Tom Brady's key to Buccaneers beating Saints: 'Understanding why we're losing those games'

There is a huge NFC South game on Sunday when Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers pay a visit to New Orleans to face the Saints. 

With Brady back in the mix for another season expectations are understandably high in Tampa Bay, and the Bucs are looking to jump out to a 2-0 start after winning an ugly, low-scoring slugfest against the Dallas Cowboys a week ago. 

For that to happen, they are going to have to do something they have not done since Brady joined the Buccaneers: Beat the Saints in a regular-season game.

In the two-plus years since Brady signed with the Buccaneers, they are 0-4 in their four regular-season games against the Saints (they did win a 2020 playoff game, to be fair), including a 9-0 loss in their most recent meeting. 

How can they fix that on Sunday? For Brady, it is simply a matter of first figuring out what has gone wrong. 

“I think it’s just understanding why we’re losing those games,” Brady said, via Scott Smith of the Bucs' official website. “There are reasons why in each game. You can look at them and look at why we won and why we lost, the one time we beat them. It’s got to be good football — offense, defense and special teams. They’re too good of a team to think that you can win one phase and win the game.

"It’s a challenge because they’re well-coached, they’re put in good position to do well, they have a lot of good players, a lot of guys who have been together, played together for a long time. ... They don’t make a lot of mistakes, they make you earn everything. Every third down’s important, every kicking situation’s important, every third down in the low red area is important, turnovers are important. It’s a lot of things that lead to winning and losing and obviously we haven’t done a good job of that in the regular season."

Brady also pointed to turnovers in each game being an issue for the Buccaneers. 

The Saints are also coming off a thrilling Week 1 win against the Atlanta Falcons and have their starting quarterback, Jameis Winston, back in the lineup after he missed the second half of the 2021 season. The Saints are a different team with him in the lineup, going 6-2 with him over the past two seasons. They are 4-6 without him in the lineup.