughness and survival skills. Facing their best competition of the season, the Chiefs blew a 14-point lead, went up by 14, then held on to spoil Drew Brees’s return from a monthlong layoff forced by injury.It is possible that these teams will meet again in the Super Bowl on Feb. 7 in Tampa, Fla., and if they do, both may come to view Sunday’s game as an inflection point in their seasons.The last six games have tested Kansas City (13-1) to a considerable degree, exposing flaws while revealing what must be, for the rest of the league, an uncomfortable truth. The Chiefs won all six, coming back in four of them, and though they do not seem invincible, they hardly seem beatable.Even with the Saints swarming Patrick Mahomes as they did, sacking him four times and forcing a lost fumble, he still threw for three touchdowns, the Chiefs still gained 411 yards and they still scored 32 points against what could be the league’s best defense.The play that will linger longest was Mahomes’s third-quarter touchdown to Mecole Hardman, the score that put them ahead to stay. Mahomes rolled left, pump-faked and, with a defender barreling in from his right, flicked the ball toward the back of the end zone. It sailed beyond the outstretched arms of Sammy Watkins and into those of Hardman, who dragged his feet in bounds, putting the Chiefs ahead, 21-15.The Saints (10-4), like Kansas City, occupy rarefied space among the league’s elite teams, and their defense was one of only two in the league that entered Sunday having allowed fewer than 300 yards per game. As that defense cracked, gashed by Mahomes and the running back tandem of Le’Veon Bell and Clyde Edwards-Helaire (141 combined yards rushing), the Saints couldn’t recover. Three weeks after defeating Tom Brady on the road, the Chiefs stifled Brees in his home.Playing for the first time since Nov. 15, and without the elite receiver Michael Thomas, Brees completed only 15 of 34 passes for 234 yards, with three touchdowns and an interception.Brees missed four games with 11 fractured ribs and a punctured lung, injuries that, presumably, made it difficult to breathe, eat, drink, sleep, sit and stand, let alone outwit the large men with bad intentions chasing him. Enticed by the prospect of facing the Chiefs, of dueling with Mahomes, Brees felt well enough to play. He slipped a protective shirt beneath his jersey and set about resuming his playoff preparation.Early on, his passes floated and wobbled, and his fourth of six straight incompletions to begin the game landed in the hands of the Chiefs rookie L’Jarius Sneed. Capitalizing on the takeaway, Kansas City scored seven plays later, on a 5-yard pass from Mahomes to Tyreek Hill, who fooled the Saints by motioning away from the play before reversing field to slip unnoticed into the end zone.It is ruthless, Kansas City’s combination of speed, offensive creativity and coaching acumen. Also, endless. On their next scoring drive, the Chiefs further excavated their inventory of imaginative plays. At the Saints’ 1-yard line, Mahomes did not receive the shotgun snap so much as redirect it to his right, a chest pass to tight end Travis Kelce for a touchdown. According to the N.F.L.’s Next Gen Stats, Mahomes’s release time of 50-hundredths of a second was the fastest of any completion this season.The Chiefs led, 14-0, and New Orleans, into the second quarter, had yet to record a first down or a completion. It took until the Saints’ fifth possession for them to get either, and on that same drive Brees seemed to summon all the strength in his right arm in connecting with Emmanuel Sanders down the sideline. The 51-yard pass play — Brees’s second-longest completion of the season — escorted the Saints to the 3-yard line and shoved Brees off the field.During Brees’s absence, Taysom Hill showcased his versatility across four full games, winning three of them. But the Saints’ endgame is a championship, and with Brees back, Hill resumed his duties as a positionless dynamo, running on consecutive plays to cut Kansas City’s lead to 14-7.Heading into halftime, the Saints nearly tied the score after the ball, stripped from the punt returner Demarcus Robinson, rolled into the end zone. But the Saints’ Alex Anzalone couldn’t fall on it in time, and it squirted away for a safety.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More