It became quickly apparent that this game was not going to be the blowout that everyone thought that it could be. It turned out that it wasn’t even a game that the New Orleans Saints looked prepared to win. After getting blown out in Week 1, rookie quarterback Jameis Winston and his Tampa Bay Buccaneers showed up to the Superdome ready to prove that they weren’t going to be a pushover. Sixty minutes later, Winston and his team snapped the Buccaneers’ seven game losing streak against the Saints, while also giving the black and gold their sixth straight loss at home, dropping New Orleans to 0-2 to start the season.

The Saints opened the game with what was looking like a solid drive, but ended up stalling out at the Buccaneers 35 yard line. Being so early in the game, Sean Payton decided to play the field position game instead of attempting a 52 yard field goal with rookie Zach Hocker. The decision eventually worked out, as the defense eventually forced a punt after a 7 play, 49 yard drive from Tampa Bay.

Starting at his own 7 yard line, Drew Brees and his offense could not get anything going and avoided a disaster as Jacquies Smith made the first of his three sacks and two forced fumbles, forcing Brees to scramble to the football that was bouncing around at his own 2 yard line. He was able to recover, forcing a New Orleans punt from deep in their own territory. A mediocre punt by Thomas Morstead set Tampa Bay up with great field position and despite going three and out, Kyle Brindza was able to hit a 55 yard field goal and give his team a 3-0 lead.

Both teams struggled on their next few drives, with the Saints punting twice more and the Brindza missing a field goal. Taking over with great position at their own 42 yard line, New Orleans marched down field with the help of two 20+ yard receptions from Marques Colston, followed by an 11 yard touchdown run by Mark Ingram to give the Saints the 7-3 lead with 1:23 left in the half.

It appeared as if the New Orleans defense was going to force a three and out and give Brees a chance for some last second points, but on a 3rd and 16, Winston found Vincent Jackson for a 17 yard gain to extend their drive. A few plays later, Winston and Jackson hooked up again, this time in the back of the end-zone for a 15 yard touchdown strike to reclaim the lead before halftime. Tampa Bay would head to the locker room with a 10-7 lead and prepared to get the ball right back to start the second half.

The Buccaneers didn’t waste time kicking off thing in the third quarter, marching right down field for a 4 play, 80 yard drive to extend their lead. It was a 1st and 10 from the Saints 41 yard line when Brandon Browner was called for pass interference in the end-zone covering Louis Murphy, putting the ball at the 1 yard line. On the next play, Winston scrambled in for a rushing touchdown, making it 17-7.

That’s when things really started to get ugly for the Saints offense, when Brees severely under-threw a wide open Brandin Cooks, allowing Chris Conte to make the interception and give the ball right back to his Buccaneers. As the offense for New Orleans started to crumble, the defense actually started to step up despite being put into bad positions. Following the turnover, Rob Ryan’s defense held Tampa Bay to just a field goal, keeping it a two score game.

Brees and the offense looked like they may have a chance to answer and cut down the lead, but a Willie Snead fumble gave the ball right back to Tampa Bay, once again putting the pressure on the defense. On the first play of the drive, Winston found Murphy for a 54 yard gain after he beat Delvin Breaux, who had lost track of the ball, giving the Buccaneers a 1st and goal from the 6 yard line in what was looking to start becoming a blow out. Instead, the Saints defense bent, but didn’t break, holding Winston and his offense to another Brindza field goal to make the score 23-7.

Brees and the offense momentarily woke up and drove right down the field for a 14 play, 80 yard touchdown drive that was capped off with a one yard touchdown run from Austin Johnson. New Orleans would then attempt a two point conversion to try and cut the lead to eight, but Snead fell just an inch short of crossing the goal line, keeping the score at 23-13.

The Saints defense then stepped up again, when Hau’oli Kikaha recorded his first NFL sack, while also knocking the ball out of Winston’s hands for Kasim Edebali to recover at the Buccaneers 25 yard line. Early in the fourth quarter, New Orleans looked to be gaining momentum with the touchdown and takeaway, but a quick three and out, followed by a missed 42 yard field goal from Hocker, squandered the golden opportunity to cut the lead down to one score.

On Tampa Bay’s first play of their drive, Kevin Williams stripped Doug Martin and Cam Jordan came up with team’s second fumble recovery in less than a minute. This time, Brees and the offense took advantage, taking only two plays to strike with a 16 yard touchdown pass from Brees to Snead, giving the receiver his first NFL touchdown. In what was yet another unfortunate occurrence that made it seem as if the Saints were simply just not destined to win this game, Hocker had his extra point attempt blocked, keeping it a four point game at 23-19.

