All eyes will be on Tom Brady and Drew Brees when the Saints host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC Divisional Round Sunday at 5:40 p.m. in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
The pair are 1-2 on nearly every NFL all-time passing list and are considered to be two of the best to play the game. But the play in the trenches could perhaps be just as important as Brees and Brady’s play in determining the outcome of Sunday’s game.
”History would tell you, the offense and defensive lines of both teams are going to be important,” Saints coach Sean Payton said. “That's generally where you're going to win or lose these games. And then the ball security. We talk all the time about that. I think the kicking game's big, too. And so look, it's a division opponent. It's someone we're familiar with, obviously. They're the same way. And here we end up with this third game. It kind of felt like all along that this might be the case."
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The Saint’s offensive line play in particular will be important in Sunday’s game as the Buccaneers have the NFL’s top run defense.
"Schematically, they have a really good plan on how to defend the run, gaps, disciplined defense they got the personnel to get the job done as well,” Saints tackle Terron Armstead said. “So we got to have a concentrated effort to continue to create lanes in a run game, be extremely physical up front, get the job done, execute our game plan."
Saints coach Sean Payton said the key for New Orleans will be to run the ball efficiently against the Tampa Bay defense.
“I think that it's easy to say, 'Hey, get 30 rushing attempts.' And well, the important equation to getting to 30 rushing attempts is converting on third down and having those opportunities,” Payton said. “I'll give you a real good example would be Kansas City, in which we really struggled to stay on the field offensively and when the game ended, I think we defended 90 some plays defensively. Offensively, probably around half of that and our third down numbers weren't good enough. And so your play count drops dramatically. So there's an efficiency overall in first and second down that I think is extremely important."
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Armstead said it will be important for the Saints to win their matchups in order to have that success.
"Yeah. I mean, just try to get our job done individually, and then collectively get to have a successful play, successful run, and take all 11 to get it done,” he said. “Like I said, those guys have the personnel to have that, to be statistically the No. 1 defense. So (it) won't be easy task by no stretch, but I think we'll be able to get it done."