METAIRIE, La. — Six lead changes, 13 offensive touchdowns and a combined 101 points. Drew Brees and Eli Manning battled to the last second, combining for 855 total passing yards on Nov. 1, 2015, at the Caesars Superdome.
The two quarterbacks, both modern-era candidates for the 2026 Pro Football Hall of Fame, scored on almost every possession in a wild game that ended with the Saints winning 52-49 on a 50-yard field goal as time expired.
As the 10th anniversary of the game approaches, it remains tied for the fifth-highest scoring game in NFL history.
“It was an offensive player’s dream,” former Saints tight end Benjamin Watson told ESPN this week when asked about the game.
Only two players from that game remain active — New Orleans defensive end Cameron Jordan and wide receiver Brandin Cooks, who returned to the Saints this year after an eight-season absence. Then-Giants coach Tom Coughlin is retired, while Sean Payton is coaching the Denver Broncos.
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For defensive players such as Jordan and former Giants linebacker Jonathan Casillas, who also played for the Saints early in his career, it’s a game they’d rather forget.
“That was 10 years ago. Geez Louise,” Jordan said this week. “In my mind, it was a close game, but we won. I definitely recall a shootout.”
Casillas said he remembers almost nothing from that day — on purpose.
“Tried to block everything from my brain. It was 7-on-7 where the ball doesn’t touch the ground,” Casillas told ESPN this week. “Defensively, you don’t ever want to be a part of that on either side — 101 total points, 13 TD passes, 1,200 yards, whatever it was. It was insane.”
But for the offensive players involved, every detail still resonates.
“Drew Brees, he could probably tell you the exact yard line that they were on with the formation that he called to put us ahead for the win,” Jordan said. “I can’t give you that.”
ESPN spoke to current and former Saints (0-4) and Giants (1-3) players this week, leading up to the current teams’ matchup at the Superdome on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS).
“Pretty wild how that whole game unfolded,” Brees told ESPN this week. “I can remember every touchdown in the game and the situation around it, but … it was just high-level offense on both sides.”
Here’s how those involved remembered one of the craziest offensive shootouts in modern NFL history.
Saints v. Giants, 2015.
101 combined points, the 4th highest-scoring game in NFL History
📺 #NYGvsNO (12/17 at Noon on FOX) pic.twitter.com/4iiFHuWdoh
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) December 13, 2023
The Giants (4-3) and the Saints (3-4) needed wins to keep their playoff hopes alive. Players on both sides said they envisioned a high-scoring game. Brees knew he would have to account for two things. He wanted to counteract the emotion of Louisiana natives Odell Beckham Jr. and Eli Manning returning to play in the Superdome, but Brees also knew he would have to outmatch Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who spent one season with the Saints in 2012.
Brees: It just created this environment where it was literally, don’t look at the scoreboard, just sit there and try to score every time you touch the ball and wait until the end of the game and look up and see if we scored enough points to win.
Update: Giants up 7-0 with 9:39 left in the first quarter
Willie Snead scored the first of the Saints’ next two touchdowns off a flea-flicker. The Giants went three-and-out and pinned the Saints on their 4-yard line, but Brees flipped the field by improvising to find Watson for a 46-yard gain.
Brees: That was obviously kind of off-script. Typically on that play, he never gets the ball. That route never gets the ball. … I think there was just interior pressure, so I ended up scrambling out of the pocket to the right, and then Benjamin Watson was just open, kind of deep down the right sideline on this, what was a corner route that he just kept running and launched it out there to him. That was probably one of my more favorite ones. It’s always nice when you scramble and you can launch one down the field, and it ends in the completion out of your own end zone.
Update: Tied 7-7 with 7:36 left in the first quarter
Cooks high-stepped it into the end zone on the Saints’ next offensive drive.
Cooks: ‘One Step Bullet.’ … Stiffed him, then took it to the crib.
Brees: It was actually a run play where we have the opportunity to throw just like a little quick slant, little one-step slant. We used to call it ‘Bullet,’ on the backside and they went Cover 0. So, the safety came out of the middle of the field, came down to the strong side, and it just left Cooks one-on-one and he beat the guy inside, and I do this little quick fake and then just get the ball out of my hands really fast.
Update: Saints up 14-7 with 2:24 left in the first quarter
Saints receiver Brandin Cooks catches a pass for a third-quarter touchdown against the New York Giants on Nov. 1, 2015, in New Orleans. Chris Graythen/Getty Images
The Giants went back to what worked, running the same play as their first score, a rub route that sent Beckham dancing into the end zone again.
Dwayne Harris (Giants wide receiver, 2015-2017): He brought the Michael Jackson dance out for that game!
