Payton and Brees, стр. 56
When he took the field in Minnesota that day, Brees knew exactly what needed to be done. After the touchback, the Saints took possession at their own 25-yard line with one timeout at their disposal and 1:29 on the clock. U.S. Bank Stadium, where the Vikings had won eight of their past nine games, was at peak hostility. The situation was bleak. But it was far from hopeless, especially with Brees pulling the trigger.
The Vikings opened in their usual defensive package for these situations, a Cover 3 defense with Anthony Harris playing center field and zone coverage underneath. Harrison Smith and Xavier Rhodes bracketed Thomas underneath, forcing Brees to target alternative options on the perimeter. After a first-down incompletion, Brees threaded the needle to Josh Hill on a seam route over the middle for an 18-yard gain to the 43.
On the next snap, the Vikings switched to man-to-man coverage, and Brees quickly spotted some confusion from nickel back Mackensie Alexander on the call. He quickly snapped the ball and delivered a strike to Ted Ginn Jr., who beat Alexander for an easy 11-yard reception and got out of bounds. Just like that, the Saints were in Vikings territory at the 46-yard line with 55 seconds left. Realistically, they would need to gain about 10 more yards to get into Lutz’s range for a go-ahead field goal attempt.
The Vikings switched coverages again, this time to something the Saints did not expect. They went to a coverage they had not played previously in two-minute situations, a scheme known in NFL vernacular as Two Man, which aligned two safeties on each deep half of the field and the other pass defenders in man-to-man coverage underneath. It was a curveball. The Saints had not prepared during the week for the Vikings to play Two Man in this situation. And now Brees was staring at it with the play clock ticking down and a berth in the NFC Championship Game on the line.
Brees initially tried to beat the defense by going to Thomas, but Xavier Rhodes’ tight coverage forced three straight incompletions. It was now fourth-and-10, and with the Saints’ season on the line, Brees called one of his favorite plays, Flutie. The play, named in honor of the former NFL and Boston College star, was an old standby in the Saints playbook. In fact, offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael believes it might be the most frequently called play in the Saints’ playbook.
“Quarterbacks like plays that have answers, and Flutie has answers versus every coverage, every look, every pressure,” Brees said. “That play was probably part of Day One installs back in 2006.”
Flutie is one of the Saints’ favorite Two Man–beaters because it features two out-breaking underneath routes, in this case by Willie Snead in the slot to the left side and running back Alvin Kamara out of the backfield to the right, which theoretically would be open against the inside leverage technique of the defense.
“We like Flutie versus Two Man, and Drew got to it,” Lombardi said.
With the sellout crowd roaring, Brees dropped back and fired a perfect strike to Snead between three defenders in the left flat. The ball was perfectly placed—hitting Snead just below the chin, where Brees always tries to target his receivers—and perfectly timed, arriving just after Snead made his break and before three Vikings defenders could converge on him. Brees’ pass was so perfect Connor Payton could have caught it, and the 13-yard gain silenced the crowd and got the Saints into field-goal range at the Vikings 33.
“It was an amazing read and just a great pass by Drew,” said Chase Daniel, who was the Saints’ backup quarterback at the time. “It was such an impressive drive to me because the Vikings had never shown Two Man before and Drew had to quickly figure that out and get to [Flutie].”
Brees added a couple more short completions to Ginn and Thomas, and Lutz drilled a 43-yard field goal to give the Saints a seemingly safe 24–23 lead with 25 seconds left.
“That was one of the best drives I’ve ever seen,” Taysom Hill said. “My jaw hit the floor on the throw that he made to Willie Snead on fourth down.”
It was Brees at his best. On the go-ahead drive, he completed passes to four different receivers against four different Vikings coverages. And he did it against the league’s top-rated defense on the road in one of the loudest stadiums in the league. And he did it all while making each play call on his own.
“I was sitting up in the box, thinking, ‘Wow,’” said Joe Brady, who was in his second season as an offensive assistant on the Saints staff in 2017. “Obviously, Sean was giving his thoughts but basically it was just, ‘Here ya go, Drew. You got it.’
“It says a lot about both Sean and Drew, that you have so much faith in a quarterback that he is going to prepare himself and you trust him that whatever play he feels like he can get into, he’s going to find a way to make it work. Essentially we were just up in the box watching one of the best quarterbacks of all time go to work.”
Brees, Payton, and the Saints offensive staff go over the two-minute plan for each opponent during the dot meeting on the eve of the game. Brees and Payton formulate a plan based on the defensive tendencies of the opponent provided in the scouting report by the club’s pro personnel department. Brees identifies potential weaknesses in the defense from his own film study and prep work. A menu of preferred plays is listed on Payton’s call sheet. The plays are assigned one-word tags to facilitate and expedite the communication process when every second