Chris Johnson wore a visor and T-shirt and stayed busy as Tennessee's top cheerleader. Drew Brees and Reggie Bush limited their dress rehearsal to putting on their New Orleans' uniforms and pregame warmup before watching from the sideline all night long. Alvin Pearman's 5-yard touchdown with 3:18 left helped the Titans beat the Saints 27-24 on Thursday night in the preseason finale…

The 2010 NFL preseason is starting to come to an end and the Saints still have a lot of work to do before the season starts.  Granted, they looked very good in their game against the San Diego Chargers this past Friday night but there were some issues that were exposed in the game, almost exclusively on defense and these are things that they will have to work on in order to have success this coming season.

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Drew Brees came into this league as the first pick of the second round (32nd overall) of the 2001 NFL Draft.

Almost a footnote to LaDainian Tomlinson at the time, Brees had lifted his black and gold Purdue Boilermakers to the Rose Bowl months before the draft. Shortly after, he was a Charger in the trade that gave Michael Vick to Atlanta.

When the Chargers thought Brees and his arm were done after lifting San Diego out of the dumps, they sent him packing in favor of Philip Rivers.

Thus, he would end up sending another black and gold team once known as the “‘Aint’s” to a victory in Super Bowl XLIV this past year.

What I am trying to get across here is that Drew Brees weathered the storm and came out on top. Now is his time to reap the rewards in the regular season that he has yet to achieve.

There are six candidates that can legitimately hold the title of preseason favorite for NFL MVP right now, and they are a familiar bunch. There are others that could be noted, but due to the way the media works, these six have to be the leading candidates. Drew Brees is the leader among them all.

Let’s break down the six and find out why Brees should be the leader in the clubhouse.

Candidate No. 1: Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson this past season came up with over 2,000 yards rushing—a feat that has only been done six times. He also passed Marshall Faulk for all-purpose yards in a season. He is going No. 1 in nearly every fantasy football draft and is pushing for 2,500 yards rushing this season.

What does it mean?

Well, Chris has a target on his back that every defensive player is going to be looking to pierce. If he can continue to succeed at rushing and the Titans play like they did once Vince Young was inserted, he has a shot.

The reality is that it’s going to be hard enough just getting close to 2,000 yards again this season, and this is a quarterback’s league, not a running back’s league. He would have to go above and beyond expectations, and I just don’t see it happening.

Candidate No. 2: Tom Brady

Brady is coming into a contract year and wants to prove to the Pats organization that he is worthy of MVP money. He set the league touchdown record in 2007 with his 50 touchdown passes, and that cannot be overlooked. He is still the pretty boy of the league, and if he has a great season, the voters won’t be shy in looking to Brady as an MVP choice.

The argument against Brady, of course, is his injury of two seasons ago, but that should be fine now. This past season he showed flashes of his brilliance of 2007, and he should be good to go.

What will hurt his chances this season is that his defense is lackluster, which will mean more losses. Tom Brady won his MVP on a team that went undefeated. This Patriots team might be good, but they’re not great enough defensively that he can fully carry them to wins. That is what it will take if Brady has any aspirations to be MVP.

Candidate No. 3: Aaron Rodgers

Titletown U.S.A. is the home now of the former California-Berkeley Golden Bear. While at Cal, he showed the accuracy and grit that he would eventually bring to the Green Bay Packers. What this guy does is put up statistics. Last year, he finally got an offensive line, and the production increased. There is no reason to think it will go down this season. He is the candidate who has the most upside on this list.

He also gets favored in his following Brett Favre at the quarterback position. That always keeps him in the limelight for good and bad. Fortunately for him, it has been mostly good.

What keeps him from ultimately challenging the other MVP quarterbacks is he just isn’t as good as Brees, Peyton Manning, or Brady yet.

Candidate No. 4: Brett Favre

The old gunslinger from Mississippi. He’s 40 years old and looking at entering his 20th season in what he says is his final year. We’ll just have to wait and see if that happens.

No. 4 vastly improved a mediocre Minnesota team last year. He did it by playing smart ball and only throwing seven interceptions in the regular season.

