Brees becomes career passing yards leader in Saints’ rout

Drew Brees became the NFL’s all-time leader in yards passing — and he did it with a certain panache and precision that made the 39-year-old quarterback look far from finished.

Brees eclipsed Peyton Manning’s previous record of 71,940 yards with a 62-yard touchdown pass to rookie Tre’Quan Smith during the second quarter of a 43-19 victory over Washington on Monday night.

“Just so grateful for the opportunity to play this game and to have played it so long and to have the teammates that I have, and the New Orleans Saints organization, and this great city and this great fan base. It’s just truly been a dream come true,” Brees said. “I’ll be able to reflect on it maybe a little bit more when my career is done. I still feel like there’s work to be done.”

After the record-breaking completion, officials stopped the game and the game ball was handed over to Pro Football Hall of Fame officials on the sideline while the Superdome crowd offered a standing ovation. Brees removed his helmet, held out his arm to salute the crowd and hugged his wife, Brittany, and children on the sideline.

Brees entered the game needing 201 yards for the record. He had 250 by halftime. Brees, who already holds the single-season record for completion rate at 72 percent last season, finished the game a remarkable 26 of 29 for 363 yards, no interceptions and three touchdowns — two of them going to Smith, a thirdround draft choice out of Central Florida has played just five NFL games and is now immortalized because of his role in Brees’ record-breaking pass.

“Congrats on the achievement/ milestone. Sheesh that’s a lot of passing yards!!” LeBron James tweeted.

Earlier this season, Brees broke Brett Favre’s career record of 6,300 completions. Brees still needs 41 touchdown passes to surpass Manning’s record of 539, something the Saints quarterback could achieve next season if he maintains his current level of play. But Brees also would have to outpace New England’s Tom Brady, who has 500 TD passes, the only active player with more than Brees in that category. Brees now has 499.

Manning, a New Orleans native whose father, Archie, starred for the Saints, could not attend the game because of a scheduling conflict. However, he had pre-recorded a congratulatory message played on the Superdome’s video boards. Shown on the video slicing tomatoes, Manning deadpanned that his time as the career yards passing leader have been “the greatest thousand days of my life.”

“Thanks to you, that’s over now,” Manning continued as the laughter erupted in the stands. “You’ve ruined that for me.”

“Also, let this serve as the congratulations for the touchdown record because as you can see, I’m very busy,” Manning added. “I don’t have time to keep doing these videos for you.”

On a more serious note, Manning said Brees broke the record “the right way.”

• Any hope Washington had of coming back was all but snuffed out when Justin Hardee snagged Alex Smith’s underthrown pass at the Saints’ 19-yard line and returned his first career interception to the Washington 4. That set up change-of-pace QB Taysom Hill’s 1-yard touchdown run that put the Saints (4-1) up 40-13. FALCONS’ RYAN TO PLAY >> Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan had negative results on an X-ray of his foot following Sunday’s blowout loss at Pittsburgh.

Atlanta coach Dan Quinn said Ryan is “100 percent good to go” this week against Tampa Bay after getting sacked six times and hit 11 additional times. Quinn did not say which foot Ryan injured.

Ryan, an 11-year veteran and the 2016 NFL MVP, has been sacked 16 times, tied for thirdmost in the league. He was sacked 24 times last year. EAGLES PLACE AJAYI ON IR >> Philadelphia placed top running back Jay Ajayi on injured reserve Monday because of a knee injury. A person familiar with the situation says Ajayi tore an ACL and will miss the rest of the season. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the team hasn’t announced the severity of the injury.