On the next drive, the defense did their job and held Tampa Bay to just 17 yards of offense, forcing them to punt the ball back to New Orleans with the chance to take the late lead. Unfortunately, the Saints shot themselves in the foot for what seemed to be the 100th time of the day, when Ingram tried spinning out of a tackle and fumbled the football, allowing the Buccaneers to take over at the New Orleans 33 yard line.

Yet again, the defense did all they could to give the team a chance to stay in the game, forcing a three and out and Brindza’s fourth field goal of the day, extending Tampa Bay’s lead to 27-19. With one timeout and 1:51 left on the clock, Brees and his offense had a chance to go tie the game. The Saints picked up a quick first down, but an illegal hands to the face penalty on Tim Lelito, followed by another Jacquies Smith sack on Brees dropped New Orleans right back to their 19 yard line and chewed up a lot of precious time on the clock. A few plays later, Smith looked to have yet another sack and forced fumble, but an offsides penalty on Tampa Bay negated the would-be turnover. Unfortunately, the play that actually netted the Saints five yards also worked in the Buccaneers’ favor, because it milked more time off of the clock. Brees and the offense were able to get down to Tampa Bay’s 27 yard line to take two desperation shots at the end-zone, but it just wasn’t in the cards for the black and gold and they failed to complete the comeback effort, losing 27-19.

Observations

  • Drew Brees clearly had issues with his shoulder today. He struggled to get any zip on his passes throughout the entire game after taking the first shot, especially his deep balls. Brees never has had a strong arm, but he has always thrown a tight spiral. The deep ball to Brandin Cooks was not only significantly under thrown, but it looked like a dead duck.
  • The offensive line looked terrible in all facets. They struggled to open up many holes for Ingram to run through in the first three quarters. Even when Khiry Robinson came in, the holes he bursted through weren’t very big. Most of his success was done by just phenomenal play. The line also looked pathetic protecting Brees in pass protection. He was under duress throughout the game and it was rare that he had a clean pocket to throw from.
  • Speaking of Robinson, his energy when inserted late in the third quarter was awesome. He was single handily willing the offense to stay in the game. I’m a gigantic supporter of Ingram getting the bulk of the carries, but I had no issue with feeding Robinson with the way he was playing.
  • C.J. Spiller is going to be great in this offense when fully healthy. He looked to only be at about 80% today and he still made two of his four touches look great. On the first drive of the game, he caught a pass out of the backfield in stride and picked up 19 yards in the blink of an eye. In the second half, he took an outside run and cut up the sideline with barely any room at all and tight-roped for about five yards to pick up a first down. He didn’t play much, as I expected, but he showed enough for me to be really excited about him for the rest of the year.
  • Marques Colston made up for his drops last week and came up with a few big catches today, particularly on third downs. I heard a few people say that he needed to be cut after last week and he proved exactly why that was a rush to judgement.
  • Going back to the offensive line, both guards and Zach Strief played very poorly. Tampa Bay was able to blow up Tim Lelito and Jahri Evans on multiple occasions, both in run and pass plays. On rushing attempts, Max Unger would be blocking his man two or three yards down the field, while Lelito and Evans were two or three yards in the backfield. As for Strief, he gave up three sacks to Jacquies Smith and was also beat consistently throughout the game. Four or five, at the very least, of the hits that Brees took came from Strief getting beat, particularly the play where Brees seemed to injure his shoulder. That is simply unacceptable and it needs to be fixed before things get even worse for the franchise quarterback’s health. Andrus Peat may be called upon earlier than we anticipated if he can’t pull it together.
  • Despite struggling against the run and not being able to get pressure through the first half and the first drive of the third quarter, the Saints defense really stepped up and did what they could to help the team make a comeback. They bottled up Doug Martin and Charles Sims, they sacked Jameis Winston, and most importantly, they created turnovers to give the offense a chance to score points. Unfortunately, it was the offense that struggled once again.
  • I praised Hau’oli Kikaha last week for the play he made pursuing Andre Ellington and stripping the ball to create a turnover. Well, he did it again this week. He also came up with his first career sack. I’d like to see him create a little more consistent pass rush, but once he gets a feel for the speed of the NFL, his timing, and how to beat blockers, I think that will eventually come.
  • Stephone Anthony had another solid game, flashing some electric plays that I believe he is capable of making on a consistent basis as the future quarterback of this defense.
  • Anthony’s fellow linebacker David Hawthorne struggled again. Hawthorne’s game started slowly declining last season and it has carried over into the first two games of 2015. Two consecutive plays come to mind, where Hawthorne flat out missed a tackle on the ball carrier and frankly didn’t even slow them down for his teammates to close in.
  • There was little to no pressure in the first half, but when Rob Ryan sent some blitzes in the second half, the Saints were finally able to start getting to Winston. The extra rushers opened up some space for Cam Jordan and Kasim Edebali to get on top of Winston on a few occasions. There were also a few cornerback blitzes that seemed to throw the rookie quarterback off a bit.

