Bucs are 8-4 After Beating a Misplaced Saints Team:

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the New Orleans Saints on Sunday in Baton Rouge, 10-3. WOW, my Buccaneers are 8-4 after week 13. That is 3 games better then last year. So this season is a success no matter what happens here on out. Oh don’t worry, I WANT IT ALL, 12-4 season post season bye and the Super Bowl, but one game at a time. Besides we have two tough games coming up. Carolina is first on our list after beating the Saints today.

Now for today’s game: The Buccaneers pulled out a win today, thanks to Ronde Barber’s four interceptions. Yes, four if you watched the game, but team mate Dexter Jackson stole one away from Barber. Even Gruden said Barber was generous and allowed Jackson one. Barber received the Game Ball from Coach Gruden today. Ronde Barber’s interception in the first quarter was the 25th of his career, and his pick in the second quarter was his 26th. His last one was his 27th. He remains in fourth place on the Bucs’ all-time list in that category but pulled within one of Mike Washington (28) in third.

The first half of the game, the Bucs looked sluggish and had a hard time getting anything going. The Todd France missed his first field goal attempt. France has a tendency to kick the ball low, which is the only reason the Bucs decided to go with Bryant after preseason. France kicked the ball low and it was blocked by the Saints Special teams. I was so afraid this game might come down to field goals and this miss would come back and haunt us.

Chris Simms played well again today and managed the ball really good. I do not know why the Bucs kept getting 3rd and long and would have to punt, but at least our defense played their game today. The turnovers is what helped us to win today.

Cadillac Williams had 96 yards on the ground today. Williams gained 33 of his 96 rushing yards on a clock-killing drive in the fourth quarter of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 10-3 win over the Saints. I was hoping the Bucs would give him the ball again for his 4 yards to tie the all time Buccaneer record for Most 100 yard rushing games during a season, which is only 5.

• 5, Warrick Dunn, 1997
• 5, James Wilder, 1985
• 5, James Wilder, 1984
• 5, Ricky Bell, 1979

I know it is about the W for wins and not personal stats, I also know we will see Cadillac’s name on this list, possibly even break the records.

Galloway had another big game for us, even though he dropped on in the end zone, which he admitted on TV during the post game show: that he should had caught it.

Head Coach Jon Gruden (on the win) “I’m very happy with the win. I’m proud of our team. New Orleans, it’s a credit to them. They are a very talented team. To win on the road in a conference game with this magnitude is something that we are excited about.”

(on the play of Ronde Barber) “He came up big. He’s a generous player. I thought he could have snatched the fourth one away from his teammate. He came up huge. As we said coming in here today, the great players are going to play great in December and down the stretch and he did that today. He stepped up and played tremendous.”

New Orleans Saints Head Coach Jim Haslett (on the game) “I thought that Tampa played a great game. They have three players that aren’t just good player but great players. That’s Ronde Barber, Derrick(Brooks), and Simeon Rice. They did a great job getting turnovers. One thing we wanted to do going into the game was not turn the ball over. We turned it over way too many times. Obviously it lead to a touchdown. A poor punt lead to a field goal. I thought the guys played hard and it’s a shame we didn’t score more points. I thought we played good enough to win but that’s a good team we played.”

QB Aaron Brooks (on the offense's play in the game) “Ronde (Barber) made two exceptional plays. He's a good player, a very good player. Other than that we had our chances to get down there and we kind of got stalled by their defense.They did a very good job of containing what we wanted to do. Other than those two plays I feel like we played very well.”

Can the Bucs go into Carolina next week and pull off an upset? I think they can and will. The Defense and Offensive line needs to show up next week in order for us to win.