AMERICAN FOOTBALL:DREW BREES landed three touchdown passes and the red-hot New Orleans Saints romped to a 45-28 victory over the Detroit Lions in a National Football League wild-card shootout on Saturday.
The Saints, Super Bowl champions two years ago, raced into the post-season as the NFL’s hottest team and rode that momentum to a ninth straight win to set up a NFC divisional showdown against the San Francisco 49ers next Saturday.
“I feel like our offense, our team, is built for whatever conditions,” Brees told reporters looking ahead to next week’s game outdoors in San Francisco.
“We play indoors here but we feel we’re the type of team that should be able to go anywhere, anytime and play the type of football we know how to play. We scored on every drive in the second half, I guess that’s what you hope for.”
Only four quarterbacks have passed for over 5,000 yards in a single NFL season and two of them, Brees and Lions’ Matthew Stafford, were on the field in New Orleans, promising a night of offensive fireworks at the Louisiana Superdome.
As usual, it was Brees at the controls of the NFL’s top offense, providing most of the pyrotechnics as the Saints attack piled up a post-season record of 626 total yards.
Brees, who set the new single season passing mark, zeroed in on some playoff records, completing 33 of 43 passes for 466 yards, the second most in the NFL post-season behind Bernie Kosar’s 489 with the Cleveland Browns.
After a slow start, the Saints were unstoppable in the second half where Brees had all his touchdown passes, including a 56-yarder to Robert Meachem and a 41-yard strike to Devery Henderson, as New Orleans outscored Detroit 35-14 over the final two quarters. Jimmy Graham was also on the receiving end of a Brees touchdown pass while Darren Sproles ran for a pair of scores and Pierre Thomas added one late in the game.
In Saturday’s other game, the Houston Texans won their first ever NFL playoff game with a 31-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals to earn them an AFC divisional round clash with the Baltimore Ravens.
Houston running back Arian Foster was once again the difference-maker scoring two touchdowns and rushing for 153 yards .
In last night’s action, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw three touchdown passes to lead his side to a comprehensive 24-2 victory over the Atlanta Falcons at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
The win sets up an NFC meeting away to the Green Bay Packers.