Watson: I remember sitting on the sideline and just looking up at the screen and seeing Odell score, and [we were] just looking at each other, knowing we got to go back out there and score, but if there’s any offense that you want to be in for a time like that, it’s a Sean Payton and Drew Brees’ offense.
Update: Tied 14-14 with 13:31 left in the second quarter
A 53-yard touchdown to wide receiver Marques Colston put the Saints up 21-14. Brees recalled New Orleans installing the play, called ‘Canon,’ that week for a specific type of coverage the Giants had shown on film — to fantastic results.
Jahari Evans (Saints guard, 2006-2015): You scored seven touchdowns, it’s like, it should be a great win. You should be blowing them out. But I do remember it was back and forth. Eli was scoring, we were scoring, Colston caught a wide-open pass; they blew a coverage.
Brees: We run basically like this whip route by the off-the-ball ballplayer … and the intention was to grab the inside defender, which he did, and that left Colston with outside leverage, and Colston runs a skinny post, but because of the stack release, sometimes those guys with the in-and-out coverage, they get mixed up on who has who. And because the way we ran the route, they both kind of settled their feet, thinking they were going to cover the whip [route], and then Colston just busted wide open on that skinny post.
Update: Saints up 21-14 with 11:05 left in the second quarter
Willie Snead’s two touchdowns, a career first at the time, gave the Saints a two-possession lead.
Evans: I felt like that was one of his best games, two touchdowns.
Update: Saints up 28-14 with 1:46 left in the second quarter
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The Giants got the ball back with 1:46, and two straight defensive penalties by the Saints got New York to the Saints’ 41-yard line with 50 seconds to go. Manning completed six quick passes to score again with a 2-yard pass to Shane Vereen as the half ended.
Geoff Schwartz (Giants guard, 2014-2015): We were down 28-14 before half and then we scored that [Shane Vereen] touchdown. … And then again after the half [the long TD to Beckham]. It was just nonstop scoring.
Update: Saints up 28-21 at halftime
The statistics were already staggering after one half: 32 first downs, 507 net yards of offense and seven total touchdowns. But it wasn’t anywhere near over. Beckham continued to celebrate his homecoming by tying the score with his third touchdown catch — a 50-yard bomb from Manning.
Update: Tied 28-28 with 12:58 left in the third quarter
The Saints responded with what Brees called one of his favorite plays from an “empty” set (no running backs in the backfield). Cooks ran a “big box fade,” on a play in which the corner was supposed to react to an underneath route. When the corner failed to bite, Brees had to put the ball in the perfect spot to make the play work.
Brees: If you go watch the highlight, I have to throw this ball and drop it in this bucket basically in this big box fade area, and you’ve got the guy covering Cooks running at it. You got the corner sloughing off, running at it, and the ball just kind of goes right over their hands and drops right into Cooks’ proverbial basket, and then he runs it in.
Cooks: We had the big box fade, and Drew threw a dart only where he can fit it and then I just had to make a play.
Update: Saints up 35-28 with 10:09 left in the third quarter
Watson caught a 20-yard touchdown pass to end the third quarter.
Watson: We were backed up in our end zone. I forgot what the playcall was, but I had a deep corner out, so I run my deep corner and I looked back and Drew was back there scrambling, and I had Trevin Wade on me and man coverage, and … I kind of shook him and then Drew was scrambling, rolling to his right outside of the pocket and he just lets it go. He probably threw it, I don’t know, 47 yards in the air and threw it right to me.
Watson: If you look at the video of that play, you see Brandin Cooks when I catch the ball, he’s right under the goalpost, and he does a karate kick in the air, and I don’t really know why he did it, but he did this weird flying kick in celebration after the touchdown.
Update: Saints up 42-28 to end the third quarter
The #Giants trail the Saints 42-28 at the end of the third quarter. #NYGvsNO pic.twitter.com/uzwSMvdmRA
— New York Giants (@Giants) November 1, 2015
The Saints looked like they were about to pull away when the Giants responded with two more offensive scores.
Schwartz: The thing about offense is that it’s our job is to keep scoring, man. … You keep scoring and hope your defense makes a play or two. But we knew we had to keep going until you can’t score anymore.
Evans: Even putting up all those points, the game … it wasn’t a blowout. It felt like we were responding the whole time to them putting up points as well. So, it was exciting because we were having success at the same time. We knew that the only way to win was to keep going, too.
Update: Saints up 42-35 with 12:15 left in the fourth quarter
The Giants scored three times in a row, twice to Harris. The Saints’ defense committed two third-down penalties, keeping the Giants’ drive alive and negating a Manning fumble. Saints cornerback Damian Swann was injured on a 9-yard touchdown to Harris.
