Category: 2020 playoffs

NFL expert picks seriously split on the Saints for the first time this season

NFL experts picks are close to an even 50/50 split on the New Orleans Saints for their Divisional Round playoff game with the Buccaneers.

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Is the third time the charm? The New Orleans Saints defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers handily — twice — this season, but NFL experts appear to be throwing out those results to treat this latest rematch as a toss-up.

Per NFL Pickwatch, just 56% of experts are picking the Saints to win, while a whopping 44% are siding with the Buccaneers. That’s the closest thing to an even 50/50 split since Week 3’s matchup with the Green Bay Packers, when the picks went the other way — 65% of those surveyed liked Green Bay to win, and the Packers did end up with a victory.

But the Saints faced their largest margin of experts picking against them in Week 9’s game with this same Buccaneers team, when only 15% of the talking heads and national writers called for a New Orleans upset. Of course, the Saints won that game 38-3, and they’ll be hoping for a similar result on Sunday to advance deeper into the postseason.

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Bruce Arians: RB Leonard Fournette to start vs. Saints

Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians named RB Leonard Fournette his starter for their playoff game with the New Orleans Saints.

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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be turning to one of their late-offseason additions to start against the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs, with Bucs coach Bruce Arians naming Leonard Fournette his lead running back on Friday. Fournette has mostly played behind Ronald Jones II for much of the season, but a quad injury to Jones has his status in doubt for Sunday’s game.

Fournette, 25, was the fourth overall pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2017 NFL draft. He totaled just 6 carries for 5 rushing yards and 7 catches for 55 receiving yards in two games with his hometown Saints during the regular season, with New Orleans effectively shutting down the Buccaneers running game before he could make much of an impact.

Tampa Bay will be counting on him to step up and take pressure off of Tom Brady in this next matchup, but he has his work cut out for him against a stout Saints run defense. Not to mention the loss of starting guard Alex Cappa to a fractured ankle in their Wild-Card Round win over the Washington Football Team.

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Final score prediction for Saints vs. Buccaneers

The New Orleans Saints have a favorable matchup against a familiar opponent in the Divisional Round with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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The New Orleans Saints’ season could end in just a few days. That’s what’s at stake in their Divisional Round game: single-loss elimination. It just adds more pressure onto them to take care of business against a familiar opponent in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Bucs quarterback Tom Brady has never been beaten three times in a single season, a fact that’s been all the rage in the discourse surrounding this matchup. But Brady had never been beaten twice in a single season before the Saints did it, so don’t let that weigh too heavily on your mind. Besides, three-game sweeps are more common than the narratives might suggest.

Anyway: let’s dive into the matchup and take a shot at maybe our final score prediction of the year.

3-game sweeps are more common in the NFL than you might expect

While it’s relatively easy to beat a team three times, the New Orleans Saints still have a tough rematch with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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The NFL’s Divisional Round headline matchup has Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints hosting Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their third meeting of the season, and there’s already a popular narrative making the rounds: that it’s tough to beat the same team three times in a single year.

But it’s a fake narrative. Made up. False. If the Saints lose to the Buccaneers, it won’t be because of any sort of payback after two previous wins.

Thanks to research from Chase Stuart for Football Perspective, we can look back on NFL history and see that 17 teams have been in the Saints’ position before, hosting a playoff game against an opponent they defeated twice in the regular season. And the home team went 12-5 in those meetings — that’s a winning percentage of .706.

So let’s reiterate that point: if the Saints lose to Tampa Bay, it’s because the Buccaneers play a better game, not because they’re more motivated or whatever. The better team is going to come out on top, and that doesn’t consider how many times they met previously.

As Stuart pointed out in his writeup, New Orleans isn’t guaranteed a win just because they’ve won twice already — each team’s point differential (Saints +145, Buccaneers +137) suggests they’re strong on both sides of the ball. Take a moment to throw out the past results and really focus on how these two opponents match up with each other now.

But with all of that said: the Saints themselves were the most recent team to pull off the three-game sweep back in 2017. They won both regular season games with the Carolina Panthers before facing them again in the Wild-Card Round, which they won. Maybe they can do it again this time and advance to another NFC Championship Game.

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Saints allowed fewest yards, first downs, and points in team playoff history vs. Bears

The New Orleans Saints defense allowed the fewest total yards, first downs, and points scored in team playoff history to the Chicago Bears.

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What a day it was for the New Orleans Saints defense. They yielded the fewest total yards (239), first downs (11), and points (9) in the team’s playoff history during their Wild-Card Round win over the Chicago Bears, setting a high bar for themselves in the postseason tournament.

Their previous-bests included 250 total yards and 14 points allowed to the Philadelphia Eagles in 2019, and just 14 first downs to the Seattle Seahawks in 2014. The Saints offense came through with a win over the Eagles that year, while the Seahawks managed to stay ahead.

Several standout performances paved the way for New Orleans against Chicago, like a team-leading 8 combined tackles (6 solo) from safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and several quarterback pressures by defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins, whose third quarter sack of Mitchell Trubisky pushed the Bears out of field goal range while down 7-3.

But consistency is key for the Saints defense, and they proved that again by squashing the Chicago run game and forcing Trubisky into more pass attempts than Bears fans are probably comfortable watching. Let’s see if they can keep up the pressure next week with Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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Saints to sign free agent kicker Blair Walsh to their practice squad

The New Orleans Saints will sign former Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks kicker Blair Walsh to their practice squad, per NFL Network.

