New Orleans Saints: Breaking down the home stretch and predicting the final four

Tampa Bay

It’s tough to lose a division game at home, then go on the road for another division game a week later. So the Saints were truly up against it going into Tampa. And Tampa Bay is one of those strange teams – they have entirely too much talent to have the record they have.

They hung 55 points on the Los Angeles Rams the week before we played the Buccaneers earlier in the season. They played us tough in the Dome.

But we’d also defeated Tampa 11 of the last 15 times we’d played. As much as they are a rival and give us a tight game quite often, we’ve been equal to the challenge.

The Saints went into Tampa and did work.

The Black and Gold got up early and were never truly threatened by Tampa as we forced QB Jameis Winston into four turnovers. A 55-yard Marcus Williams pick-six iced the game with just over five minutes to play and the Saints took a 35-17 win out of Tampa.

The Saints still didn’t show their prolific offense, and still had entirely too many penalties, but they dominated the time of possession by 14 minutes and played ball control.

As has been the case for several seasons now, the defense came up big again, pressuring Winston all game. Winston was only sacked twice, but he was hurried 15 times, a few of those resulting in interceptions.