Saints coach Payton: Brees is day-to-day with foot injury

And before we dive too much into it, I know every game in the National Football League is “meaningful”.

After he left Monday night’s game against the Saints, Drew Brees completed 22-of-32 passes for 259 yards and three touchdowns.

It all started when Saints quarterback Drew Brees appeared to hit receiver Brandin Cooks for a 29-yard touchdown that could have cut the deficit to 21-10, but the replay review clearly showed Cooks was down at the 1-yard line.

Since the Lions’ bye week, which also coincided with Jim Bob Cooter being able to install more of his offense as the newly named offensive coordinator, Stafford is completing better than 68 percent of his passes with 14 touchdowns and just two interceptions.

Both players, though, had long runs after fumbling, a sign that the coaches are more trusting now than early in the season when Abdullah was benched in a couple games after fumbling.

“He’s making us look really good”, right tackle Michael Ola said. The Lions defeated the Saints 35-27.

Stafford threw an 18-yard pass to Eric Ebron on the next play, and Bell scored on a dive from 1-yard out to give the Lions a 15-point cushion. The Saints are not playing for anything right now and there is no need to make an already painful injury even worse. “You have to respect that”, Saints tight end Ben Watson said. The Saints (5-9) have already been eliminated from possible playoff contention and will host the Jacksonville Jaguars (5-9) in week 16.

Brees did reached three milestones in the game. No one has said whether Brees suffered a partial tear or a full tear. He played on an injured foot, hobbling around, as a 36-year-old quarterback in a meaningless game in December. “I know he’s had it looked at, he’s had an MRI”. That would be with two weeks left to go in the season where we are at now.

“Three plays later, after officials erroneously stopped play when the Lions signaled for a timeout they didn”™t have, the Saints were called for ineligible man downfield negating a Brees completion to Marques Colston in the end zone as the first half expired. The latter has missed the past five games with the injury. “That would be my assumption, but obviously that would be a coach’s decision once we got to the actual game”. As a team, we deal with injuries like this all of the time.

The Saints will have to decide whether they want to extend Brees’ contract to help provide cap relief this offseason; they are already over the NFL’s projected cap of $150 million with just 41 players under contract.