Tampa Bay Buccaneers

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2024 Game Preview: Buccaneers-Saints, Week 6

The Buccaneers went to New Orleans early to escape Hurricane Milton and get a chance to prepare for a key divisional game against a Saints team that may have a first-time starter at quarterback

Oct 10, 2024 at 08:00 AM

Scott Smith

Senior Writer/Editor

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will play their second straight game against an NFC South foe when they take on the New Orleans Saints in the Superdome on Sunday. That will cap an unusual week that saw the Buccaneers depart for their destination city on Tuesday rather than Sunday, as the midweek arrival of Hurricane Milton in Florida would have made game preparations impossible. Many players, coaches and staff members were accompanied on the trip by family members and pets, and the overall setup involved two separate hotels and the practice facilities at Tulane University. Head Coach Todd Bowles said the quickly thrown-together trip went smoothly allowing players to keep their minds on the task at hand as much as possible.

"We have to focus and we know the game is on Sunday," said Head Coach Todd Bowles. "We took care of our families and that was part of it, so the next part of it was just focusing on this week and getting better at the little things."

While concerned about their homes and their fellow Floridians, the Buccaneers nonetheless focused on a game that could have far-reaching implications in a division title race that looks like it will be tight throughout the season. The Buccaneers lost their first intradivision game last Thursday night in Atlanta in a painful 36-30 overtime decision and are now tied with the Falcons at 3-2. The Saints are a game back at 2-3 after a 26-13 loss in Kansas City on Monday night. Atlanta will also play an intradivision game on Sunday, traveling to Charlotte to take on the 1-4 Panthers.

In addition to the rest disadvantage that comes with playing on Monday night, the Saints also have a new problem to solve thanks to the oblique injury that quarterback Derek Carr incurred late in that game. Carr is expected to miss multiple weeks with the injury, which means Head Coach Dennis Allen and Offensive Coordinator Klint Kubiak will be preparing either Jake Haener or Spencer Rattler for his first NFL start. Haener was a fourth-round draft pick in 2023 and Rattler was a fifth-round choice this year.

"It's probably difficult because of the unknown," said Bowles of facing a quarterback making his first start. "We watched the preseason tape and we've seen them coming. We did our due diligence when they were coming out of school and everything else. Both can get rid of the football, both can use their legs when they need to and both are very accurate on the deep ball. And they have deep-ball receivers, so we don't expect much to change from an offensive standpoint that way."

Whichever young quarterback gets the call, he will have the advantage of a strong supporting cast around him, including dual-threat running back Alvin Kamara, young star receiver Chris Olave and big-play threat Rashid Shaheed. However, the Saints have been dealing with multiple shufflings of their offensive line caused by injuries to Erik McCoy, Shane Lemieux and, most recently, Cesar Ruiz. Ruiz has missed the last two games with a knee injury.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay's offense will try to continue its recent run of very fast starts – it has generated 24 first-half points in each of the last two games – but eliminate the trend of second-half lulls, all against a Saints defense that has allowed the eighth fewest points in the league. The Bucs only scored six points in the second half of that overtime loss to the Falcons, allowing the home team to tie the game as time expired in regulation. Baker Mayfield ranks second among qualifying passers with a 112.2 passer rating and has already tossed 11 touchdown passes in five games. Mike Evans already has five touchdown catches and Chris Godwin is tied for third in the league with 32 receptions while scoring three touchdowns of his own. The two-headed backfield of Rachaad White and Bucky Irving is heating up, having just led a season-high 160-yard rushing attack in Atlanta.

"Looking back at the tape, we executed well in the first half," said Mayfield. "I think we should have 28 instead of 24. Then looking at the second half, just being very, very close to some of these plays being successful. Instead they weren't, and in a tight game against a divisional opponent, the game can shift, just like it did."

The Buccaneers will have their mind on football on Sunday afternoon. Afterward, they hope to return to an unchaotic scene in the Bay area in the wake of Milton, and they hope to a return with a win and at least a share of first place in the NFC South.

GAME AND BROADCAST DETAILS

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-2) at New Orleans Saints (2-3)

Sunday, October 13, 1:00 p.m. ET

Caesars Superdome (capacity: 73,000)

New Orlean, Louisiana

Television: Fox

TV Broadcast Team: Adam Amin (play-by-play), Greg Olsen (analyst), Pam Oliver (reporter)

Radio: 98Rock (WXTB, 97.9 FM), Flagship Station

Radio Broadcast Team: Gene Deckerhoff (play-by-play), Dave Moore (analyst), T.J. Rives (reporter)

Spanish Radio: 96.1 Caliente

Spanish Radio Broadcast Team: Carlos Bohorquez (play-by-play), Martin Gramática (analyst)

ALL-TIME HEAD-TO-HEAD SERIES

The Buccaneers and Saints were frequent opponents in the '70s, '80s and '90s when the NFL's annual game schedule was heavily influenced by the previous year's standings. They became even better acquainted when the league changed its scheduling format to a divisional rotation in 2002, after a 32nd team was added and the NFL realigned into eight four-team divisions. The Buccaneers left their old NFC Central haunt that year to join the new NFC South, which also drew in the Saints, Panthers and Falcons. That meant two games against the Saints every year, of course.

