New Orleans Saints: Players that must thrive to beat Buccaneers
By Jason Reed
The New Orleans Saints host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 5 of the NFL season with the chance to move to 3-0 without Drew Brees.
Things are going good so far for the New Orleans Saints without Drew Brees under center. Despite the team losing the initial game in which Brees suffered the torn ligament in his thumb, the Saints have gone 2-0 since and have beaten two good teams.
The first test without Brees was the Seattle Seahawks on a rainy day in Seattle. And the Saints pulled off what many teams cannot: they went to the Northwest and stole a victory at CenturyLink Field.
The Saints then headed back to the dome to square off against the Dallas Cowboys, who were riding high after three straight wins against three bad teams. While the game did not go anything how we expected, the Saints almost identically matched how the Cowboys beat them last year, winning this game 12-10.
This is huge for the Saints, who guaranteed that their record will be, at worst, manageable when Brees returns. However, after these two showings, there is a very real possibility that the Saints have a winning record when Brees returns and I would not even take 13-3 out of the final record discussion.
In order to stay rolling the Saints are going to have to take care of business at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The only worry is that the Bucs always seem to play the Saints tough and are coming off of a 55-point showing.
Not everyone needs to be great in this game for the Saints but there definitely are areas that are more important than others. Here are the three players that must have a good game in Week 5 if the Saints want to walk away victorious.