NEW ORLEANS — Not often can this be written: The New England Patriots were in over their heads.



The New Orleans Saints bamboozled the Patriots in almost every phase Monday night and thrilled the Superdome crowd with a 38-17 slaughter to remain undefeated.



The Patriots head back to Foxborough with a gut check ahead.



They are 0-4 in true road games and won’t have the opportunity to record a signature victory the rest of the way. They still have a handle on the AFC East. Only one of their remaining opponents has a winning record, the 6-5 Jacksonville Jaguars.



But New England has a lot of question marks. The defense was pitiful, the offense mostly pedestrian.



The Patriots looked decent on the ground. Laurence Maroney rushed 15 times for 64 yards and two touchdowns, but the Saints were superior all around.



Drew Brees cast a long shadow over Tom Brady. Even the Saints’ dilapidated secondary played better than the Patriots’ defensive backs, who had been making big plays lately.



Not on this night, when they got caught watching Brees’ long aerials sail over the heads and land in the mitts of this Saints guy and that Saints guy and the other Saints guy. Brees completed 18 of 23 passes for 371 yards and five touchdowns to five teammates.



Brady was less than phenomenal. His streak of consecutive 300-yard games ended at five, one shy of the NFL record.



He was 21 of 36 for 237 yards and no touchdowns with two interceptions. The first was costly at a time the Patriots could have asserted themselves — a 7-3 lead and one play after Wes Welker returned a punt 41 yards into Saints territory. Brady threw another bad one in the fourth quarter to kill any hopes of a comeback.



Brady completed only one pass to Randy Moss in the first half, two in the second, although they connected for 47 yards to set up Maroney’s second touchdown.

NEW ORLEANS — For the last hour or so, e-mails and texts have been coming in from friends, who should know better than to e-mail or text while I’m working, to ask if I saw this coming.



I’ll answer one and all now: No. Not like this. Not anything like this.



Yeah, sure, I thought the Saints were very good and had a chance to win against New England. But I thought, if they won, it would be on some dramatic last-second play.



But absolutely blowing the Patriots out? No. And if anybody told you that, they were either a delusional Saints’ fan or they were lying.



You can’t make up what happened Monday night. With rookie Malcolm Jenkins and two really old cornerbacks (Mike McKenzie and Chris McAlister), who were signed off the street in the past two weeks, having to play significant roles because of injuries, this one should have been a mismatch for Tom Brady, Randy Moss and Wes Welker.



Turned out it was a mismatch. The Saints made Brady look ordinary and I’m having a tough time recalling Moss doing anything of significance.



By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a quarterback have a better game than Drew Brees. All right, that’s all I’ve got right now. I’m heading down to the locker room for post-game interviews. I’ll be back with a full column in a bit.

NEW ORLEANS – With that touchdown catch by reserve tight end Darnell Dinkins, which was his first catch of any sort this year, the Saints have now had 19 different players score touchdowns this season.



Pretty amazing, but it’s not a record. There are several teams who have had 20 or 21 players score in a season. With five games left, the Saints can chase that.



So far tonight, Drew Brees has thrown touchdown passes to Dinkins, receivers Robert Meachem and Devery Henderson and running back Pierre Thomas.

NEW ORLEANS – The Saints really are going to find out how much recently-signed veteran cornerbacks Mike McKenzie and Chris McAlister have left in the second half.



The team just announced that cornerback Randall Gay has a leg injury and will not return to the game. The Saints already were without injured starters Jabari Greer and Tracy Porter. Rookie Malcolm Jenkins and Gay were the primary corners in the first half with McKenzie getting a lot of work as the third corner.



Now, the Saints have moved McKenzie and McAlister each up one spot.

NEW ORLEANS — Tom Brady will need to do something Monday night he hasn’t been able to manage all season.



The New England Patriots quarterback needs to conjure some second-half magic in hostile territory.



The New Orleans Saints lead the Patriots 24-10 at halftime. The matchup was supposed to be a quarterback duel, with Brady having the edge over Brees because of the Saints’ patchwork secondary.



