All week long, New Orleans Saints players talked about the challenge of facing Tampa Bay’s talented linebackers, Lavonte David and Devin White.
While David has been one of the NFL’s more impressive defenders since entering the league in 2012, White, a former LSU star, is enjoying somewhat of a breakout season.
After an impressive rookie campaign, that saw him tally 91 tackles, 2.5 sacks, three forced fumbles, four fumble recoveries, three pass deflections and an interception through 13 game, White is posting monster numbers and Saints coach Sean Payton said White has become a player that presents a lot of challenges.
“He is having a great year,” Payton said. “It's hard to get your eight and nine hole or wide zone or wide plays run. He's so good and fast over the top. He's good in coverage, he gives them great flexibility, he can match up with the runner, he can match up and the other thing, that I think it goes a little under undervalued, is he's a good pressure player.
“He's had pass rush success and he's someone that I think has a knack for that so he's having a great year."
White’s ability to rush the passer has been on display through the Buccaneers first eight games. He’s already doubled his sack total from his rookie season and has more three QB hits than he did all of last year.
He also has seven tackles for a loss this season and has contributed to the Buccaneers allowing the fewest rushing yards per game (70.4) and yards per carry (3.2) of any team in the NFL this season.
Tampa Bay coach Bruce Arians called White a “catalyst” for that unit.
“I think, second year in, plus he’s very very healthy,” Arian said. “And he learned a lot last year playing with a brace on his leg and his explosiveness was gonna last year at points and he got it back the last three or four games but just the second year in the defense, he’s running the show and he’s got a lot of pride. He’s a great leader.”
Saints running back Alvin Kamara said the Buccaneers’ linebackers are “great” but added that they aren’t the only reason the Tampa Bay defense has been so successful against the run.
“They've got an active back end that's pretty smart and plays the ball well, and it's pretty disciplined,” Kamara said. “So that gives their front the ability to go ahead and kind of cut it loose and be able to play and feel good about rushing and kind of stunting up front end. And making some moves up front to disrupt the run, because they know in the back end they're covered.”
Despite the challenge, Kamara and the Saints are confident they’ll be able to move the ball against White and Buccaneers defense.
"We stay committed to what we want to do, that's with game planning and scheming and just watching more film and finding what's comfortable for us and not deviating from that,” Kamara said. “You don't abandon, we're not going to abandon the run game because they're a good run defense. We're going to do what we got to do and just keep chipping away. We'll get what we want, as far as runs go."