New Orleans leads the all-time series with Tampa Bay, 40-24 but the Buccaneers have won three of the last four meetings, including a 26-9 decision in the Superdome in Week Four of last season. Baker Mayfield threw touchdown passes to Deven Thompkins, Trey Palmer and Cade Otton and the Bucs' defense held the Saints to 197 total yards of offense. Safety Antoine Winfield Jr. had a big game, combining a team-high nine tackles with a sack, two tackles for loss, a pass defensed, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.

The Buccaneers won five of their last six regular season games in 2023, but the exception was a rematch with the Saints in Tampa in Week 17. New Orleans got the split and kept the Bucs from clinching the division title (for one more week), racing out to a 20-0 lead before finishing off a 23-13 victory. Quarterback Derek Carr threw touchdown passes to tight ends Juwan Johnson and Taysom Hill and the Saints' defense picked Baker Mayfield off twice.

The Buccaneers own the win in the only postseason meeting between the two teams, as they defeated the Saints in the Divisional Round in 2020 by a 30-20 score in the Superdome on the way to the Super Bowl LV championship. That proved to be the final game in Drew Brees's illustrious career, as he retired a few months later. Sean Murphy-Bunting, Mike Edwards and Devin White all picked Brees off as the Bucs rallied from a seven-point deficit in the second half to get the win, scoring the game's final 17 points.

In 2022, the Bucs got their first season sweep of their division rival since 2007. Before that, the Saints had won seven in a row in the head-to-head battle (not counting the 2020 postseason game) dating back to 2018. Tampa Bay won in the Superdome in Week Two in 2022, taking a 20-10 decision that was actually still a 3-3 tie going into the fourth quarter. The Bucs' defense generated five turnovers in the last 17 minutes of game play, including a pick-six by safety Mike Edwards. In the Week 13 rematch in Tampa, on the Monday Night Football stage, the Bucs rallied for two fourth-quarter touchdowns to eke out a 17-16 victory. Tom Brady led 91 and 63-yard touchdown drives in the last five minutes of the game, ending the first with a one-yard touchdown pass to Cade Otton and the second with a six-yard scoring connection with Rachaad White with three seconds left in the game.

During their long winning streak in the series, New Orleans scored at least 28 points in five of those seven games, including a 36-27 decision in New Orleans on Halloween last year. The exception was a 9-0 blanking the Saints delivered at Raymond James Stadium last December, marking just the second shutout for either team in the series and the first since a 41-0 win by New Orleans in 2012. The roughest game for the Buccaneers in that stretch came on a Sunday night in November of 2020 at Raymond James Stadium, with the Saints rolling to a 38-3 decision that was easily Tampa Bay's worst game on its way to that Super Bowl title.

The Bucs-Saints series was first contested in 1977. That initial meeting is famously the first win in franchise history for the Buccaneers, who left New Orleans on December 11 of that year with a 33-14 victory that snapped a franchise-opening 26-game losing streak. The Bucs still had a 3-2 edge in the series by the end of 1982, which would also prove to be the end of the franchise's first run of playoff seasons. The Saints took control of the series by winning six straight in the mid-'80s.

Since they became division mates, the Bucs and Saints have squared off 44 times, 27 of them going in favor of New Orleans. The two teams had a run of season splits from 2015-18, and it wasn't just a matter of the each club holding serve on home field advantage. The Buccaneers actually won at New Orleans in 2015 and 2018, as noted above. That 2018 game was a 48-40 decision that set an NFL record for most combined points in a Week One contest.

Weirdly, the Saints beat Tampa Bay twice in that first NFC South season in 2002, even though the Buccaneers would win the 2002 division title on their way to victory in Super Bowl XXXVII. Those two games represented half of the Bucs' losses that year. In a minor bit of payback, a 2-12 Bucs team beat a 13-1 Saints team in the penultimate week of the 2009 season, before the Saints would go on to win their first Super Bowl. The Saints also won both games in 2020 in the regular season, in another Buccaneers championship campaign.

NOTABLE CONNECTIONS

Buccaneers Senior Advisor to the General Manager Bruce Arians got his first NFL coaching job in Kansas City from 1989-92 but then returned to the college ranks in 1993. His second crack at the NFL would come in New Orleans, where he was the tight ends coach under Head Coach Jim Mora in 1996.
Kevin Carberry, who is in his first season as the Buccaneers' offensive line coach, came to Tampa from New Orleans, where he was the assistant offensive line coach in 2023.
Among the many coaching stops for Buccaneers Assistant Coach Tom Moore over more than four decades in the NFL was one season as the Saints' running backs coach in 1997.
Joe Woods, in his first season as the Saints' defensive coordinator, began his NFL coaching career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after more than a decade in the college ranks, serving as the team's defensive quality control coach from 2004-05.
Fred McAfee, the Saints' vice president of player engagement, played 16 years in the NFL as a running back and that included a very brief stop with the Buccaneers in 1999. McAfee appeared in one game for Tampa Bay that season.
Saints Assistant Special Teams Coach Phil Galiano held the same post in Tampa under Head Coach Greg Schiano in 2012-13.

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NEW ORLEANS, LA - October 09, 2024 - Practice at Yulman Stadium at Tulane University due to Hurricane Milton. Photo By Tori Richman/Tampa Bay Buccaneers