The New Orleans Saints continued their late season surge as they crushed the Minnesota Vikings 42-20. The Saints performance late this season makes them look like the team with the best chance to dethrone the Packers, and Drew Brees’ performance takes him a big step closer to breaking Dan Marino’s 27-year-old passing record.
The Saints were dominant in all phases of the game. Brees continued his torrid pace as he turned in a nearly perfect performance. He completed passes to 9 different receivers, and had four receivers with over 70 yards. Brees had a passer rating of 149.2, completing 32 of 40 passes (80 percent) for 412 yards with 5 TDs and no INTs.
Brees entered the week with 4,368 yards, bringing his total for 14 weeks up to 4,780. He only needs 304 yards, or 152 yards per week over the next two games, to break Dan Marino’s 1984 single season passing record of 5,084 yards.
More importantly, he put some distance between himself and Patriots QB Tom Brady. Brady entered this weekend only 95 yards behind Brees, and it appears likely that both men will break Marino’s mark. Brady threw for 320 yards today, Brady now has 4,593 yards and needs 246 yards per week to break Marino’s record.
The gap between the two men stands at 187 yards, and we can only sit back and enjoy the race through the last two weeks of the season.
It’s amazing that a record that has stood for 27 years is likely to be broken by two men in the same year. The only comparable precedent in sports is in major league baseball, during the 1998 home run race in which both Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa broke Roger Maris’ 37 year old home run record of 61 in the same season. McGuire ended the year with 70, and Sosa had 66. McGuire’s record only lasted for 3 years, as Barry Bonds (the current record holder) hit 73 home runs in 2001.
If Brees outlasts Brady and takes home the record, who knows how long it will last? Maybe Aaron Rodgers, or even Cam Newton, will pull a Barry Bonds and throw for 5,500 in a couple of years.
it is very possible that both players will break Marino’s record, and only the 27-year old record, so he also put pressure on Brady, who is
