EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Big men aren't supposed to move like that, so it requires a nickname, and defensive tackle Khalen Saunders has a talent for those types of things.
His go-to for his New Orleans Saints teammate, Bryan Bresee, is Gerber Baby -- a nod to Bresee's youthful face. But after Bresee's performance against the New York Giants, one that included the game-clinching play in the closing seconds of a 14-11 Saints victory, Saunders came up with another one on the spot.
"He's like a dancing panda," Saunders said.
Dancing Panda is a good visual aid to describe how Bresee sealed Sunday's win: A 6-foot-5, 305-pound defensive tackle vaulting over the long snapper and getting a hand (paw?) up to clip the wings of a game-tying 35-yard field goal attempt. The kick wobbled left and short of the uprights and the game was won.
"My job is to get up and get down," Bresee said. "I jumped up -- and didn't really work how I wanted, I kind of buckled on my landing a little bit. I just threw a hand up, and I got a piece of it just enough, I guess. It worked out. It was a lot more guys doing their job than just me."
The Saints actually put that play in only a few days prior. It requires some help from the other interior players to push down the guard and the snapper, giving Bresee a better chance to get up and over. They installed it Friday, repped it a few times and kept it in their back pocket.
"We were running it, and we were like, 'Hey, you never know. Game could come down to this,'" said interim Saints coach Darren Rizzi.
Giants kicker Graham Gano had made a field goal attempt earlier in the game, but New Orleans noted the low trajectory of his first kick. When the game was on the line late, they dialed up the Dancing Panda special.
"Just an unbelievable, phenomenal job by Bryan, individual effort," Rizzi said. "Some other guys were working on the play to make sure he gets freed up. Outstanding. Outstanding. It was great to see him make a big play like that, really a game-winning play."
Maybe more important than his late game heroics, at least when it comes to the 30,000-foot view of the franchise, is that Bresee's impact wasn't limited to that one play. He was all over the field.
Bresee recorded a sack Sunday. That's now 7½ for him on the season, which not only leads the Saints but all NFL defensive tackles. He recorded several more pressures, including a key near-sack late in the fourth quarter that resulted in an incomplete pass on third down. He batted two passes down at the line of scrimmage and also chipped in a tackle for loss.
"He went hero mode this game, huh?" said defensive end Cam Jordan.
That's the type of player New Orleans hoped it was getting when it selected Bresee in the first round of last year's draft: Someone who is unusually gifted for his size who can put it all together and wreck a game. They've seen flashes of it in his first two seasons, but that is also the critique.
Rizzi offered it in frank terms after the game: Is he flash, or is he substance? He's aware of the narrative that has been building about Bresee. Every now and then he will do something jaw-dropping, but then there's everything in between.
"I've read the narratives," Rizzi said. "There's flash plays, then he disappears for a while. That's what we can't do. He's got to be more consistent."
Bresee is by no means a finished product, particularly as a run defender, and until he gets better there, he will still be relegated to a rotation that emphasizes his pass-rushing skills. But the player Rizzi has seen the last few weeks is one who looks to be putting it together. He's sustaining the flashes.
Count linebacker Demario Davis as one who has been impressed, too. Not just because of the flashes, but because of the way everything else is coming into place.
He called Bresee the quarterback of the defensive line; the one who is responsible for communicating the alignments and shifts for the various stunts and pass-rush games the Saints use. He has noticed the work Bresee puts in behind the scenes, taking his potential and shaping it into something with staying power.
And then he sees games like Sundays, when it all comes together.
"Oh my gosh," Davis said. "Man, he is slowly becoming one of those ones."