Drew Brees broke a 27-year old NFL record on Monday night when he completed a nine-yard touchdown pass with 2:51 remaining in the game. That pass game him 5,087 yards on the season, passing the mark Dan Marino set in 1984 as the greatest passing season in NFL history.
Falcons Player Upset With Drew Brees And Saints’ Decision To Go For Dan Marino’s Record
The moment was one to remember as Brees fired the pass to Sproles and then started walking to midfield with his arms in the air. As far as special moments go -- and the Saints have had a lot recently in the Superdome -- this one ranked near the top.
The Saints won in a blowout and Saints coach Sean Payton admitted after the game that he passed on normal blowout protocol where you generally stop passing the ball so much to avoid running up the score.
"Someone is going to ask this question so I am going to answer it before it's asked," Payton said. "Typically, would I be throwing it there? The answer would be probably not. In fact, the answer would be 'I wouldn't be.' But I thought it was appropriate that we get the record. And we did it. We have a ton of respect for Falcons coach Mike [Smith], his staff and his players. It seemed like the right thing to do. I felt real good about the decision."
That was understandable in this case, if you ask me. As Jeff Duncan of the Times-Picayune wrote, Marino’s record was like “the 500 pound elephant in the locker room” and Brees needed to break it now to avoid all the talk of the record leading into next week.
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But not everyone agrees. Pete Prisco of CBS Sports reported that at least one unnamed Falcons player was unhappy that the Saints continued passing late into the game, even with Marino’s record at stake.
Prisco quoted one Falcons player as saying: “That’s just who they are. We’ll see them down the road. We won’t forget any of it.”
Whaaaat? “That’s just who they are”....I hope that Falcons player knows Brees is known as one of the great guys in the league and has never had a reputation of being classless, or running up the score. It was a unique situation which is clearly understandable given the circumstances.
I’ll never understand players who complain about getting the score run up on them. If you want to stop it, then stop it. But don’t complain after the fact.
Maybe that’s why the Falcons player decided to give anonymous quotes.
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