How The Buccaneers Can Beat The Saints

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers just need to beat the lowly New Orleans Saints Sunday at Raymond James Stadium to secure their fourth straight division title.

Next to maybe the Cleveland Browns, New Jersey Giants/Jets, the Saints are probably the most broken franchise currently in the NFL. The QB they paid a lot of money to isn’t living up to it and their best players are about to qualify for a pension. By all accounts, this should be a winnable game that secures the division for the Buccaneers and maybe even gets them the three seed. It’s just a classic win and in scenario for the Bucs.

On defense, they cannot allow Spencer Rattler to get going like he did in the second quarter of their first meeting. Bowles managed to figure something out in the second half of that game, so if we can replicate that again, it should be good. We will be missing Jamel Dean, so that’s unfortunate. And Jordan Whitehead, who I hope is recovering well and best wishes to him, will be out for the season most likely. The Saints won’t have Alvin Kamara in this game either, so it will be a mostly air attack for the Saints in all likelihood. If Zyon McCollum and the motley crew of safeties behind him can keep it under control, that should hopefully be enough to limit the Saints offense.

For The Division 

On offense, we need the same Baker Mayfield that showed up against the Panthers. He doesn’t need to throw 5 TDs (although that would be nice), but he needs to keep making smart decisions. The Bucs were almost undone in their first match up because Baker kept turning the ball over. Of course, they then turned to the might of Sean Tucker to finish the game off. While Sean Tucker likely won’t receive those types of touches again, Bucky is more than capable of doing that same thing to the Saints. He is that good and I expect him to go off against a mediocre Saints run defense. And to state the obvious, Mike Evans needs to get his 85 yards to keep the 1k streak alive. He may not care, but the team certainly does and the fan base absolutely does.

There is a mutually beneficial arrangement that both teams could come to here. The Buccaneers need to win to make the playoffs. The Saints need to lose to keep a good draft position and also to ensure the Falcons don’t make it. Because the Saints hatred of the Falcons runs so much deeper than it does for the Bucs. Ask any Saints fan if you aren’t sure. So, the Bucs winning is really the best possible thing that can happen here for both parties. The Saints somehow have less talent right now than the Carolina Panthers, so hopefully they can get into the playoffs all on their own.