The Buccaneers will wish they could’ve had that one back.
Phew. That was an absolute mess from top to bottom. Tom Brady and the Buccaneers couldn’t have looked more lost against a better-coached Saints team on the road in their second loss of the season.
There wasn’t a single part of that game that was pretty. Brady lit up the stat sheet for most of the game, but several terrible turnovers, including the dagger pick-six that ended the game, likely hurt his MVP campaign badly.
Tampa leaned on the run game far too often on early downs and it cost them dearly. None of the Buccaneer backs were able to get going other than Giovani Bernard on a long run, and these wasted downs also hurt in the long run.
The defensive side of the ball wasn’t pretty either. Giving up over 100 penalty yards isn’t a way to beat a team as well-coached as a team like the Saints, and some terrible calls by the refs didn’t make matters better.
The Bucs were beaten on every side of the ball and now have some serious questions going into the bye. Yes, some key members of the secondary are hopefully on their way back, but this still isn’t enough to inspire confidence that this is a Super Bowl team when they can’t beat a backup quarterback.
The better part of the next two weeks will be extremely important for the Bucs. This loss will sting more than many in recent years. This will end up being one of the worst losses for this team of the Tom Brady era, and it makes everything worse when it comes against a team like the Saints.
Two losses aren’t the end of the world, but this roster absolutely has to be better going forward.