The rain eventually stopped. Luke Kuechly didn’t. On the record-setting Rain Game of 2013

“I remember he literally made every single tackle,” tight end Greg Olsen said. “I remember the rain was coming down so hard. I just remember it got wet, it got sloppy, it was pouring, we were having a hard time moving the ball at times, and the game kind of stood still.

“And then literally every single play at the end, the crowd’s yelling, LUUUUUUUUKE, he’s getting up, he’s soaking wet, he’s sliding all over the place, the field’s a mess, and he single-handedly keeps us in that game.”

Of course he did have some competition. In the first half when it was dry, the Saints were playing something closer to their normal game, which put the ball in space and in the vicinity of Thomas Davis more often. But when the deluge began, and both teams were forced to (mostly) run, that meant the traffic was coming Kuechly’s direction.

Even when they didn’t run, they were limited to a lot of dump-off passes, which were easy cleanups for Kuechly during his defensive player of the year season.