Game Stats

Saints

  • Drew Brees – 24-38 / 255 yards / 1 TD / 1 INT / 63.2% completions / 80.5 QB rating / 4 sacks
  • Mark Ingram – 16 rushes / 53 yards / 1 TD / 3.3 yards per carry / 1 fumble / 3 receptions / 5 yards
  • Khiry Robinson – 5 rushes / 48 yards / 9.6 yards per carry / 1 reception / 9 yards
  • C.J. Spiller – 3 rushes / 7 yards / 2.3 yards per carry / 1 reception / 19 yards
  • Austin Johnson – 1 rush / 1 yard / 1 TD
  • Marques Colston – 4 receptions / 69 yards
  • Brandin Cooks – 5 receptions / 62 yards
  • Willie Snead – 4 receptions / 44 yards / 1 TD / 1 fumble lost
  • Brandon Coleman – 3 receptions / 33 yards
  • Kenny Vaccaro – 9 tackles / 1 pass defended
  • Kenny Phillips – 8 tackles
  • Hau’oli Kikaha – 7 tackles / 1 sack / 1 forced fumble
  • Stephone Anthony – 7 tackles / 1 tackle for loss
  • Kasim Edebali – 4 tackles / 1 sack / 1 fumble recovery
  • Cam Jordan – 3 tackles / 1 sack / 1 fumble recovery

Buccaneers

  • Jameis Winston – 14-21 / 207 yards / 1 TD / 0 INT / 66.7% completions / 114.6 QB rating / 3 sacks / 6 rushes / 23 yards / 1 TD
  • Doug Martin – 21 rushes / 78 yards / 3.7 yards per carry / 2 receptions / 20 yards
  • Charles Sims – 8 rushes / 38 yards / 4.8 yards per carry / 3 receptions / 14 yards
  • Louis Murphy – 3 receptions / 82 yards
  • Vincent Jackson – 3 receptions / 54 yards / 1 TD
  • Austin Seferian-Jenkins – 2 receptions / 29 yards
  • Lavonte David – 8 tackles / 2 passes defended
  • Kwon Alexander – 8 tackles / 1 pass defended
  • Chris Conte – 6 tackles / 1 tackle for loss / 1 INT
  • Jacquies Smith – 3 tackles / 3 sacks
  • Gerald McCoy – 2 tackles / 1 sack

Team Stats

  • Total yards: Saints-323, Buccaneers-333
  • Pass yards: Saints-219, Buccaneers-194
  • Rush yards: Saints-104, Buccaneers-139
  • 1st downs: Saints-21, Buccaneers-18
  • 3rd down conversions: Saints-7/14, Buccaneers-5/14
  • Red zone TD conversions: Saints-3/3, Buccaneers-2/5
  • Turnovers: Saints-3, Buccaneers-2
  • Points off of turnovers: Saints-7, Buccaneers-9
  • Penalties: Saints-10/115, Buccaneers-11/90
  • Possession: Saints-31:28, Buccaneers-28:32

Week 3

The Saints (0-2) will travel to Carolina to face the Panthers (2-0), who are coming off of a 24-17 victory over the Houston Texans in their home opener. In last year’s match-up between these two in Carolina, the Saints beat the Panthers 28-10 in a Thursday night game. This is as much of a must-win game as you’ll find for Week 3 for the Saints, considering both the Panthers and the Atlanta Falcons are off to 2-0 starts. The game is on Sunday, September 27th at 12:00 central time. I’ll follow up this article with our Grading the Saints and Sinners piece, before we turn our attention to Week 3. Remember to drop a line in the comments and let us know your opinions, good or bad. See you guys soon.