Drew Brees threw seven touchdown passes on November 1, 2015, and it was barely enough. Eli Manning threw six more for the New York Giants, the two quarterbacks combined for an NFL-record 13 touchdown passes, and the game at the Superdome was tied 49-49 with 36 seconds left. The Saints won 52-49 when Kai Forbath, a kicker they had signed less than two weeks earlier, made a 50-yard field goal as time expired.
A 36-year-old with something to prove
The Saints started 0-3 that season and arrived at 3-4. Brees, 36, had hurt his throwing shoulder in Week 2, and there was talk about his age and his salary. He said afterward that the Saints had not come out “with the intent to set a few records just to shut some people up.” The Giants came in at 4-3.
The game also had a family angle. Manning grew up in New Orleans, where his father, Archie, had played quarterback for the Saints. Odell Beckham Jr., Manning’s top receiver, is also from New Orleans. On the other sideline, Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo had run the Saints’ defense in 2012, when it allowed a record 7,042 yards.
Fourteen touchdowns in four quarters
The teams traded touchdowns from the start. Manning found Beckham for scores of 2 and 1 yards in the first half, and Brees answered with touchdowns to Willie Snead, Brandin Cooks and Marques Colston. Colston’s 53-yarder down the middle, after the Giants appeared confused about who had him, was Brees’s longest completion of the day. Shane Vereen caught a Manning touchdown with seven seconds left in the half, and the Saints led 28-21 at halftime.
Beckham got behind the Saints’ secondary for a 50-yard touchdown to tie the game early in the third quarter. Brees threw touchdowns to Cooks and tight end Ben Watson to make it 42-28 going into the fourth.
Then the Giants scored 21 points in a row. Manning, rolling right on 4th-and-5 from the 9, threw back across his body to Dwayne Harris for a touchdown, then hit Harris again from 20 yards to tie it at 42. On the Saints’ next drive, Snead caught a short pass and had the ball knocked out by Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, who had intercepted Brees at the Giants’ 5 in the third quarter. Trumaine McBride picked up the loose ball and ran 63 yards for a touchdown, and the Giants led 49-42 with 7:11 to play.
| Qtr | Time | Team | Play | NYG | NO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9:43 | NYG | Odell Beckham Jr. 2-yard pass from Eli Manning (Josh Brown kick) | 7 | 0 |
| 1 | 7:45 | NO | Willie Snead 34-yard pass from Drew Brees (Kai Forbath kick) | 7 | 7 |
| 1 | 2:30 | NO | Brandin Cooks 26-yard pass from Brees (Forbath kick) | 7 | 14 |
| 2 | 13:34 | NYG | Beckham 1-yard pass from Manning (Brown kick) | 14 | 14 |
| 2 | 11:15 | NO | Marques Colston 53-yard pass from Brees (Forbath kick) | 14 | 21 |
| 2 | 1:50 | NO | Snead 2-yard pass from Brees (Forbath kick) | 14 | 28 |
| 2 | 0:07 | NYG | Shane Vereen 2-yard pass from Manning (Brown kick) | 21 | 28 |
| 3 | 13:08 | NYG | Beckham 50-yard pass from Manning (Brown kick) | 28 | 28 |
| 3 | 10:14 | NO | Cooks 21-yard pass from Brees (Forbath kick) | 28 | 35 |
| 3 | 0:33 | NO | Ben Watson 20-yard pass from Brees (Forbath kick) | 28 | 42 |
| 4 | 12:24 | NYG | Dwayne Harris 9-yard pass from Manning (Brown kick) | 35 | 42 |
| 4 | 9:37 | NYG | Harris 20-yard pass from Manning (Brown kick) | 42 | 42 |
| 4 | 7:23 | NYG | Trumaine McBride 63-yard fumble return (Brown kick) | 49 | 42 |
| 4 | 0:41 | NO | C.J. Spiller 9-yard pass from Brees (Forbath kick) | 49 | 49 |
| 4 | 0:05 | NO | Forbath 50-yard field goal | 49 | 52 |
The tying drive and a costly tackle
The Saints did not panic, Brees said. They converted a 4th-and-1 at their own 29 on a Mark Ingram run, and Brees moved them across midfield with short throws to Cooks, Colston, Snead and Watson. Ingram broke a 16-yard run to the Giants’ 11 on 3rd-and-1, and Brees hit Spiller for a 9-yard touchdown on 2nd-and-8. Forbath’s extra point tied it at 49 with 36 seconds left.
The Giants threw two incompletions around a 5-yard catch and punted from their own 25 with 20 seconds left. Brad Wing’s 46-yard punt went to Marcus Murphy at the Saints’ 29, and Murphy returned it 24 yards to the Giants’ 47 before fumbling. Snead recovered. Wing, trying to make the tackle, was flagged for a face mask, and the 15 yards put the ball at the Giants’ 32 with five seconds left.
“We punted it for distance. We got some distance. They would have had 5 seconds left had we covered it,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. “We didn’t expect the guy to run the punt back. And then, of course, I didn’t expect the penalty.”
The Giants called their last timeout to make Forbath wait. It was his first field goal attempt as a Saint, and the 50-yarder tied his career long. “I’ve been fortunate to get in situations where it’s come down to a kick,” Forbath said. “I really work on, in practice, trying to make everything the same every single time.”
By the numbers
| Number | Detail |
|---|---|
| 13 | Touchdown passes in the game, seven by Brees and six by Manning. It is still the NFL record |
| 40 of 50, 511 | Brees’s passing, with one interception. Both the completions and the yards were Saints single-game records |
| 30 of 41, 350 | Manning’s passing, with a career-high six touchdowns and no interceptions |
| 101 | Points, at the time tied for the third-most in an NFL game |
| 1,030 | Total yards between the two offenses |
| 9 for 147 | Ben Watson receiving for the Saints. Colston added 8 for 114 |
| 8 for 130, 3 TDs | Odell Beckham Jr. receiving for the Giants |
| 73,019 | Attendance at the Superdome |
Joining the seven-touchdown club
Brees became the eighth quarterback with seven touchdown passes in a game. Sid Luckman did it first, for the Bears in 1943. Peyton Manning and Nick Foles both did it in 2013. Nobody has thrown eight, and nobody has thrown seven since Brees. In the 2026 season, through Week 7’s opening game, no quarterback has thrown more than four in a game. The 13 combined touchdown passes have not been threatened either. The most in any game since is 10.
“Never been a part of something like that,” Brees said. “Pretty wild.” Coach Sean Payton joked that with Brees throwing seven touchdowns, “the game ball was going to the kicker.” Forbath got it, and Brees had a message for him: “Don’t get cocky. There’ll be more.”
Manning had lost his two previous visits to the Superdome, in 2009 and 2011. “Their offense is always high-powered. I thought it might be a day where we were going to have to score some points,” he said. “I didn’t know how many it would take.”
What came next
The win was the Saints’ fourth in five games and got them back to 4-4, but neither team made the playoffs. New Orleans finished 7-9 and the Giants 6-10, and it was Coughlin’s last season as the Giants’ coach. Brees played through the 2020 season and retired as the NFL’s career leader in passing yards. This October the Saints added him to their Ring of Honor.
Read more from our history series: Nick Foles’s seven-touchdown day in Oakland, Brees’s 500th touchdown pass and his Ring of Honor induction. For the rule that set up the winning kick, see our face mask penalty explainer.
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