It appears there are some Saints fans here who have no respect for the Bucs defense, especially for our secondary. It's your opinion, this is your home and you are entitled to it, but let me leave you with a little "food for thought".
1. We are number #1 in the league against the run for two years running. This year we accomplished that for 11 games without our #1 run stuffer in Vita Vea.
2. Regardless of how many of you think you'll be seeing a lot man to man defense this week, think again. We play a lot of Tampa 2 and we DO play soft by design. We like to keep your receiver and your QB in our DB's line of sight through the entire pattern. We do NOT like to get our back turned to the QB! We'd rather play soft then come up and make a hit and hope for a fumble, a tipped pass pick or to jump a route, which we CAN do!
3. We do give up yards in the air, but not because we are terrible at it. THIS is what many of you are overlooking. Many teams have abandoned the run early against us because we DO stop it.
Another reason we give up aerial yards is because when we get a lead teams pass on almost every down. Yes this happens to your defense also but remember! The Bucs defense only gave up 18 more points than the Saints did all season! In fact, the Saints and Bucs are numbers 3 and 4 in the league in points allowed! The Bucs scored 10 more points than the Saints this year, so there is only an 8 point differential in favor of the Saints for the entire year! Again, just something to think about! 😉