Kellen Moore needed a win like this one.

A scrappy, out-of-the-mud (both literally and physically) victory against a quality opponent that his New Orleans Saints simply out-toughed.

The Moore era in New Orleans got off to a start as gloomy as the Sunday afternoon weather at Raymond James Stadium.

There weren’t a whole lot of wins (just two) through the first dozen games under Moore, and there wasn’t a whole lot of optimism. Nothing seemed to suggest the Saints were trending in the right direction.

Every week, something popped up that needed to be fixed.

Penalties. Red-zone woes. Turnovers. Defensive lapses. Moore’s decision-making. Moore’s game management. Something.

But Sunday, the Saints finally put it all together and beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24-20 in the most impressive and complete victory since Moore took over.

Moore was his same stoic self after the win, not showing much emotion. But on the inside, you know he had to be smiling from ear to ear. 

This was a signature win against a Bucs team that was fighting to stay alone atop the NFC South standings. Instead, the Saints played spoiler, and now the Bucs (7-6) are tied on the top rung of the division with the Carolina Panthers. Maybe the Saints will do the Bucs a favor next week when the Panthers come to the Superdome. 

The Saints, who already have one win against the Panthers, are just 3-10 and at the bottom of that same NFC South ladder. Credit goes to Moore for having a team that hasn’t quit. His players had every reason to give up after winning just one of their first eight games.

“Kellen’s got ice in his veins,” said Saints linebacker Demario Davis. “He don’t change, win or lose. He comes in and he’s the same person every day. As human beings, you respect that more than anything. You may agree or disagree with somebody, but when somebody is the same person every day, it’s like, ‘OK, I can rock with you. I know you’re not gonna change up.’ And that’s how he’s been. He’s been steady. He doesn’t flinch.”

Moore’s team didn’t flinch either. Every time the Saints scored Sunday, the Bucs would answer with a score of their own. But the Saints just kept making plays.

One of the best decisions Moore made when he landed the Saints job was hiring Brandon Staley to be his defensive coordinator. That was evident Sunday, as the Saints limited Baker Mayfield to a rough passing day. Mayfield completed 14 of 30 passes for 122 yards with a touchdown and an interception. It was the second time in six weeks the Saints held Mayfield in check. Mayfield completed 15 of 24 passes for 152 yards in the Bucs’ 23-3 victory in the Dome in October.

This time, the Saints flipped the script, with Tyler Shough doing his best Mayfield impersonation in the win. Shough ran for two touchdowns and threw for another and the Saints scored 20 points in a game for the first time since beating the New York Giants in Week 5. The 24 points were much needed for Moore, who was hired because he was supposed to be an offensive mind. There have been times this season when that was in doubt, especially in games when the Saints failed to score once inside the red zone. The Saints went 2 for 3 in the red zone Sunday. They also got plenty of help from their defense, holding the Bucs to 3 of 13 on third downs and 2 of 7 on fourth downs.

This was the very definition of the complementary football Moore had been waiting to see.

“When you’ve only won a couple games during the season, there is a lot of adversity you face,” Moore said. “So for our guys to come out and have the energy and the physicality they played with, I thought it was a credit to our guys. They are a special group that keeps playing.”

The Bucs, a team the Saints once dominated, had won the last three games in the series. The Saints have never lost four straight games to the Bucs, and they made sure not to start on Sunday.

Nothing was going to stop them.

Not the Bucs. And not Mother Nature, who poured rain on the field much of the afternoon and made this game a sloppy one. Moore, who monitored the weather in a way that would have made former local meteorologist Margaret Orr proud, made the adjustments and leaned on a running game that has struggled most of the season. Running back Devin Neal rushed for 70 yards, and Shough rushed for 55 more. Both Shough and Neal scored their first rushing touchdowns, making it a big day for the two rookies.

And the rookie head coach’s day wasn’t so bad either.