Even if Brett doesn’t play as well as others (although he does pretty well still), he’s going to get the benefit of the doubt from the media. That must be factored into Favre’s MVP chances. He still took second in 2007 after Brady’s record-breaking year to go with a high finish in last year’s race. The media will build him up so much that what he ate for breakfast can be scrutinized.

His downfall this year is the injuries at the wide receiver position (Sidney Rice), which should limit his effectiveness.

Candidate No. 5: Peyton Manning

Last year’s MVP and always leading candidate returns after having surgery on his neck in the offseason. What can you say? He’s Peyton Manning. He’s probably the best player of this generation, and he continues going strong year after year. A new coaching staff comes in this past season, and it’s just like clockwork—leading the Colts to the Super Bowl and making it look effortless.

This would be Drew Brees’ leading competitor for MVP. He is consistent every week and plays in every game just like Brett Favre. Manning is actually No. 2 on the all-time list to Favre with 210 consecutive starts.

Manning is well liked by the media, whether it is through his commercials, interviews, or just through his ability to win. He is a handful to take on for supremacy. He does not have a downfall that I can credit. It is more of a belief that Brees will just have to earn the title from him.

Candidate No. 6: Drew Brees

Now we come to Brees. This past season, Brees went under the radar and set the NFL record for pass completion percentage at 70.6 percent. He led his team like Manning along the lines of an undefeated season, but unlike the Colts, they played every game like they had to win even when things were locked up for the division.

Brees has continued to improve his game and has some incredible accuracy. He helped lead the Saints with a porous defense to an 8-8 record two seasons ago while almost breaking Dan Marino’s passing record. He’s doing all he can to lead his team, whether that comes from his team chants or rallying the offense from stagnation.

The reason Brees should be the leader is a variety of choices. The Saints have become America’s team, and within that Brees has become a golden child in his own way. When Brees won the Super Bowl and was looking out among the crowd with his son in hand, it made Brees more than a football player. He became a symbol or icon.

Having the intangibles that can break from merely sport is a vital part of what helps convey excellence. Michael Jordan had that appeal at the highest of levels, Lance Armstrong appealed to people in that regard, and now Drew Brees holds that distinction. All these factors add up to Brees being the logical front runner for MVP.

Read more New Orleans Saints news on BleacherReport.com

In its eight years of existence, the NFC South has never had a repeat winner. Carolina, Tampa Bay, and New Orleans have each won the division multiple times, but no team has won it in consecutive years.

In fact, the team that finished in last place one season has finished in first the next season five times. The Saints finished 8-8 and in last place in 2008 only to go 13-3 and easily win the division in 2009.

The NFC South’s schedule looks easier this year than it did last year. While the change from the AFC East to the AFC North appears to be a wash, trading the NFC East for the NFC West appears to be a positive.

The Buccaneers finished 3-13 last year. Can they become the sixth team to make the leap from worst to first?

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The Saints go into the 2010 season knowing full well the odds are stacked against them—in more ways than one.

After winning Super Bowl XLIV, the Saints know the best way to get to the title game is to first win your division title and earn home-field advantage if possible to make the journey at least a little less difficult.

In other words, it starts with winning a second straight NFC South title—which no team has managed to do since the division was formed as part of the NFL’s realignment in 2002.

If they can do that, the Saints will try to go from there and repeat as Super Bowl champions—which only eight teams have done. Only 11 teams managed to even get back to the title game.

But the Saints aren’t much thinking about any long odds.

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Drew Brees will be watching from the sideline for the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints. Vince Young? He may play into the third quarter for the Tennessee Titans. Welcome to the NFL's final preseason game where timing is everything, and the clock already has started ticking toward the Saints' regular season opener on Sept.

You know what’s funny about being a New Orleans Saints fan?

How many of our franchise’s greatest moments have occurred in the past 12 months.

Think about it: the Saints won three playoff games this season; they’d never won three playoffs games before in the entire history of the franchise. The greatest safety in team history just might be Darren Sharper, and he is entering his second season as a Saint.  Every successful screen pass the Saints have ever run happened this past season.

(Okay, not really, but they have definitely all come during the Sean Payton Era).

Indeed, looking back at the top ten moments in New Orleans Saints history, it is shocking how many of these moments came just this past season.

Let’s have a look.

