If you thought the New Orleans Saints had played their fullest win over Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 1, you were proven dead wrong on Sunday night when Sean Payton, Drew Brees, and a charged New Orleans defense devastated their NFC -South rivals in a far more one-sided defeat. Brady had to throw at Antonio Brown in a Bucs uniform for the first time, but that was about the only encouraging thing to come out of the Week 9 rematch if you’re a Tampa Bay fan, with Brees performing as Brady with a near-flawless performance showed and the Bucs stumbled from start to finish in a 38-3 win for the visiting Saints.
How bad was the loss for the Bucs? Well, it was the most one-sided loss in Brady’s career when he faced the Buffalo Bills 31-0 in 2003. Brady also got the worst career QB rating of his career 17 years ago in this four-interception dud.While his performance with three interceptions on Sunday night didn’t surpass that miserable performance, his rating of 40.4 QB marks his third worst career game (after a another four-choice game in 2006 where Brady’s Patriots lost 27-20).
Not only does New Orleans jump to the top of NFC South with the win, it also completes Bruce Arians and the Buccaneers, hailed as perhaps the conference’s top contender.
Here are some immediate takeaways from the one-sided affair on Sunday night:
Why the saints won
Their offense began hot, balanced, and capitalized at every turn. It was a near-flawless show from Drew Brees and Co., and that says something considering the long-awaited return of Michael Thomas only scored number 1 in the final 50 yards of last quarter. New Orleans spread the ball so far and so well that Thomas didn’t have to be a star, with reserves in literally every position group that Darts von Brees put up to ensure a 31-point lead at halftime.
Taysom Hill? A legitimate weapon almost anywhere. Emmanuel Sanders? Stable and reliable. Alvin Kamara? Quiet by his standards, but still productive. It was just a smooth night from start to finish, and New Orleans never missed a chance to score early on from a takeaway.
The defense was just as impressive, of course: studs like Marshon Lattimore, Malcolm Jenkins and Demario Davis eventually played together to demonstrate the potential of the Saints on this side of the ball. Trey Hendrickson ate off the ledge during the home stretch. Davis and Jenkins plugged holes in the red zone during a booth. Lattimore covered Mike Evans. Everyone did their part. The entire team was Super Bowl caliber.
Why the buccaneers lost
Despite the hype that Tampa Bay (rightly) had on the game when Antonio Brown joined a stacked cast of Tom Brady, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Rob Gronkowski, the Bucs absolutely stank with the ball in their hands. And that’s easy to say.
Brady was under a little more pressure than you’d like to see, but he was damn cruel himself, missed early to dig Tampa Bay’s hole early, and most importantly, floated an unusual amount of punt-like deep balls that ended up with the Saints could easily be taken away. It was clear all night that Brady’s timing was wrong with almost every recipient, but that’s an indictment against the entire package.
This is what Bruce Arians has to offer in the midseason? If you had known Brady wasn’t ready to mate with his plethora of Pro Bowl wideouts, you couldn’t have given Ronald Jones more three Handovers? What a pathetic mistake. Defensively, Tampa wasn’t nearly as bad, but the score was still ugly for a reason. The Bucs held most of the games in front of them but fought mightily against the ground, with the absence of Vita Vea clearly felt.
Turning point
The Saints controlled this game from the start, but the turning point was pretty clearly that Non-turning point that was a disaster for the Bucs early on. The Saints drove into the red zone, potentially scoring two points, after marching 65 meters in their first TD series. They offered Tampa Bay a chance for redemption in the first quarter when Jared Cook’s second attempt at a second relegation resulted in a fumble. salvaged by Lavonte David.
What did the Bucs do with their present? Three games. Two metres. Punt. That, friends, confirmed the harsh reality: Tampa Bay was unwilling to fix its offensive problems in the early game, let alone a shootout with the Saints.
Game of the game
Pretty much every Bucs possession brought us good clips of the Saints defense, but how about Emmanuel Sanders’ efforts to put New Orleans 21-0 ahead in the first half?
What’s next
The Buccaneers (6-3) will be back at NFC South in Week 10 when they visit the Carolina Panthers (3-6) who will battle the Chiefs on Sunday. The Saints (6-2), meanwhile, return home for an afternoon showdown with the battered San Francisco 49ers (4-5), who will take an extra break after their loss to the Packers on Thursday night.
