The NFL has never seen a decisive confrontation like the one between Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Drew Brees’s New Orleans Saints.
A pair of quarterbacks in their 40s still thriving on the playoff stage at an age when almost all the other great players in NFL history were already retiring.
Brees will take the field for the Saints on Sunday, two days after turning 42 as the young sniper in this match against 43-year-old Brady, who broke almost all NFL longevity records.
Brees shot for more yards than any QB in the regular season with 80,358 and takes second place on TD passes with 571. Brady holds the touchdown mark with 581 and is only behind Brees in yards with 79,204.
This marks only the second time since at least 1950 that the two best NFL players in career yard passes will meet in the playoffs. Second-placed Denver Broncos John Elway defeated then-leader Dan Marino and the Dolphins 38-3 in the divisional round after the 1998 season.
This will be the first time since at least 1950 that the two TD pass career leaders will meet in the postseason.
The combined age of the starting quarterbacks will be an NFL record of 85, exceeding 84 in their two regular season games this season. The previous playoff record for the combined age of the starting QBs was 78, when Brady, 41, defeated Philip Rivers, 37, two years ago in the divisional round.
Brady, who is looking for his seventh Super Bowl title and his 10th appearance, has already crossed the field when it comes to playoff wins. He won his 31st postseason start last week and could double the total of 16 in the career of runner-up Joe Montana this week. Brady’s 75 TD passes in the playoffs are already 30 more than Montana had.
THIRD TIME IS A CHARM: It turns out that it is easier to beat the same team three times in one season than it is to win in the playoffs after being swept away in the regular season.
The Saints-Bucs game marks the 23rd post-season showdown in the Super Bowl era, after a team won the season series as New Orleans did against Tampa Bay.
The team that won the regular season series won 14 of the 22 previous fights, which bodes well for Santos this week.
Santos was on the right side of one of those fights the last time it happened, beating Carolina 31-26 in the wild card round, after sweeping the Panthers in the 2017 regular season.
The last time a team reversed a regular season sweep in the playoffs was in the 2007 playoffs, when the Giants did this against Dallas in a family postseason for Brady. Eli Manning and New York won the NFC title game in Green Bay and defeated Brady and the Patriots in the Super Bowl, hampering New England’s attempt at a perfect 19-0 season.
YOUNG GUNS: While the old are dominating the NFC playoffs, the AFC is highlighting the next generation of famous quarterbacks.
When Buffalo hosts Baltimore on Saturday night, it will be a clash of two 24-year-old defenders in Josh Allen of the Bills and Lamar Jackson of the Ravens.
The quarterbacks who take the field the next day in Kansas City are a year older, with Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs facing Baker Mayfield of Cleveland.
This will be the first time that a conference will have four quarterbacks aged 25 and under starting on the same weekend as the playoffs.
STREAKING: The Ravens had an impressive streak extended last week, while another was taken. JK Dobbins raced for a TD in his seventh straight game in Baltimore’s 20-13 victory over Tennessee, tied for the second longest streak ever for a rookie. Only Maurice Jones-Drew of Jacksonville has a longer one, having made it eight consecutive games in 2006.
Ravens’ kicker Justin Tucker lost a 52-yard field goal in the fourth quarter of the victory over the Titans, ending his run of 48 consecutive field goals in the fourth quarter and in overtime in the regular season and in the playoffs.
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