Drew Brees Finally Gets a Shot at Tom Brady: No Pressure, The World Is Watching

Thanksgiving Day 2009 (Panama City Beach, Florida)

It's twenty years later, and team owner Tom Benson no longer dances in the end zone. Yet Saints fans still dance Sunday nights away at the Famous Door on Bourbon Street.

A live wire, barely a beginner
But just watch that lady go
She's on fire, 'cause dancin' gets her higher than-uh
Anything else she knows

Dance (Dance) the night away
Oh-oh-oh (Ah) Come on g-girl, dance the night away

Yeah, there's no shortage of hysteria in New Orleans these days. It's Mardi Gras in November in The City That Care Forgot.

Just ask no less an authority than the city's best artisan of fine cuisine—Chef Emeril.

They're the best. They're the best. Absolutely the best. What do you guys think? Are they the best or wwwwwwhat?

As tasty as the good Chef's finest dish, the Saints' Cat 10 offense is as smooth and pleasurable as the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra or one of those French Quarter Jazz bands.

And it's such a night, it's such a night
Sweet confusion under the moonlight
It's such a night, such a night
To steal away, the time is right

It's amazing what can happen under a voodoo moon in New Orleans.

These Saints are off to a 10-0 start: best in franchise history.

Some would say they have taken the road less traveled.

New Orleans has thrown the knockout punch from a variety of angles.

Drew Brees is tossing TD passes with ease. One week it's Reggie Bush. The next week it's Mike Bell. The defense has scored seven times. Two weeks ago, they got a kickoff return for six. Last week, it was former first-round draft pick Robert Meachem, once labeled a bust, with two touchdown catches.

Brees from the shotgun, play action, rolls to his right, pumps, throws into the end zone......caught by Meachem for the TD!!!!!!!!

Meachem says he's just learning to chill in this laid-back town, havin' fun:

"As a first-round draft pick, people were saying, 'He's not out there. Why did we draft him? He's a bust.' So, I just learned to try to use that as a positive, and I replayed that in my head, "HE'S A BUST," and it makes me go out there and play better."

Many in the national media believe in their most private moments that New Orleans is more bust than boom.

ESPN's Mike Greenberg said this week the Saints have to be the most unheralded 10-0 team in NFL history. On Monday mornings, the national media gives an obligatory mention of the Saints' latest win before quickly shifting gears to Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings or Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts.

Even the lowly Cleveland Browns and New York Jets garnered more talk time on a recent edition of ESPN's Mike & Mike.

Rarely is the immortal Brees—the man who came within one mid-range completion of breaking Dan' Marino's single season passing yardage record one year ago—mentioned in the discussion of the NFL's greatest quarterback.

That topic is reserved for Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

Alas, sometimes Cinderella is late. Better late than never.

Finally, Brees gets his chance to silence the experts on Monday Night Football as the entire nation watches what is easily the best matchup of the NFL season down in New Orleans.

Brees says he relishes the chance to face Brady.

"I'm excited for the opportunity because you like to share the field with guys like that—guys that are considered the best—and get an opportunity to compete. "

Hey, my offense is trying to score more points than your offense, pretty boy!

Although his goal is to score 40 points every game, Brees realizes that this week less may be better:

"Everytime we touch the ball our goal is to get points, but you understand in a game like this, going up against a quality opponent, that at times you may have to play the field position game a little bit."

Brady sounds confident as he returns to the Superdome for the first time since winning Super Bowl XXXVI, over the St. Louis Rams—the original Greatest Show on Turf.

"It's always good this part of the year for a quarterback and a head coach, when you can evaluate another team based on 10 games and over 500 or 600 plays, can evaluate their players and their coaching, what makes their team go, and how to eliminate some of their strengths," says Brady.

One strength the Patriots will have to eliminate is the Saints' absolute mastery of the fourth quarter this season. New Orleans has scored 338 fourth quarter points through ten games—best in the NFL in 2009.

New Orleans radio commentator Bobby Hebert was the first quarterback to lead the Saints to a winning season back in 1987 when the owner was still doing something called the Benson Boogie, and head coach Jim Mora was ranting, "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda." 

Hebert says that given the Saints penchant for creating turnovers and scoring points in bunches in the fourth quarter, it may not take a hex from one of those Bourbon Street witch doctors to beat the Patriots.

"It's going to be a battle from kickoff to the last whistle. If we (the Saints) win the fourth quarter like we've been winning it this year, we're going to beat the Patriots."

Exuding confidence, Brady told Sports Illustrated in a June 1, 2009 cover story, "I've done everything I could do to push myself, sometimes too hard. Right now, I'm doing everything. THERE'S NOTHING I CAN'T DO."

Only time will tell. We'll have the answer before the clock strikes midninght at the Famous Door on Bourbon Street.