Payton and Brees, стр. 41

on the post, then he looks to Meredith. If they are covered, he comes back to Thomas on the crossing route underneath. Kamara is the checkdown option if all else fails. But Smith? In all of the years the Saints have run the play during the Payton-Brees era, coaches and players said they can’t remember a pass ever being thrown to the receiver on that route.

“I’m, like, the fourth read in the progression,” Smith said. “I thought Drew was going to throw it to Cam again because he was also open.”

It was a one-in-a-million throw. And fittingly, Brees delivered it on the play that made him the NFL’s all-time passing king.

“I don’t know how Drew saw him or felt him on that play,” Carmichael said. “The Redskins had gotten a little confused and were in between one coverage and another coverage. Drew just threw it up. He didn’t even think. To this day, I don’t think we’ve ever thrown it to that guy on that particular play.”

Over the years, Brees has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of NFL defenses. He’s picked the brains of every defensive coordinator on the Saints staff over the years to learn the responsibilities of each defender in each defensive coverage. When Norman went off script and blew the coverage, Brees knew it the same way you or I would recognize the rearrangement of our living room furniture.

“He processes things extremely well,” Payton said. “It’s one of his rare traits. Where that ball went on that pass was uncanny.”

This almost superhuman ability to process and execute in game conditions is why former Saints tackle Jon Stinchomb refers to Brees as “the supercomputer.” His teammates and coaches marvel at his ability to compute on the fly and make split-second decisions.

“The amount of information that he can take out and process and react to is much more than anyone I’ve ever been around,” Lombardi said. “His lens is wide, and he sees everything and processes it so quick.”

Brees is constantly computing calculations in his head. When the Saints find a cornerback or safety they want to target in coverage, Brees essentially becomes an oddsmaker in cleats. His mind calculates the chances of success on a play based on the matchups discussed during the week of preparation.

In Brees’ mind, receivers like Colston and Thomas are rarely truly covered. Because of his confidence in his own accuracy and the trust he’s developed with his receivers during practice, Brees is willing to throw passes many other quarterbacks won’t attempt, especially if it’s a matchup he and the staff have deemed favorable during their week of preparation.

“If Mike Thomas is one-on-one, I like our odds,” Brees said. “Even when he’s two-on-one, it had better be a really good two-on-one or else there’s usually still a place you can throw the ball where he can get it and they can’t. You assess that. That’s my job as a quarterback. Be a great decision maker, get the ball in the hands of the playmakers, but you’ll make those good decisions.”

A 2009 game against the New York Giants illustrated this point. The Saints went after Giants safety C.C. Brown in coverage for the entire game. Brown was a backup strong safety who had been forced into a starting role at free safety because of injuries. He had three total interceptions in his four-year career. Football Outsiders referred to him as a player “with the range of a broken wireless router.” The Saints targeted Brown seven times in coverage and completed five passes for 96 yards, five first downs, and two touchdowns.

“In that game specifically, I’m looking at a safety who isn’t very experienced,” Brees said, recalling, in detail, the strategy for the game almost a decade later. “I can tell [from film study] that he’s maybe not in the right position a lot of times. Then when the ball is in the air, he has a hard time tracking it, a hard time playing the receiver. In my mind, the computation immediately goes up in our favor as to the percentage of something good that will happen. If any of my guys get one-on-one with this guy down the field, I’m going to throw it, because only three things can happen, and none of them are really that bad. The worst thing that happens is an incompletion. But we also might get a PI [pass interference penalty]. Or we might catch it for a touchdown. Immediately, in my mind, when I get that matchup, it’s like, ‘Ding, ding, ding.’ That’s opportunity.”

In the Saints’ Week 16 game against the Tennessee Titans in 2019, Brees made a similar calculation. He had tight end Jared Cook in single coverage against safety Kevin Byard. Brees went after him for a completely different reason than he did C.C. Brown a decade earlier. Byard, after all, was a Pro Bowler and All-Pro in 2017. He was regarded as one of the top ball hawks in the league, with 16 interceptions in the 2017–19 seasons. But none of that mattered to Brees. In his mind, it was basic math. Or in this case, physics. Cook stands 6’5”. Byard is 5’11”.

Byard jammed Cook at the line of scrimmage and ran stride for stride with him toward the goal line. By all accounts, Byard had Cook covered. Undeterred, Brees fired a pass high and over Cook’s outside shoulder and Cook made a leaping grab in the back of the end zone. The 16-yard touchdown gave the Saints a 30–21 lead in the fourth quarter and helped seal a big road win.

“Cook is a big target obviously, and he has a big catch radius,” Brees said later explaining why he targeted Cook on the play. “Any one-on-one matchup, there’s not a guy on defense that’s going to match his size, right? You always feel like there is a place where you throw the football where he can get it and other guys can’t.”

Brees has made these calculations throughout his career. It doesn’t always work, of course.