Harris: I wasn’t even expecting [Manning] to throw it because I’m coming across the field. He’s going the other way. So, I’m just trying to get in his line of vision. I think he looked back and I had the defensive guy on me … and I see the ball coming. I see the trajectory of the ball. So I’m like, let me stop right here. And I just stopped. Leaped up and the ball was there. I think he kind of was throwing out there because Odell was behind me on that play, too.
The Saints had a rare three-and-out on the next drive, and Manning started the Giants’ drive with a 38-yard pass to Beckham. It took only three plays to score again.
Harris: I think the starting nickel had just got hurt right before that, and they brought in another guy and we threw it right at him. … I don’t think he had played me all game, so he wasn’t really ready. I don’t know if he had been watching film or whatever. But I just hit him with a little outside-inside move down the seam.
Update: Tied 42-42 with 9:30 left in the fourth quarter
Game Recognizes Game: a combined 70-91 for 861 yds and 13 TDs #NYGvsNO pic.twitter.com/A7pFHQcHEK
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) November 1, 2015
The Giants took a 49-42 lead thanks to a 63-yard interception return by Trumaine McBride. The play was initially ruled a Willie Snead fumble, but the NFL made a correction days later and ruled it an interception. The change wiped out personal records for Brees in completions (40) and yards (511).
Brees: That was bogus. That should’ve been a catch.
Harris: At one point, we had caught the interception off the tip. The tip from [Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie]. McBride caught the tip from the interception and scored. I’m like, all right. At this point, we’re up now. We’re good, right? The other stop didn’t come and then we had the penalty.
Cooks: We just thought to ourselves, “Well, let’s go score some more points.” Anytime you got Drew right there and the playmakers that we had, we knew we could, in our mind, that we could have a shootout with anybody.
Update: Giants up 49-42 with 7:11 left in the fourth quarter
Brees drove the Saints down the field again for his seventh and final touchdown of the day, on a 9-yard choice route to running back C.J. Spiller with 41 seconds left. Brees was preparing for overtime at that point. Spiller, a Saints running back from 2015-2016, said in the locker room after the game that he knew he was going to take a hit and just wanted to make sure he held on tightly to the ball.
Brees: We’re going down the field to basically win the game, to tie the game, and then we’re going to go into overtime, right?
Spiller said in 2015: I’d seen how the linebacker and the safety was playing, and I was able to get across his face, and the next thing you know, just locked it down. I knew I was going to get hit, so I wanted to make sure I secured the ball.
Brees: It was H Choice. That was a really popular play for us. It’s what Darren Sproles scored on when we set the single-season passing record [in 2011]. Scored a lot of touchdowns on that route, and I just remember C.J. crossing face on the Will linebacker, and I mean executed perfectly, and we score.
Update: Tie score 49-49 with 36 seconds left in the fourth quarter
The Giants got the ball at their 20-yard line and went three-and-out. Punter Brad Wing, an LSU grad, not only fumbled the ball forward, but he also got penalized for a face mask call, giving the Saints the ball at the Giants’ 32-yard line with five seconds left.
Schwartz: Brad Wing getting a face mask at the end of the game is ridiculous. Of all the ways to lose that game. A punter getting a face mask to put them in field goal range is crazy. That’s how he got into field goal range. On a punt return!
Saints kicker Kai Forbath, who had been signed only two weeks before and had yet to kick a field goal for New Orleans, nailed a 50-yard attempt. After the game, Watson said he didn’t know whether to look at Forbath or stare in the other direction.
Brees: There was very little time left, and then we kicked off to them and then they went three-and-out and punted to us, and then we ended up lining up for a long field goal, and we made it.
Watson: I don’t remember ever doubting that he would make it, but I did know this. If he missed it … I knew we were just going to go out there and score again. … The way we were going, I wish he would’ve missed it because it gave us more opportunity to score more points.
Final score: Saints win 52-49
Photos from the #Saints locker room after the win vs the Giants: https://t.co/S5wo6rF1Cz pic.twitter.com/JepWvpE5sY
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) November 3, 2015
Neither team made the playoffs that season, making the game somewhat forgettable in terms of importance. Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan was fired two games later. But those who watched two quarterbacks play at their best that day won’t forget it.
Harris: Man, I ain’t never seen nothing like it before. Especially two Hall of Fame quarterbacks just battling it out like that. That was a fun game for me, honestly.
Watson: The poor defensive coordinators, luckily, they had a job the next week on both teams after that, but you just got in the huddle and it was exciting.
Brees: I thought we were going to go to overtime, and I knew I had just thrown seven touchdowns, so I was like, all right, sweet! Let’s throw the eighth touchdown in overtime.
Watson, (who had a career-high 147 yards): It probably was exasperating for fans to watch. Probably had a lot of high blood pressure and heart attacks that game, but as an offensive skill player, it was fun.
