Dare I say that both the 1-4 New Orleans Saints and the 2-3 Tampa Bay Buccaneers are peaking right now as they head into Sunday’s NFC South matchup at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.?

Although there was a bye week directly after, New Orleans won its first game of the year in Week 5 and hopes to take the momentum of that victory and build upon it for the rest of the 2012 campaign.

Tampa Bay played its most complete game of the season last week in a 38-10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs. Josh Freeman threw for 328 yards and both Doug Martin and LeGarrette Blount averaged well over five yards per carry.

With both teams apparently headed in the right direction, what do the Buccaneers need to do to build a game plan to beat the Saints?

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After Asante Samuel picked off Carson Palmer Sunday and ran the rock for one of his famous "pick-6" returns, the Atlanta Falcons cornerback was very vocal about the play (Thomas DeCoud said he heard Samuel from 40 yards away while running the ball back) and about how he felt the fans in Philadelphia would treat him upon his return to the city for Atlanta's Week 8 game against the Eagles.

“They love me!” said Samuel during his post-game locker-room rant. “They are going to scream when I come out the tunnel. Philly, you better scream!”

As the Falcons entered their bye week, I'm quite positive the Falcons brass hoped that would be the only time Samuel called out to Philadelphia in any way, shape or form.

It didn't take long for Samuel to crush those hopes.

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For the second game in a row, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Josh Freeman has been given the freedom to launch the ball down the field in an effort to connect on the big play.

Against the Washington Redskins in Week 4, Freeman was 3-of-3 for 141 yards on passes of 20 yards or more. Against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 6, Freeman was 3-of-5 for 160 yards and a touchdown on deep balls.

The coaching staff seems to have made a large shift in how they are allowing Freeman to move the ball. During the first three games, Freeman threw the ball just 80 times. In his next two he attempted 65 passes.

Freeman is also throwing the ball downfield more. After not trying a pass of 20 yards or more against the Carolina Panthers, and being forced to throw six in a shootout with the New York Giants, Freeman notched 11 long passes in his first three games.

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Tampa Bay head coach Greg Schiano is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He took over this team and gave every player a clean slate to work with. But his leash wasn't long. As Tenard Jackson and Kellen Winslow Jr. found out, it doesn't take much to find yourself on the wrong side of a pink slip.

So, when oft-in-trouble cornerback Aqib Talib was suspended last week for violating the league's substance-abuse policy, many wondered out loud whether Talib would be back in a Buccaneers uniform after he served his four-game suspension.

Schiano didn't definitively answer the question Monday, but he went a long way toward answering it, as reported by Pewter Report:

First off, Schiano wasn't happy to be answering the question after his PR staff sent out a release. Maybe that's why he was being intentionally vague. Or maybe he just needs time to think it over.

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Michael Turner is not the same running back he was when he arrived in Atlanta. He’s not even the same back he was last season.

Turner’s on the wrong side of 30 and has visibly lost a step—an explosive burst that fueled three 300-plus carry seasons and more than 1,300 yards rushing in three of his last four seasons.

Through six games in 2012, Turner has 84 carries for 357 yards. He’s on pace to reach 952 yards at season’s end on 224 carries.

It was Atlanta’s philosophy from the get-go to limit Turner’s carries, but a 25 percent reduction seems like too much of an adjustment from a ball carrier who led the NFC in rushing in 2011.

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New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma will be asking the court system for help, again, in the matter of his yearlong suspension from the league for allegedly participating in a pay-for-injury bounty system with the Saints from 2009 to 2011, according to the Times-Picayune.

Vilma and his legal team are still upset that Goodell has the power of punishing players and then resides over the appeals process. While the argument makes legitimate sense, it doesn't help that the NFLPA and the league agreed to these terms just a year ago during the battle to agree upon and sign a new collective bargaining agreement.

Other problems that Vilma's legal team presented Monday involved his three-hour meeting with the NFL on Sept. 17, where Vilma was cross-examined and testified that he had never participated in a bounty program, nor was he offered a reward to injure an opposing player.

There's also a matter of the evidence involved in the case. Vilma and his attorneys still have not seen the breadth of the evidence. The portions that the NFL seems to be focused on are the areas it refuses to turn over to Vilma.

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New Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano took the reins in Tampa and wanted to turn this team into a running power. After Sunday’s 38-10 drubbing of the Kansas City Chiefs, it looks like Schiano had it all wrong.

After a bye week to determine what the Buccaneers do best on offense, it turns out the answer is throw the ball.

Josh Freeman is smiling.

Heading into Tampa Bay’s Week 4 game against the Washington Redskins, Freeman had a paltry 80 pass attempts in Schiano’s run-first scheme. But Freeman was unleashed in the second half, to the tune of 211 yards and a touchdown.

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Atlanta Falcons safety Thomas DeCoud said he was 40 yards away from Asante Samuel when Samuel picked off a Carson Palmer pass in the fourth quarter and took it back to the house, an almost patented pick-six from the first-year Falcons cornerback.

“All I heard was ‘Hello… Hello’ and I was in deep coverage,” said DeCoud. “So, 40 yards away and I still heard him.”

Samuel’s interception and return for a touchdown, not to mention the swagger—the trademark yelling and dancing into the end zone—that he brings to the team is, well, the good part.

The missed tackles earlier in the game, along with the poor coverage that allowed the Oakland Raiders to drive the field and tie the game with 40 seconds left to play, is the bad that comes along with the good from Samuel.

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