Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints Deliver in Prime Time...Again

The New Orleans Saints trampled over the New York football Giants last night in front of millions of viewers on ESPN. Monday Night Football featured an NFC matchup that was anticipated to be a close and entertaining game. The latter part of that previous statement ended up being true, but the game was far from close.

The Black and Gold defeated the Giants 49-24 to improve to 8-3, thus maintaining control of the NFC South and keeping hope alive for getting the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.

Drew Brees continued his assault on Dan Marino’s record for passing yards in a season, and threw for four touchdowns with no interceptions. He completed 24 passes to seven different receivers for 363 yards. As good as those numbers sound, they should have been better.

Brees was not his scary accurate self last night, and he even missed an open Lance Moore in the back of the end zone on the Saints' opening drive.

Besides a few passes that got away from him, the only other mistake he made all night was the ill-fated cradle dunk attempt after he scored a rushing touchdown. He made a nice little run from eight yards out to score, and tried to mimic MJ, only he could not.

The rushing game also shined last night. Mark Ingram and company boasted a 6.8-yard average and rushed for 205 yards; in addition, Pierre Thomas, Ingram and Brees all scored touchdowns via the run game.

The three-headed monster of Ingram, Thomas and Sproles, who leads the league with 1,748 all-purpose yards, have combined for 1,225 yards and five yards per carry. If the Saints want to defeat the Green Bay Packers come January, the rushing attack will need to be effective.

Also, the receiving corps had a great game, as they usually do. Jimmy Graham and Lance Moore both had two TDs, while Marques Colston recorded three catches for 78 yards. Graham has caught 67 passes for 957 yards with eight TDs on the season.

Defensively, the Saints looked pretty good, but the lack of pressure on Eli Manning all night was slightly troubling, not to mention letting Victor Cruz go 72 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Manning only hit the turf four times for the entirety of the game. With all that being said, the defensive unit stood tall when they needed to.

Will Herring made what I consider to be the play of the game in the first quarter. After the Saints failed to score on a fake field goal, the Giants drove down into New Orleans territory. On 1st-and-10 from the 18-yard line, Manning threw a pass to Jake Ballard in the end zone; however, Herring, not Ballard, made the play on the ball and picked it off.

The Saints never looked back, and proceeded to score 49 points and accumulate nearly 600 yards of total offense.

The Black and Gold won for the sixth straight time on Monday Night Football, and seem to play their best when the lights are shining bright. The Detroit Lions come to town on Sunday night in another prime-time game, this one on NBC instead of ESPN.

The game could be played on Versus for all I care, because the Saints look untouchable at home, and this Sunday the Lions should leave the Mercedes-Benz Superdome the same way the Giants did: demoralized.