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NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reports that the New Orleans Saints will sign free agent kicker Blair Walsh to their practice squad as a potential fill-in should Wil Lutz be sidelined by COVID-19. It makes sense to keep an option in-house as an emergency replacement, but anyone upset by Lutz’s shaky performance in recent months won’t find Walsh to be much of an upgrade.

Walsh, 31, hasn’t kicked in an NFL game since Dec. 31, 2017. He’s only made two appearances in the playoffs with the Minnesota Vikings, missing a 27-yard try in the closing seconds of their 10-9 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in his last postseason action.

So keep hoping for Lutz to both remain healthy and to bounce back from the slump he’s found himself in. He’s only connected on 5 of his last 10 attempts since mid-November, and whiffed on a 50-yard field goal in the Saints’ playoff win over the Chicago Bears. He has to play better, whether he’s battling an undisclosed injury or simply caught in a rut.

Maybe competing with Walsh every day in practice can help him find his mojo again. But it shouldn’t be much of a competition given both kicker’s resumes.

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Matt Nagy: Bears tried, failed to prepare for C.J. Gardner-Johnson’s trash talk

Matt Nagy was angry that his Chicago Bears tried and failed to prepare for trash talk from New Orleans Saints safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

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Chicago Bears coach Matt Nagy was, well, frustrated that another one of his wide receivers got themselves thrown out of a game with the New Orleans Saints after losing their cool. This time it was Anthony Miller, who watched Saints safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson irritate his teammate Javon Wims just a few months ago into tossing a punch at the defensive back, hurting his team by both getting ejected and yielding previous penalty yards.

Nagy told ESPN’s Jeff Dickerson after the game that the Bears offense devoted time this week specifically studying Gardner-Johnson’s on-field disruptions to prepare the receiving corps for what they were up against. He didn’t want to see his players create a mistake in a big playoff game, and it happened anyway. So it’s understandable that he’d be heated about it following the 21-9 loss.

It’s also kind of hilarious that the Bears put so much energy into keeping Gardner-Johnson from goading them (which didn’t work, which makes it more entertaining). Gardner-Johnson is a legendary trash talker just two years into his NFL career, joining the ranks of other NFC South icons like Steve Smith and Roddy White. It’s great to have one of those elite chirpers in black and gold for once. Here’s hoping he avoids hurting his own team by taking it too far occasionally, though.

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NFL schedules Saints vs. Buccaneers Divisional Round matchup

The New Orleans Saints will face Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Divisional Round of the 2020 playoffs on Sunday, January 17.

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There it is: the NFL announced the kickoff time and date for the next New Orleans Saints game, in which the black and gold will play hosts to a familiar opponent. Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will visit the Mercedes-Benz Superdome during the Divisional Rounds of the playoffs on Sunday, Jan. 17 for kickoff at 5:40 p.m. CT on FOX.

It’s going to be a high-powered matchup between the NFC South-champion Saints and the much-hyped runners-up. Tampa Bay let the Washington Football Team hang around with them in the Wild-Card Round for most of the evening, while the Saints had some frustration with the Chicago Bears until their stifling defense boxed Chicago into a corner. A last-second touchdown catch to Bears tight end Jimmy Graham in garbage time made the 21-9 score look closer than it truly was.

Anyway. The board is set for a pivotal rematch between the Saints and the Buccaneers, who will be looking to avenge their two regular season losses to New Orleans. Good luck to them considering teams in their position are 14-7 in the playoffs since the AFL-NFL merger.

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Saints blow out the Bears, advance for big rematch with the Bucs

A last-second Jimmy Graham touchdown helped close the gap, but not by much.

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A last-second Jimmy Graham touchdown helped close the gap, but not by much. The Chicago Bears lost to the New Orleans Saints 21-9, sending the Saints to the Divisional Round for a pivotal rematch with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But we’ll get into that in a bit.

The Saints powered to the win off of a great day by their defense. They didn’t allow a Bears third-down conversion until after the two-minute warning, going 58 minutes without yielding a fresh set of downs. That’s as impressive as it gets, even before you consider their performance against the run (Chicago only gained 48 rushing yards) and the pass (the Bears picked up just 199 yards through the air).

They’ll need that strong defensive play to finish a three-game sweep of Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay overcame some early challenges from the Washington Football Team’s defense before pulling away late down the stretch. The Saints must keep up the pressure on Brady — as they’ve done before — while making the most of their opportunities on offense.

We’ll see how it shakes out. But for now, the Saints have a ton to reassess from a game with the Bears that shouldn’t have been as close as it was. There’s plenty of room for them to improve.

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WATCH: Drew Brees, Latavius Murray work on the fly for a catch-and-run TD

New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees linked up with RB Latavius Murray for a quick touchdown pass against the Chicago Bears in the playoffs.

How’s that for working on the fly? New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees didn’t have any of his initial reads available, so he had to improvise and find running back Latavius Murray in the flat after cleaning up his first responsibility in pass protection.

Murray caught the fastball from Brees and cut upfield with a head full of steam, elbowing his way through a couple of Chicago Bears defenders before barreling into the end zone. It’s an impressive moment from two veterans who know the playbook inside and out.

And it put the Saints up 14-3, giving them a critical edge in an elimination game. Here’s hoping they can seal the deal.

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