Call 911! Saints kill Giants behind Brooks' five TDs

By By Richard Dark / EMG staff writer
Dec. 15, 2003
NEW ORLEANS For a night at least, none of the previous shortcomings, failings, fumbles or flops mattered at all.
It was the second ESPN Sunday night blowout of the season inside the sold-out Louisiana Superdome. But this time, the New Orleans Saints were on the authoritative end of it.
And their quarterback, Aaron Brooks, had plenty of the right reasons to smile. Brooks tossed a career-high five touchdowns, fueling a 45-7 destruction of the hapless New York Giants.
Brooks, looking every bit like a man gripped with something to prove, did so to the 68,399 in attendance, spraying the ball around seemingly at will all night long, hitting six different receivers and finding his favorite target, Joe Horn, on scores 50, 13, 7 and 18 yards.
Brooks also threaded the needle to Jerome Pathon, who hauled it in with his fingertips while diving in on a 26-yarder. All told, Brooks finished the night 25-of-34 for 296 yards and no interceptions. Horn became the first Saint in franchise history to score four touchdowns in a game, as well as compiling the most 100-yard games (19) in a career.
The Saints improved to 7-7, while the Giants (4-10) lost their sixth straight, perhaps driving the final nail in the coffin of their coach Jim Fassel.
Horn also said he would not have taken back pulling out a cell phone out of the goalpost pad after a TD celebration, despite getting flagged and also drawing the ire of his coach.
But those issues had no effect on the one-sided outcome.
How lopsided was it? A plethora of stats could illustrate this, but through three quarters, the Giants had only converted 1-of-9 third down situations.
But the fourth quarter was all about mop up time, as many reserves on both sides saw action. Backup quarterback Todd Bouman, who many thought would replace an ineffective Brooks, did come in but just for garbage time, which seemed to last all night for New York.
New Orleans outgained the Giants 440-241 in total yardage. Deuce McAllister rushed for 80 yards on 15 carries, representing the only thing Fassel's injury-riddled defense seemed to do with any consistency.