Tampa Bay Buccaneers Vs. New Orleans Saints
~ Sunday, October29, 2010 at 1:00 PM Central on FOX
~ Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida
Talk about the differences from last year to this year. At this point last year, the New Orleans Saints were undefeated and looking completely unstoppable. The Tampa Buccaneers on the other hand were in the middle of a season that could be deemed forgettable and the start of a rebuilding era.
Fast forward one year and people are now amazed at the surprising 3-1 starts of the Bucs and wondering what has happened to the world champion Saints. It's not to say that the season is seen clearly now or over for either team, but there are some thigns to be figured out.
The Saints are coming off a very surprising 30-20 loss to the Arizona Cardinals in which undrafted rookie Max Hall made his first career start. It wasn't his actions though that kept his team in it; it was the mistakes of the Saints that kept their potent offense off the field and gave the Cardinals' defense some easy takeaways and scores. Kind of sounds like the type of things the Saints did last year but just haven't been able to do so this time around.
No longer can Sunday's game against the Buccaneers look like a "gimme win" at all and that's not just because of the way Tampa Bay has been playing. They could be winless or 1-3 and it would still take a full 60-minute game of mistake-free football for these Saints to win. Seeing a slim victory over a winless Carolina team and a loss to the Cardinals shows that this Saints' team needs to put things together properly and make sure that everyone is on the same page. There is no more room this season for uninspired football play.