The Saints defense disappointed in Week 1, failing to get any sacks off of sack-prone Marcus Mariota. They'll face Tom Brady in Week 2, and the knee-jerk reaction would be to sit them down. But the favorable history is difficult to ignore.
Since joining the Bucs, Brady has faced New Orleans 5 times -- four in the regular season, once in the postseason. He won the most important meeting, in the playoffs after the 2020 season, but he lost all four of the other games. And the Saints defense had a lot of success against him, especially in fantasy terms, and remarkable considering how careful and mistake-free the future Hall of Famer usually is.
In those five meetings, Brady has taken 14 sacks, throwing 8 interceptions (2 returned for touchdowns) and lost 2 fumbles. Only the playoff meeting was a particularly clean game for him.
| SAINTS DEFENSE VS BRADY (WITH BUCS) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Site | Sck | Int | FL | TD |
| 2020 | N.O. | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | T.B. | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020* | N.O. | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | N.O. | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | T.B. | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
This is not a Bench Brady post, since he did throw multiple touchdowns in three of those games, with a couple of rushing scores, too. But in only one did he pass for 240 yards. And with the exception of that playoff meeting, the New Orleans Defense has tended to get the better of him. They're ranked higher than usual this week.
--Andy Richardson