What a win! The Saints came up huge in the biggest moments of the game in order to scrape away with a 36-27 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers! It was one of the best games of the season and it was starting to look like one of those Tom Brady comeback games during the second half, as they were putting together a ferocious comeback. However, it came up just short as Brady was intercepted on what could have been a game winning drive and that pick was returned for a touchdown to seal the game.
Saints’ fans can’t rejoice in the moment though. While it does bring the team half a game out from the top spot in the division, we did have to lose Jameis Winston for the rest of the year due to a torn ACL that he suffered in the first half of this game. The sad part is that he was really just starting to find his groove with the team and looked as comfortable as ever with more weapons returning to the lineup. With Taysom Hill still out with a concussion, Trevor Siemian was the next man up and completely delivered. He threw for only 159 yards but had a touchdown and no interceptions. Though he did have one pick erased by a roughing the passer call. Alvin Kamara wasn’t great on the ground, taking 19 carries for 61 yards and a phenomenal fourth down touchdown. Mark Ingram added on six carries for 27 yards but it was obvious that he wasn’t fully up to date with the playbook just yet. Trevor involved practically every receiver that the Saints had available, even their fullback and third string tight end. The true story of this game though was the defense. A group that was absolutely stunning almost the entire game, outside of that horrid third quarter of action. C.J. Gardner Johnson grabbed an early interception and P.J. Williams snagged the pick six that iced the contest. Cameron Jordan also had a huge strip sack where he pushed Brady while still engaged with a lineman and knocked him down to force the ball loose. It was just an all-around great performance by this squad, even by their special teams’ units. Their rookie kicker filling in for Wil Lutz this season nailed all three of his field goal attempts in the game, though he did miss one extra point that was about to come back to haunt them if it weren’t for that interception at the end.
Tampa Bay played well, there was just too many penalties against them, and some that were admittedly questionable, that set them back. I think one of the biggest problems of this Tampa Bay offense is that they look for that deep ball too often. Which is fine, but sometimes it can lead to frustration when things don’t work out right away. Chris Godwin was feasting the entire game off a lot of slants and underneath routes and for some reason they randomly stopped running them throughout the game. Tampa Bay will get some things fixed and without a doubt dominate whoever the poor soul is that plays them next. I don’t see this group losing back-to-back games.