Since Tom Brady arrived in Tampa Bay, the Saints have had his number -- at least in the regular season.
In four matchups, the Saints laid two beatdowns on the road and won two hard-fought games at home. But the biggest matchup came in the playoffs, a 30-20 Bucs victory en route to their Super Bowl win in the 2020 season.
But it wasn't Brady's performances that stand out -- it's that of the running game. In the four wins, the Bucs running back has put up 19, 42, 43 and 67 total yards. The Saints outscored the Bucs 117-53, including a 38-3 beatdown in 2020 and a 9-0 shutout last season, both at Raymond James Stadium. In the playoff matchup, though, he rolled up 107 yards and a touchdown and the Saints defense was on its heels much of the day.
Stopping Fournette, whom Saints co-defensive coordinator refers to as a "war daddy," could be key again. He looks every bit of the dominant force that he was when he starred at LSU so far in 2022, with 127 rushing yards on 21 carries in the Bucs' opening win over the Cowboys.
So how can the Saints go about shutting down Fournette, again? Here's how Richard broke it down: "He's fast, good moves, great vision, and then tough to bring down. So we have to get his cleats out the grass, stop his momentum, set the edges and get his cleats out the grass. We'll be effective."
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And no one in the Saints' locker room is looking past the Bucs, if that needs to be stated. There's no overvaluing the success of the past two seasons. This is still a team led by the ageless Tom Brady, who is all the more tough to stop when his running game gets going.
The master troller himself, Cam Jordan, could do nothing this week but sing the praises of the 7-time champion. It's also on the Saints to clean up their struggles in run defense, which allowed Falcons quarterback Marcus Mariota and running back Cordarrelle Patterson to roll up over 200 rushing yards in the opener.
"I think that we match up well against them," Jordan said. "But at the same time we have to tighten up things on our own side before we really focus on what we have to do over there."
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