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Doubt all about New Orleans now

“I don’t know that it’s a big deal, but it’s more than just a little blip. As good as New Orleans has been all season long, for the last month they’ve not been good…Now, they’ve lost two in a row…They must be doubting themselves a little bit as they go into the playoffs.”

~Troy Aikman, Sporting News, January 1, 2010 

Only a fool or a donkey tries the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. 

Yet, Troy Aikman is saying once again this year that the Saints are all hat and no cattle. You see, Aikman is a former Cowboy and Cowboys are fond of saying things like that. 

Aikman’s first NFL game as starting QB of the Dallas Cowboys was a 28-0 loss to the New Orleans Saints and it seems the Golden Boy has really never gotten over it.

It was such a drubbing that Jimmy Johnson’s hair was all out of sorts when the final seconds ticked off the clock.

As the Saints approached the playoffs last January, Aikman was not a big believer in the team’s chances to advance, and he assured Dallas Cowboys fans that those Bayou Boys really had no chance at all. He talked about all the games they could’ve lost and should’ve lost.  

Aikman sounded like Jim Mora with all that could’ve, would’ve, should’ve talk.

Seems Troy is back to his old ways.

In an August 30, 2010 Sporting News column titled, “A lot of things—maybe too many things—need to go right for the Saints,” Aikman begins by offering the obligatory praise that the national media offers before putting the proverbial screws to the Saints.

“I like the Saints, and I think they’re going to be really good again this season,” writes Aikman. “With Brees at quarterback and most of the supporting cast back, the offense shouldn’t lose its edge. It well could be the best offense in the league.”

“BUT,” adds Aikman, “there are reasons to think returning to the Super Bowl will be no easy task.”

Somehow, you just knew Golden Boy Aikman wouldn’t view the New Orleans Saints as a team on the rise. With the exception of Jon Gruden and Trent Dilfer, no one in the national media would bet the mortgage payment on the Saints these days.

Aikman sees three reasons why, in his view, the only way the Saints will be at the Super Bowl is with a ticket. First, the former Dallas QB views the New Orleans defense as average at best.

Aikman is another national media guy who believes all those turnovers the Saints generated in 2009 was luck.

Smoke-n-mirrors they say. 

Writes Aikman: “Conventional wisdom would say the Saints had a great defense last season. Coordinator Gregg Williams’ aggressive, attacking unit was second in the league in creating turnovers…but a closer inspection shows that the defense was middle of the road—if not below-average—in a lot of areas.”

Yeah, it’s a damned shame for the Indianapolis Colts that the below-average defense you speak of, Troy, did not show up in Miami last February.

Guess that was a fluke…an aberration…eh, Troy?

Golden Boy Troy also says the NFC South competition will likely be too tough for the Saints, citing that since 2002, “each of the NFC South teams has won the division once, and the last-place team has finished first the following six times.”

“Here’s something else: We’re discussing the chances of New Orleans’ repeating as Super Bowl champion, yet no NFC South team has won back-to-back titles,” says Aikman in Sporting News.

Perhaps, Troy is a little ticked that BP has looked like a more efficient unit than the Cowboys offense this preseason.

Finally, Aikman thinks the Saints just don’t have the hunger anymore after winning it all last season. 

“A lot of things have to go a team’s way for it to win a championship, and it seemed like a lot went the Saints’ way last season,” writes Aikman. “The Saints can’t expect that things will fall into place like that again this season.”

“More than that is that teams sometimes lose a little bit of their edge after reaching the pinnacle.

“The Saints are about to find out what most of the previous 43 Super Bowl champs learned. Winning is hard. Repeating is harder.”

Yeah, and finding the end zone has been so damned hard for your Cowboys lately, Troy.

Who the hell knows?

Jerry Jones may be calling you out of retirement soon.

You and Favre are about the same age, right?

You are coming to the party next Thursday night in the Superdome, aren’t you, Troy?

Just wouldn’t be the same without you.

Read more New Orleans Saints news on BleacherReport.com

The Tennessee Titans activated defensive tackle Tony Brown from the physically unable to perform list as he…

The Tennessee Titans activated defensive tackle Tony Brown from the physically unable to perform list as he…