Saints Vs. Giants: Fresh Off Bye Week, Drew Brees And New Orleans Eager For Monday Night Football Clash With New York

Saints vs. Giants: Fresh off Bye Week, Drew Brees and New Orleans Eager for Monday Night Football Clash with New York

The Week 12 edition of Monday Night Football features an NFC matchup with huge playoff implications as the 2011 NFL season moves ever closer to the month of December. The New Orleans Saints come in with a record of 7-3, leaders of the NFC South, while the New York Giants are on a two-game losing streak, but are in perfectly good shape in both the NFC East and wild card races if they can keep pace with a win in New Orleans. Drew Brees and the Saints are well rested coming off a bye week that came at the right time after ten consecutive weeks of games to start the season. Brees knows the Giants defense, particularly the talented front four, will give the Saints offense all they can handle in this game.

Drew Brees joined WWL in New Orleans with Bobby Hebert on “Quarterback To Quarterback” to discuss his physical state coming off the bye week to take on the New York Giants, continuing his streak of winning 10 consecutive games in November, the Saints commitment to running the football more efficiently this season, facing a very dangerous opponent in New York that may be in a must-win situation, and the Saints offensive line preparing for the Giants’ extremely tough front four defensively.

How does the body feel coming off the bye week to take on the New York Giants?

“The bye week came at a perfect time. A lot of us had the opportunity to get away and heal up our bodies and obviously recharge the batteries both mentally and physically so we are ready to go. It is an exciting time going into the last part of the season here. It all starts Monday night against the Giants.”

You have won 10 consecutive games in November. The streak dates back to 2008. Like you say you always want to play your meaningful football come November and December heading into the playoffs:

“You absolutely do. For us I think we always view that month of November as the middle part of the season and that is when I think the contenders separate themselves from the pretenders and we view ourselves as a contender and want to be that year in and year out. I think we just put extra emphasis on that month really to kind of establishing our identity and creating momentum moving into the latter half of the season.”

Talk about the balance of the Saints offense and running the ball efficiently this season:

“Absolutely and it is about consistency. That doesn’t mean you are going to go out rush for 150 plus yards a game. I think you always make it a goal that you want to be as balanced as possible. When you are running the football you are averaging four, five yards a carry because that is what is going to get you into manageable third down situations. That’s what is going to allow to continue to get first downs and continue drives and score points and wear a defense down and time of possession and all those things that you talk about as part of winning football. I know how much a good run game can help with the play action and your ability to throw the ball down the field and just your ability to balanced is so important.”

Coming into this game the Giants are in a must-win situation trying to keep pace with the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East race. The Giants have lost two in a row. They are a desperate team. Talk about the Giants being a very formidable opponent on Monday night:

“Yeah they are extremely dangerous. Especially right now because so much of this league is not who you play it is when you play them. They are…I just know our mentality if we were in their situation and that would be very much a must-win. You want to play your best football. You are on the road Monday night in a hostile environment and all those things, so we are going to need to do our absolute best coming off a bye week to just show how well rested we are by coming out ‘guns blazing’ and really execute well and just do all the little things cause games like this come down to who’s the most disciplined and who can take care of it when it comes to crunch time.”

The Giants have always been a great team with pass rushing ability historically. What are your thoughts on the Giants defense?

“That’s something that jumps out to you on film – their ability to get after the quarterback even with just a four man rush cause really they haven’t shown to bring a lot of pressure. We know they’ve got it, but you typically only do it out of necessity and they do it just to change it up. They certainly don’t need to apply pressure on the quarterback. They can get it with their front four. They are a big, stout group that certainly looks the part and you look at the numbers. We gotta do a great job with our protection plan, which I know we will have that in place going into this game and the better you can run the football the more explosive you can be as well, so all those things are factors in this game.”