Through 10 games the Saints are perfect, but think that they are capable of playing even better.

Drew Brees, Saints quarterback said, I don’t think we have peaked yet. For this team the sky is the limit. On Sunday, Brees threw three touchdowns as New Orleans defeated struggling Tampa Bay 38-7.

It will only get harder. We cannot afford to sit back on the things we have been able to accomplish so far. Each team that we face wants to give us our first loss.

New Orleans (10-0) was able to shrug off a slow defensive start, shutting Tampa Bay down after they gave up a long drive for a touchdown at the start of the game. They took advantage offensively of the many mistakes made by Tampa Bay’s rookie quarterback Josh Freeman.

During the first half Robert Meacham caught 4 and 6 yard touchdown passes, and in the second half Mike Bell scored running touchdowns from 3 and 1 yard. The Saints gained 147 of their 183 rushing yards during the second half.

The ten game winning streak of the Saints is the longest in their franchise history.

Sean Payton, Saints coach said, I like where we are at. Our record is 10-0. We beat one of our division opponents playing on the road. I think today we got better.

Over the last month a rash of turnovers made the Saints appear to be more vulnerable. However Brees didn’t have an interception in the game, the first time that has happened in the last five games. It was also the first time that New Orleans didn’t allow any sacks since playing the Giants on October 18.

According to Brees the No. 1 offense in the NFL can become more efficient even.

Brees said, during our past four games, we have kind of gotten back into some of our old habits we didn’t want to get into, like negative plays and turnovers. We needed to have a game just like this, come out and just look sharp in every phase of the game.

On their first possession, Tampa Bay (1-9) had a touchdown drive of 95 yards. However, after his scoring pass of 18 yards to Michael Clayton, giving Tampa Bay a brief 7-0 lead, Freeman didn’t have much success.

Brees went 19 out of 29 passing for a total of 187 yards. Late fourth quarter he was replaced by Mark Brunell. Reggie Bush sat the game out due to an injured knee, but his replacement Pierre Thomas was able to gain 92 rushing yards in 11 carries. Bell had 75 yards rushing on 13 carries.

Freeman went 17 for 33 for a total of 126 yards and also had three interceptions. He was sacked a total of three times and fumbled. The fumble led to a third quarter 11 yard touchdown throw by Brees over to David Thomas.

Freeman said, we know how potent the Saints offense is. We knew our best defense would be our offense having the ability to sustain our drives. What was tough is that our first drive was the only one.

Brees answered the touchdown pass of Freeman to Clayton with his own drive of 68 yards, capped by a 4 yard scoring catch by Meacham. On that possession, Brees went 4 for 4 passing for a total of 55 yards, including a completion of 37 yards over to Thomas, the longest play for New Orleans of the day.

An interception by Malcolm Jenkins followed by a return of 14 yards down to Tampa Bay’s 29 yard line set up a field goal of 38 yards by John Carney to give the Saints a 10-7 lead. Tampa Bay’s poor clock management late second quarter provided Brees with an opportunity for scoring another touchdown, making the score at halftime 17-7.

Chris Reis and Jonathan Vilma had interceptions for the Saints as well. The sack by Scott Fujita forced a fumble that was recovered by Anthony Hargrove on Tampa Bay’s 15 yard line. It set up the touchdown pass from Brees to Thomas, who caught four passes for a total of 66 yards.

After their opening drive, Tampa Bay only had 124 yards. Freeman said that on several of his throws he was just a hair off. However, he didn’t feel that he took a step backward in his third start as a pro in running the offense.

It was just an off day, the rookie said. I don’t think it will be a problem in the future.