NFL: Saints vs Raiders OCT 12

Not only is Drew Brees on an amazing run, but he may be set up to break a long held NFL record.  From Don Banks of Si.com…

Dan the Man Marino’s statistical legacy is going to take its third major hit in five NFL seasons when Saints quarterback Drew Brees shatters his single-season passing yardage record of 5,084, set in his magical 1984 campaign. Marino saw his one-season touchdown pass record of 48 go by the boards in 2004, courtesy of the Colts’ Peyton Manning, who threw 49 (Tom Brady broke Manning’s record with 50 in 2007).

Marino also watched Brett Favre run down his career touchdown pass record of 420 in September 2007, when Favre threw No. 421 against the Vikings in the Metrodome. And now its Brees’ turn to relegate Marino to second place in single-season passing yardage.

Through six games, Brees has thrown for 1,993 yards, a 332.2-yard per game pace that would give him 5,315 yards at season’s end — or 231 more than Marino. Through his first six games of 1984, Marino had thrown for 1,848 yards, or 308 per game.

Yeah, we hate those on-pace projections too, to a certain degree, but this time we’re allowing it because Brees is going to finish the job (and besides, he was my preseason pick for league MVP, so there’s that.) And like Marino with Miami in 1984, Brees will have the benefit of good weather to throw the ball in down the stretch. In the Saints’ final 10 games, they’ll play half of them in domes (three in the Superdome, one in Atlanta, one in Detroit), and they should also have good weather this week in Carolina and in Week 13 at Tampa Bay.

That leaves only three games that could be climatically challenging for the Saints passing game: Their Week 8 game against San Diego in perpetually rainy London (remember last year’s Dolphins-Giants Mud Bowl in Wembley in Week 8?), a Week 11 trip to Kansas City, and a Week 15 Thursday night game in the windy and probably frosty confines of Chicago’s Soldier Field.

The Saints are not going to have a dominant running game at any point in 2008, so they will keep throwing the ball (late in blowout wins aside). And also working in Brees favor is that at 3-3, New Orleans will likely need every win it can get, prompting it to fully play the season out through Week 17, rather than rest him and other key starters in late December.

As usual, Don has some other great tidbits from around the NFL.  You can read the rest, here.