Brees helps Saints pull away late, advance
Veteran QB gets divisional matchup with Brady, Bucs
Drew Brees will get to celebrate his 42nd birthday by preparing for a playoff game that will also feature the one active NFLquarterback older than him.
Brees completed 28 of 39 passes for 265 yards, connecting with Michael Thomas and Latavius Murray for touchdowns, and the Saints defeated the Bears 21-9 in an NFC wild-card game Sunday.
The victory for the Saints (13-4) and Brees, who turns 42 on Friday, sets up a divisional-round meeting next weekend in the Superdome with the Buccaneers and 43-year-old QB Tom Brady. The Saints won each regular-season matchup with the NFC South rivals by double digits.
“The minute that he signed with the Bucs and came to the division, you felt like that was going to be a team to contend with, that was going to be a team that would have playoff aspirations and beyond, just like us,” Brees said of meeting Brady in the playoffs for the first time. “... I guess it was inevitable.”
Alvin Kamara rushed for 99 yards and added a 3-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter after sitting out the regular-season finale and not practicing last week because of contracting COVID-19.
The Bears (8-9) put forth a scrappy performance defensively that prevented the Saints from building more than a one-touchdown lead until Murray’s 6-yard catch-and-run made it 14-3 late in the third quarter.
That score resulted from a big Bears mistake: Safety Eddie Jackson, lined up for an apparent blitz, jumped offside on fourthand-3 from the Bears 13-yard line.
“It was basically a no-brainer freeze. We were just going to take a delay (of game) and then kick the field goal,” Payton said. “It worked pretty well.”
Twoplays later, Brees scrambled right and spotted Murray waving for the ball. Brees sent a short touch pass over onrushing linebacker Khalil Mack, and Murray sprinted straight to the goal line, diving through converging tacklers to reach the end zone.
Brees’ first touchdown pass in the opening quarter was 11-yards over the middle to Thomas, back from a three-game absence to help heal a nagging ankle injury. The 2019 offensive player of the year missed nine games this season and hadn’t caught a touchdown pass since December 2019.
“He had a few big plays for us and he’s going to continue to have more and more big plays,” Payton said.
Thomas finished with five catches for 73 yards.