Eli Manning and Drew Brees put on a quarterback duel for the ages on Sunday in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
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The two franchise quarterbacks combined for a record 13 touchdown passes and led their offenses to 101 points and 1,030 total yards. However, the Giants came out on the wrong side, losing 52-49 to the Saints on a 50-yard field goal by Kai Forbath as time expired.
After winning four of their last five games, the Giants fell to 4-4 on the season with another road trip to Tampa Bay next on the schedule.
With that, here's what experts and analysts around the NFL are saying about Big Blue:
"Early in the fourth quarter, the Saints led 42-28 and it seemed they finally might have the game in hand. Nope. The Giants scored 21 points in five minutes to go ahead, 49-42. Brees couldn't actually lose this game, could he? He drove his team 80 yards to tie the game with 36 seconds left and then, after a strange Giants series that ended in a punt and a facemask penalty, there were five seconds left on the clock when Kai Forbath lined up for a 50-yard field goal. He aced it. Saints, 52-49."
"So naturally, after all of that offense, the game was decided by a facemask penalty against a punter to set up a game-winning field goal by a kicker who was out of the league just a few weeks ago. That would be Forbath, cut by the Washington Redskins after Week 1 and now the recipient of the game ball from Sean Payton in the locker room. Seriously."
"Wow. Imagine being Eli Manning and throwing a career-high six touchdowns with 350 yards passing, and losing. No two quarterbacks have ever combined for 13 touchdown passes in a single game, and Manning has to swallow that his contribution to that record still wasn't enough to get the win. Manning went 30 of 41 through the air with no picks, but Brees was better at 40 of 50 and his seven scores. For both offenses, it felt as if it was a game of flag football on a Saturday morning at the park."
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Dan Graziano, ESPN](http://espn.go.com/blog/newyork/giants/post/_/id/44734/giants-live-dangerously-with-defense-that-squanders-eli-mannings-six-td-day)
"Eli Manning and Drew Brees spent Sunday afternoon in the Superdome attacking the NFL record book, combining for a league-record 13 touchdown passes. It looked for a while as if the New York Giants might steal a game in which they barely played a lick of defense. But Brees' record-tying seventh touchdown pass with 36 seconds left tied it up, and a face mask penalty on Giants punter Brad Wing with five seconds left set up the New Orleans Saints up for the game-winning field goal and a heartbreaking 52-49 Giants loss."
"Kai Forbath's [50]-yard field goal to lift the Saints over the Giants, 52-49, as time expired in the Super Dome on Sunday afternoon was as powerful and clutch a kick as we've seen in the NFL this year. It was also the worst possible end to the best football game we've seen all season. For almost 60 minutes, we were captivated by Drew Brees, whose 507-yard, seven-touchdown performance tied an NFL single-game record for most scores thrown in a game. Eli Manning hurled a career-high six touchdown passes for more than 350 yards. The game yielded more than 1,000 total yards, 60 first downs and 800 yards passing."
