New Orleans Saints vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Preview & Prediction | PFF

New Orleans Saints vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Preview & Prediction | PFF

The PFF Plus holiday sale is going on right now. Use the promo code holiday30 to get yourself 30% off a PFF Plus subscription. That means that you get everything. The grades, the premium stats, all of the fantasy tools, all the betting tools, all the draft tools. It’s everything a football fan could want year round. Holiday 30. That’s what gets you 30% off that year-long PFF plus subscription at subscribe.pff.com. [Music] The New Orleans Saints traveling to Tampa Bay to take on the Buccaneers. Buccaneers got uh squeaked out with a win last week against the Arizona Cardinals. And really with the Panthers getting the best win in the NFL so far this season, defeating the Los Angeles Rams with the momentum that they had last week, Carolina’s right there. They’re keeping pace and Carolina is on a by-week this week. So, it gives the Buccaneers the opportunity to go a full game up in the standings. I believe they are just a half game up on correct the Panthers right now. Yeah, cuz the the Buccaneers are 7-5 and the Carolina Panthers are 7-6. So obviously with a loss they will be tied and they will be even. They have not played yet. They’re playing in three of the last or two of the last three games of the season or with a win obviously then they are a full game up there on the Carolina Panthers. So what do we think about this one from the Bucks perspective? Dalton. The offense has been in a funk, I think, since since people were clamoring for Baker Mayfield to be near the top of the MVP conversation five, six weeks into the season. That has really cooled down potential that Jaylen McMillan and and Mike Evans are back at practice this week. I don’t think that necessarily means they’re going to be activated this week, but you get Bucky Irving back last week. Chris Godwin looked as close to the real Chris Godwin as he had uh at any point this season. How do we feel about this Tampa team? What are you looking forward to uh watching on that side of the ball versus the Saints? It feels like even in the win this past week against Arizona, they’re just not executing at a very high level. We could start with Baker Mayfield and the struggles that he has. When you look at really since week six is when this cold streak started. Look, he’s got a 58.7 passing grade. It’s just not going to get it done long term. 6.1 yards per attempt. You’ve talked before about how inaccurate that he’s been. And I don’t see anything wrong with him mechanically. When I watch Baker Mayfield right now, it feels like remember earlier in the year they had all the injuries. It feels like at that in those moments when Baker Mayfield didn’t have great pass protection, he was improvising and everything was kind of twitchy and a little bit erratic, but it was working. It feels like as the pass protection has gotten better, Mayfield has kind of kept those high energy habits in the pocket and he’s jittery and the footwork just isn’t quite right. And it almost looks like at times that he’s rushing things. Trevor, this year he’s only got a 61 passing grade on his first read, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you consider that’s supposed to actually be your highest passing grade. And then it goes down through the progression of that into your second and third and checkdowns and all of that. It looks to me like he’s rushing a bit. And the other problem is, you mentioned Mike Evans hopefully coming back from injury soon. This team right now without Mike Evans doesn’t have any answers for man-to-man coverage. When you see teams get in man coverage, Mayfield’s been one of the worst passers in the league against man coverage. And they’re not separating at all. He was always the guy that would win those one-on-one matchups. You put him out there as the X and he’s either going to take off deep or run a slant or run something over the middle that is going to beat a one-on-one matchup, beat somebody on the outside. So, I think there are multiple problems for this Bucks offense right now. But it does start to me with Baker FA Baker Mayfield needing to calm down in the pocket. Tristan Wors is healthy. Luke geted healthy. The last 6, eight weeks really the Bucks have been one of the best pass protection teams in the NFL. It’s not like early in the season with all the injuries they had. So I think he needs to calm down, take a deep breath in the pocket, set your feet, throw the football accurately, and these receivers need to do a better job of separating. But that may not happen against man coverage until Mike Evans gets back. Yeah. on on the Saints side of things, the the last time that these teams matched up, I believe it was week eight, Tampa wins in New Orleans 23-3, and that’s when we actually saw Tyler Shuck for the first time this season when he replaced Spencer Rattler in that game. And uh in that one, it was just it was the Bucks didn’t play particularly well. M Baker Mayfield didn’t have a a big output passing. They didn’t have a big output running the ball, but um the Saints had two fumbles that they lost and they threw two t they threw two interceptions as well. So the turnover battle, I mean, they killed themselves really before they had a chance to win that game, no matter who was going to be the quarterback. So they’ll see him again. And I think that Todd BS, he loves going up against inexperienced quarterbacks because there’s a lot of things that Todd BS does uh that, you know, rookie and just young quarterbacks aren’t used to seeing. I believe I I think I I got this stat from John Ledard a week or so ago, but he was like, “Do you know which defensive tackle in the NFL has played the most coverage reps this season?” It’s Viva because that’s just what Todd BS does. You just you never know which guys are going to be collapsing the pocket, which guys are dropping back, you know, and so it’s really tough for young quarterbacks to be able to read that. You pair that with the fact, Dalton, that the Saints rushing attack, whether Kamar’s been out there or not, which he no longer is, it just has not been good this season. 1,088 rushing yards through 13 weeks. That is 29th in the NFL. 48 missed tackles total. That’s 25th in the NFL. And their EPA per rush is 30th in the NFL. Not really a run game at all whatsoever to be able to help Tyler Shuck. Todd BS likes to eat these guys alive. And Tampa’s already beat him once this year. I feel like Tampa is going to win this game even with all of their struggles. I’m going to say Bucks 24, Saints 13. Your your stat on that for defensive tackles. So going into this week, he is Vivea is tied. Three-way tie at the top for coverage snaps from a defensive tackle. Vea, Baltimore’s Travis Jones, Las Vegas, Adam Butler. Those three guys leading in coverage reps for defensive tackles. I have the Bucks also. I think that is a huge factor. Todd BS against Tyler Shuck. Look, when he’s going against a young quarterback and he’s got all the simulated pressures and rotations and things that young quarterbacks just haven’t seen, BS is generally at a big advantage. I’m going to take him over Tyler Shuck. I think the Bucks defense gets it done in this game at home 21-10. Somebody in the chat saying uh Mike Evans has to play this week so Baker can hyperarget him to get 1,000 yards. What would uh what how many games do they have left? Hold on. Let’s let’s look at let’s do the math on what Mike Evans needs to what he needs to average here. He is sitting he’s sitting you look up how many yards he has. Oh, he would need Oh, man. Even if he played this week, he would have to average um it’s divided by five. Whatever he needs. Uh two, what is is it 200? No, like 190ish 195 yards or somewhere in there. No, he’s got it. 8 860 over five. Yeah, 100 180 something there. He’s got it. He’s got it. No, I I agree. I agree. The chat we’re we’re Mike Evans. He has to get He has to get the thousand yards. That’s just That’s just the way that it is. 18 187 I think that is he would have to average for five games which that’s doable.

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The New Orleans Saints and The Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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