The New Orleans Saints have done everything possible to secure a first-round bye week, though it’s still eluded them. Home-field advantage throughout the playoffs is out of their reach after the Green Bay Packers overcame a double-digit deficit to beat the Detroit Lions, but Saints quarterback Drew Brees wants it known that he isn’t afraid to go play on the road.
“I know a lot of people talk about the Superdome, and about us being a dome team, but the bottom line is that over the last 10 years we’ve won more games on the road than everybody but the New England Patriots,” Brees said during his postgame press conference.
That’s quite a stat to pull out of his hat, and Brees isn’t wrong: only the Patriots (57 wins ) outpace the Saints (52) in road wins since 2009, though the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers are close (having each won 51 games). As they’ve proven this season, the Saints can win anywhere in the NFL.
“I think that’s saying something about our teams,” Brees continued, “About how we’re coached. I think it says a lot. This year we were, what, 6-2 at home and 7-1 on the road?”
The Saints have been just as effective on the road as at home in the Superdome; there’s no greater evidence of that than the 38 and 42 points they dropped on the heads of their last two opponents, each of them in cold weather on the road.
Still, Brees hasn’t hung around the NFL this long by not taking things for granted. He knows what it takes to win in a hostile environment, and expects his team to prepare accordingly when the time comes: “Bottom line is each road game presents its challenges. It’s the crowd noise, it’s the conditions, it’s all those things you gauge depending on where you go. You plan for it, and this game is still about energy and execution. And I feel like that’s something we’ve done a great job with everywhere we’ve gone.”
