Marc Weiss and Michael Miller faced each other in a battle down in the Big Easy. Both teams featured scary aerial attacks. Neither team was adept at stopping the other and the game came down to one final 4th and 14 play.
1st QTR: After 15 minutes of play the game was tied at 7. The Giants fired the opening salvo when Earl Morrall hit Homer Jones for a 53 yard TD pass. Halfway through the period Drew Brees would connect with Billy Miller for a 20 yard score to tie it.
2nd QTR: New York would own the second quarter and head to the locker room leading 21-7. Tucker Frederickson's 2 yard TD plunge capped off a 12 play / 76 yard scoring drive that took almost 7 minutes. A quick 5 yard TD toss from Earl Morrall to Homer Jones with 1:51 left in the half capped off a 9 play / 80 yard drive. New Orleans caught a bad break when Henry Carr intercepted Drew Brees on the Giants 14 yard line one play after Pierre Thomas ran back Bob Timberlake's kickoff for 83 yards.
3rd QTR: The Saints reversed their bad luck with a 27 yard Drew Brees to Miller TD strike on the third play of the half. Two plays earlier Brees hit lance Moore for 48 yards. New York shot itself in the foot when Morrall threw a pick 6 to Josh Bullocks, which tied the game at 21 all.
4th QTR: With the game tied at 21 Morrall hit Del Shofner with a 2 yard TD toss to break the stalemate. That play was the 10th of an 80 yard drive that took 6 minutes to complete. New York would then go up by 13 when Steve Thurlow scampered 34 yards for a TD with 3:37 left, but Bob Timberlake missed the extra point. All seemed ok for the visiting team, but that was a false sense of security. Brees hit Devery Henderson for a quick 20 yard score as the 2009 NFL MVP drove his team 80 yards in 5 plays and took only a minute off the game clock. An onside kick was recovered by Garrett Hartley at midfield Brees took full advantage and moved 48 yards in 4 plays then gave the ball to Pierre Thomas for a 3 yard TD dive. Hartley nailed the extra point to put the Saints up by 1 with just under 2 minutes to play. With the score 35-34 New Orleans, Morrall took over with 1:48 to go on his own 35. After throwing 2 incompletions Morrall faced a 3rd and 10 and hit Aaron Thomas for 15 yards and a first down. On the following play he hit Shofner for 18 yards to put the ball on the Saints 32. Thrulow cut for 12 yards on a draw and
Morrall ran for 4 more after getting flushed from the pocket then spiked the ball to stop the clock at :29. Facing a 3rd and 6 from the Saints 16 Morrall looked to get it all, but was sacked by Kendrick Clancy for an 8 yard loss. New faced a 4th and 14 from the Saint 24. It all came down to one final play and Morrall rose to the occasion by hitting Joe Morrison in the end zone for the go ahead TD with 8 ticks left on the clock. Morrall hit Morrison for a 2 yard toss for the 2 point conversion, which left Drew Brees :02 seconds for a Hail Mary pass that was incomplete. The Giants fought back to narrowly defeat the Saints and move to 3-0.
STATS: Morrall received the game ball on a day where he went 19-32-394-4TD-INT. Brees (20-33-302-3TD-INT) went toe to toe with Morrall and just ran out of time. Billy Miller topped the century mark with 6 grabs for 101 yards and 2 TD, but the real star was Homer Jones who caught 5 passes for 148 yards and 2 scores.
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