New Orleans Saints get right in dominant win over Tampa Bay Buccaneers
In Tampa
But first, there was the hurdle of Tampa Bay. Jameis Winston is an enigma of a QB. He flashes brilliance and shows leadership in one moment, then turns around and reproves that he’s simply not consistent enough to be a winning quarterback in this league.
And the Saints helped him along the way to what might be his last season in pewter and red.
The Saints refocused on what made them successful so far in the season and got back to business. They put a ton of pressure on the QB. They stuffed the run (though that’s not tough to do when the team only rushes eight times – they were doing what we did last week…).
They went with a high percentage passing attack and ran the ball relatively effectively. Most importantly, they didn’t beat themselves by turning the ball over. It sounds horrible to say, but the Saints did to Tampa what Atlanta had done to the Saints the prior week.
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They protected the football and controlled the clock and pace of the game.
The first thing that had to happen was the Saints had to do a better job upfront of protecting Drew Brees. That was accomplished. Last week, the Saints had Will Clapp take over for left guard Andrus Peat who sustained a broken arm.
Clapp took a lot of heat for under-achieving in that game. I liken it to when Teddy Bridgewater first came in for the Saints. It takes more than a couple of snaps to get into the flow of playing that spot.
Clapp doesn’t typically practice with the first team as a guard – he’s in their jumbo package as a blocking tight end/tackle eligible.
There is a flow to the offensive line play, a union where they play as one unit. Putting a different person into that unit takes time. During a game is a tough time to gain that cohesion. Had he played that spot this week, he would have played better.
The reason Nick Easton didn’t go into last week’s game against the Falcons was because he was inactive, as he has been much of the season. He was activated for this week though and started and did a fine job.
It makes more sense to have Easton there anyway because it allows the Saints to still run Clapp in the jumbo package.