Start short, look long was a winning formula for New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees on the way to a significant milestone and his team’s first win of the season.
The story of this win was the 80-yard touchdown throw to C.J. Spiller that won the game, but Brees put his team in position to win with the throws before it.
Brees, who has been dealing with a shoulder injury, averaged 3.6 air yards per pass on his first nine drives of the game. But on his last two, he averaged 12.2 air yards per attempt, including 18 yards on the game winner.
As a result, Brees had one of the most accurate days of his career. He was 30-of-31 for 323 yards and two touchdowns when the Dallas Cowboys sent four or fewer pass rushers.
Brees finished 33-of-41 overall. It was the fourth time in his career in which he had a completion percentage that high (80.5 percent) when throwing that many passes.
Brees became the fifth quarterback with 400 touchdown passes. The 400th was his second pass that came in overtime.
It was the sixth time in NFL history that an overtime touchdown was a pass or run of 80 yards or longer.
This was the second Brees touchdown pass of 80 yards or longer to come in the fourth quarter or overtime. The other was the longest touchdown pass of his career, an 86-yarder to Marques Colston, against the Panthers in 2006.
It had been a long time since the Saints won on a touchdown pass in overtime. The only other Saints quarterback to throw one was Danny Wuerffel in 1998 against the Colts.
