The Houston Texans welcome one of the game's best signal callers to town on Sunday.
Drew Brees and the Saints are here for Week 12 and despite his team's struggles, the 9-time Pro Bowler is playing at the same sterling rate as always.
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"I don't care where he is in his career this guy is a great player," Texans head coach Bill O'Brien said, when asked about the high level of play coming from a 36-year old.
Brees has completed 257-of-370 pass attempts for 2,972 yards. He's thrown 20 touchdowns and been picked off just nine times. He's been able to move his team's offense, and O'Brien explained how.
"He's very quick minded, so he's able to get the ball out very quickly and accurately," O'Brien said. "He's been doing it for a long time so there's really not a lot that you can show him that he hasn't seen, probably nothing, so you have to do a great job of making sure that your players understand their assignments and any tendencies that New Orleans may have you've got to make sure that they understand those."
Outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney stressed the Texans must bottle up the Saints' quarterback.
"You've got to keep him in the pocket," Clowney said. "He's a very, very good quarterback now for a while. I watched him when I was in college growing up, so I'm looking forward to playing against him."
Defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel agreed with O'Brien, and stressed that Brees has seen it all.
"Even though you try to fool him, it's hard to fool this vet," Crennel said of the 15-year veteran. "That's one of the biggest challenges. You may be able to fool some of the guys around him, but fooling him is hard to do and he's the guy you really need to fool."
Brees, who's led the NFL in passing yards five times in his career, and completed 66.4 percent of his passes in 15 seasons, has been sacked 23 times through nine games. The Texans said they'll need to pressure the former Purdue Boilermaker, and not let him connect on too many big plays.
"At the end of the day he's going to make some plays," O'Brien said. "But we have to limit those by tackling and by spinning the dial on them a little bit, but he's a great player and I think he's playing real well."
Brees and the Saints are second in the NFL in both passing yards per game, and overall yards per game on offense. They're also atop the League in converting on 3rd down, at 47.18 percent.
Check out some of the best fan photos from Sunday's game against the Jets.
