Game Recap: Saints vs Buccaneers

One of the stalest performances that we’ve seen in a while from this team came yesterday as the New Orleans Saints took their second loss of the season to the rivaled Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A 26-9 blowout loss that had Saints fans booing their team at times.

Something we never see.

The Saints struggled greatly to put anything together on offense and it didn’t seem like much of a player issue. Sure, some players had off moments in the game, but the play calling in this one was clearly the major problem.

Saints offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael did not do a good job of correlating his play calling with the chains as well as being creative vertically down the field. Many times over recent weeks now, we see the Saints in a short down and distance situation and notice the deep patterns being run all across the field. We saw this today once again. Another thing that seemed to catch some eyes, was the amount of plays they called horizontally. So many of their runs and throws were stopped short or blown up behind the line of scrimmage due to these play calls. Me personally, was never a fan of these types of plays since you’re already setting yourself up in the negative. Pushing the ball down field did not seem like a priority, only when they needed to. Which they still weren’t able to connect on.

This coaching job does not put its players in advantageous situations and this team doesn’t have the QB to overcome that either. Passing the ball for 140 yards on the day is proof of that.

We can’t really place any blame on the offensive line who weren’t great in pass pro but were much, much better than they were in previous weeks. The run game also looked pretty decent as well, besides the Adam Prentice fumble that set up a huge touchdown for the Bucs (1 of 3 turnovers)

Altogether, the Saints offense has yet to touch 20 points this season and there is now a major room for concern.

On defense, this team also did not play well as they allowed more than 20 points for the first time since Week 11 of last season.

They let Bucs QB Baker Mayfield run all over the field and convert in crucial moments. He finished the day 25/32, 3 touchdowns and a pick. They also didn’t have an answer for Chris Godwin who paved his way to a big way once Mike Evans got hurt, hauling in 8 receptions for 114 yards. They pass rush was not able to get home at all with the only key moment being DT Bryan Breese’s lone sack. (1 sack, 3 TFL’s). The run defense averages weren’t horrible but the Bucs grinded out their runs and were highly effective at pushing forward for tough yards.

Just a tough, tough day.

The few bright spots in this disaster of a day were DT Bryan Bresee, who we spoke on previously. He looks to be a very good player so far. Another rookie in Blake Grupe, who went 3/3 on his field goal attempts. Also, Alvin Kamara gave the Saints a little jolt in the running and receiving game, carrying the ball 11 times for 51 yards as well as catching a team-high 13 passes for 33 yards.

Other than that, it was hard to find anything positive about this one.

The Saints will travel to New England this Sunday to take on Bill Belichick's Patriots. Hopefully they can bounce back from this or it’s looking like a long season for the Who Dat Nation.