Saints starting cornerbacks Jabari Greer and Tracy Porter are out with injuries. The Patriots secondary, meanwhile, was playing supremely well. So far, Brees has shredded the Patriots deep with touchdown passes of 75 and 38 yards to Devery Henderson and Robert Meachem.



Brady has been off. The Patriots used the run on their opening drive to score a touchdown, converting a pair of fourth downs on the ground along the way. The Patriots seemed to have momentum with a 7-3 lead after forcing a three-and-out and Wes Welker returning a punt 41 yards to the Saints’ 46-yard line.



The Patriots appeared to be in command. Then Brady threw an awful pass intercepted by reserve cornerback Mike McKenzie, who didn’t play football for 11 months but was signed to help out with all the Saints’ injury woes.



That snuffed Patriots momentum and sent the Saints on their way to a 21-point second quarter.



Brady’s passes started sailing toward the end of the first half. He connected with Randy Moss once for 9 yards. We’ll see if they can make the corrections. Old friend Randall Gay, who replaced Greer at left cornerback, is out for the rest of the game with a leg injury.



And that gets us back to Brady’s road problems in the second half. As you may have seen on the AFC East blog this week, Brady has been less than spectacular in true road games.



In the first half of his three true road games (the Patriots crushed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in London), Brady completed 61.5 percent of his attempts for 539 yards, four touchdowns and one interception for a 102.0 passer rating.



In the second half of those games he completed 54.3 percent of his passes for 261 yards, one touchdown and one interception for a 65.0 passer rating.



Of course, the Patriots led at halftime in each of those games, too. Maybe Brady will get hot in the second half and disrupt the trend, but with the way Brees is searing New England’s defensive backs, it looks like New Orleans is headed to 11-0.

NEW ORLEANS — Marques Colston gets most of the attention for being the Saints’ best receiver.



But he’s been quiet so far tonight. Robert Meachem and Devery Henderson haven’t. Each of those two receivers has caught a touchdown pass as the Saints have stormed to a 24-10 halftime lead.



Yes, Drew Brees can make any receiver look good, but let’s give Meachem and Henderson some credit. These guys took a lot of criticism early in their careers and they have overcome it quite nicely. Henderson was pretty much a drop machine early in his career. But he became a sure-handed receiver last year and that’s only continued.



He’s having the game of his life so far tonight. Henderson has caught three passes for 116 yards, including a 75-yard touchdown. Meachem also caught a touchdown.



The first-round pick in 2007, Meachem was a non-factor in his first two seasons. But he suddenly has become a touchdown machine. He now has at least one touchdown catch in each of the last four games. He has caught six touchdowns in the last six games and has seven on the season.

NEW ORLEANS — The Saints just scored on a 75-yard pass from Drew Brees to Devery Henderson to take a 17-7 lead.



But I think the real hero on that play might have been tight end Jeremy Shockey. He stayed in and picked up blitzing cornerback Jonathan Wilhite. Shockey took Wilhite out of the play and nobody picked up Henderson.

NEW ORLEANS — The Saints just scored on a 75-yard pass from Drew Brees to Devery Henderson to take a 17-7 lead.



But I think the real hero on that play might have been tight end Jeremy Shockey. He stayed in and picked up blitzing cornerback Jonathan Wilhite. Shockey took Wilhite out of the play and nobody picked up Henderson.

NEW ORLEANS — A bit of good news for the Saints on the injury front.



Running back Mike Bell, who limped off the field a few minutes ago, will return to the game. According to the Saints, he suffered a stinger.

NEW ORLEANS – History will tell us for sure, but I think we might have just seen a coming-out moment in Sean Payton’s ascendancy as a head coach.



Under the brightest of lights, he just went for it on fourth down against Bill Belichick, who already has gone for it on fourth down twice (and succeeded both times) tonight, and I seem to recall Belichick going for it on fourth down a few other times in recent weeks.



Anyway, Payton’s moved paid off in a big way. On that fourth-and-2 from New England’s 21-yard line, Pierre Thomas produced a 3-yard run.



On the next play, Thomas took a screen pass from Drew Brees and scored. That’s a lot better than settling for a field goal to give New Orleans a 10-7 lead.



I wouldn’t recommend going for it on fourth down all the time, but Payton showed he can do it too.