NFL Week 9: Saints Defeat the Bucs with Total Team Effort

With the 27-16 victory against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the New Orleans Saints improved to 6-3 on the year. The black-and-gold needed to rebound after a sloppy game last week in St. Louis, and they did just that.  

The New Orleans Saints suffered yet another injury on Sunday. On the second play of the game, Tracy Porter, one of the heroes from Superbowl XLIV, went down with a neck injury. However, losing a starting CB did not prevent the Saints from turning in one of their best defensive performances of the season.

New Orleans came out with a sense of urgency on both sides of ball that the Bucs simply could not match.

Despite costly penalties on third down that extended the drive on multiple occasions, they swarmed the ball and even held the Bucs to 84 yards on the ground. More importantly, the Saints defense only allowed Tampa Bay to reach the end zone once. The Bucs offense had 356 total yards, and Josh Freeman looked uncomfortable in the pocket most of the day.

On the other hand, Drew Brees had a great day against the Buccaneers defense completing 26 of 37 passes for 258 yards with two touchdowns. His only blemish of the day, an interception, occurred in the third quarter and led to the Bucs kicking a field goal. The TD pass to Lance Moore in the first quarter extended his streak of 36 consecutive games with a TD pass, which has him tied with Brett Favre for second all time.

In addition, en route to passing up Joe Montana on the all-time completion list, he threw it to six different players.

The rushing attack, like the passing offense, was very effective also. Chris Ivory, Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles combined for 175 yards with an average of nearly eight yards per rush. The offensive line opened up holes all day and kept Brees clean.

On the day, Sproles had 42 rushing yards and 57 receiving yards with a touchdown. He is the only player in the league who has scored via the rushing, receiving and return game.

The Saints picked up a key division win at home; however, next week will be even tougher because the black-and-gold will travel to Atlanta. The Falcons are looking to knock the Saints out of first place in the NFC South.

New Orleans will have to play with the same urgency they had against the Bucs if they want to leave the Georgia Dome 7-3.