Pepsi had been teasing its newest superstar commercial with the boy group One Direction and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees for a few weeks, so it wasn’t like we didn’t know this was coming. Once the full commercial actually hit, most people were still a little surprised to see the man so powerful that even Oprah couldn’t wipe a birthmark from his face hamming it up with Simon Cowell’s latest gaggle of cash machines.

But Brees is a family guy, so this is hardly a surprise, and judging by the reaction of One Direction fans on Twitter (don’t go look for yourself, just trust me) this is actually a potentially huge bonus for the Saints and the NFL, as millions of teenage girls may suddenly become fans because Breesus let Harry or Niall or whoever share a can of Pepsi. If that’s the case, it’s only a matter of time before One Direction is announced as the Super Bowl halftime show.

As if it wasn’t hard enough for me to get “What Makes You Beautiful” out of my head. Damn catchy paint-by-numbers pop music. Anyway, about that commercial…

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Heading into Monday night’s matchup with the Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees needed 305 passing yards to break Dan Marino’s single season passing record of 5,084 yards set back in 1984. Brees threw for 307 yards and now stands alone – for now, as Tom Brady is sniffing his tail – as the greatest single-season passer of all-time. But the difference between 1984 and 2011 is that now we love to take a huge dump all over a guy’s big moment.

Doing most of the dumping after the Saints’ 45-16 drubbing of the Falcons were the Falcons defensive players, who claim that Brees did the birds dirty by running up the score to get his record. You know, on Monday Night Football, in the Superdome, against the Saints’ bitter rivals, and on the biggest stage of their regular season. What a dick, right? That’s the way the sports media sees it, too, starting with CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco, who thinks Brees’ record will forever be tainted.

The way I see it, what should have been a truly special moment, something that should have happened in the context of the game, and made it tainted with questions.

It won’t overshadow what truly is a special record for one of the greatest passers of this generation, even ever, but it does take some of the gloss off of it.

At first I thought this was just the typical CBS Sports blogger trying to embrace the Skip Bayless contrarian role like Gregg Doyel has almost seemingly mastered, but then I searched a little more and discovered that the feeling is shared by others. Dump away, critics.

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Drew Brees was at a sports memorabilia store at the Edgewater Mall in Biloxi, Mississippi over the weekend, signing autographs for fans for a $150 a pop. Pretty standard, really. Local high school art teacher David Magee saw the appearance as an opportunity to get the quarterback’s autograph on a 41-inch portrait that he painted of Brees hoisting his infant son in the air after winning the Super Bowl. The painting, of course, is life-sized.

Magee waited in the massive line and when he eventually presented the painting, Brees offered to purchase it immediately. While Magee won’t disclose how much Brees paid for it, we hope he’s as good at math as he is art because Brees was taking $150 per head from thousands of people. Magee did say that he received payment in addition to autographed merchandise and Saints tickets, which made the day totally worthwhile for the teacher. Much better, in retrospect, than the day I tried to get Tiger Woods to autograph my portrait, “Perkins at Sunset.”

Paint me riding a dragon made of rainbows, Gulflive.com:

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