This is a nice change of pace. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are not the ones with a metric ton of injuries plaguing them. While they will be missing some key pieces, this is the healthiest the team has been since week one against the Commanders.
Antoine Winfield Jr will be back, Jordan Whitehead is back, Luke Goedeke is back, Calijah Kancey is back. Yes, there are some new pieces out with injury, but unlike these other guys, there isn’t a super wide gap between the starters and back-ups.
On defense, Todd Bowles needs to do what he did to Jayden Daniels and not let Spencer Rattler have the performance we gave CJ Stroud. He needs to take Rattler’s name as a command to win. Bowles needs to Rattle him. Rattler is a highly touted prospect even though he went in the fifth.
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The Saints still have pieces on the shattered remnants of their offense, so the Bucs still need to show up on defense (especially 3rd and long). How do you do that? Blitz, blitz, blitz some more, and then blitz once more for good measure. The Saints have pieces on their offensive line out, so Bowles needs to take advantage of that. No matter how good a QB prospect is, playing your first NFL game is difficult. The Bucs need to make it more difficult for Rattler.
On offense, there are new pieces missing. Robert Hainsey will be starting at center again much to our displeasure. However, I think the gap between Hainsey and Barton isn’t as wide as the gap between Goedeke and Skule. While I would prefer to have a fully healthy line, this isn’t the worst news. One thing that will affect the game more is Rachaad White being out. As much as I may have been hard on him, I don’t know how I feel about it being the Bucky Irving and Sean Tucker show. I’m not 100% positive Bucky Irving can fully handle the starter load with his size and I just don’t know how to feel about Tucker.
That being said, the Bucs are also getting Jalen McMillan back, so their receiver core is getting healthy at the right point (even if Trey Palmer is out). I expect Baker to have another good game, even with a good Saints secondary. The key to this game will likely come through the air with Bucky probably having a lot of screen passes.
This is a pivotal game for the Bucs to win. They are getting healthy and playing a divisional opponent who is not healthy. However, I don’t want to take the Saints lightly. They almost always play the Buccaneers tough and in NOLA, it will not be easy even with Derek Carr out. The Bucs win and the Falcons lose (as unlikely as that may seem), they’ll get back on top of the division with a lot of really tough games coming up over the next three weeks.
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