Needing a win to keep their momentum towards a potential Wild Card berth, the Bucs came out flat from the start in this key division match-up and having fallen behind early, never got themselves realistically back into the game and hence fell to 6-7 on the season, two games back on both Minnesota and Seattle. It was a case of the usual suspects, key penalties, dropped passes and failing to get off the field on third downs on defense. The offense was held to one of its lowest outputs of the season and the Bucs only had possession for 22:46 as a combination of a ball-control rushing offense and Drew Brees’ arm kept the Saints in control from the opening drive of the game.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 17 New Orleans Saints 24 Sunday 13 December 2015 at Raymond James Stadium
SCORING NO 8:33-1Q Colston 3 pass from Brees (Forbath kick) NO 11:57-2Q Colston 1 pass from Brees (Forbath kick) TB 8:04-2Q Martin 14 run (Barth kick) NO 1:02-2Q Forbath FG23 TB 0:03-2Q Barth FG39 NO 0:53-3Q Hightower 3 run (Forbath kick) TB 8:56-4Q Humphries 6 pass from Winston (Barth kick)
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS RUSHING BUCS: Martin 11-81, Winston 3-24, Sims 5-10. SAINTS: Hightower 28-85, Spiller 3-2, Brees 3-0, Murphy 1-0. PASSING BUCS: Winston 32-18-182-0-1. SAINTS: Brees 41-31-312-0-2. RECEIVING BUCS: Sims 6-64, Evans 3-39, Seferian-Jenkins 3-31, Brate 2- 16, Dye 1-16, Humphries 1-6, Martin 1-5, Jackson 1-5. SAINTS: Snead 7-122, Watson 7-70, Colston 6-36, Coleman 3- 32, Cooks 3-29, Spiller 3-7, Hightower 1-10, Hill 1-6. INTERCEPTIONS BUCS: none. SAINTS: none. KICK RETURNS BUCS: Rainey 1-31. SAINTS: Hill 1-0. PUNT RETURNS BUCS: Rainey 0-0. SAINTS: Murphy 1-6, Byrd 1-1. SACKS BUCS: Carter 1-11, Melton 1-0. SAINTS: Gwacham 1-6.
STARTERS OFFENSE DEFENSE LT 76 Smith LDE 92 Gholston LG 70 Mankins DT 93 McCoy C 68 Hawley DT 97 Spence RG 74 Marpet RDE 95 Jones RT 78 Cherilus MLB 50 Carter TE 88 Stocker WLB 54 David WR 83 Jackson SLB 51 Lansanah WR 13 Evans LCB 26 Moore QB 3 Winston RCB 38 Adjei-Barimah FB 46 Lane SS 23 Conte RB 22 Martin FS 30 McDougald PLAYED 5 Schum, 10 Barth, 11 Humphries, 17 Dye, 21 Verner, 24 Jenkins, 27 Banks, 31 Wright, 34 Sims, 37 Tandy, 43 Rainey, 45 Lemon, 46 Lane, 48 DePaola, 53 Glanton, 57 Keyes, 59 Brown, 64 Pamphile, 77 McDaniel, 84 Brate, 87 Seferian- Jenkins, 89 Shepard, 90 Melton. DID NOT PLAY 8 Glennon, 62 Smith INACTIVES 4 Griffin, 52 George, 56 Smith, 69 Dotson, 82 Myers, 91 Shirley, 94 Johnson.
COMMENTARY CREW Dick Stockton and David Diehl
GAME REPORTS Roy Cummings reports on a day when nothing went right for the Buccaneers How Rick Stroud saw the game unfold Tom Jones was concerned about the apparent lack of passion being shown The defense gave up big plays to Drew Brees all day Greg Auman finds five things you may have missed Notes and anecdotes from the Tampa Bay locker room The official NFL gamebook Scott Smith’s detailed game report
GAME HIGHLIGHTS Click on the boxes below to view the clips Bruce Carter takes down Drew Brees for his first sack as a Buccaneer Doug Martin’s 14-yard run was the first Tampa Bay touchdown Adam Humphries caught his first NFL touchdown on a clever play design