There’s history between the New Orleans Saints and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and we’re about to see the next chapter being written on Monday night. But it’s hard to call it a rivalry when the Saints have dominated this matchup over the years, winning 39 of 62 games against the Buccaneers (including the playoffs).
New Orleans has an all-time winning percentage of .639 against the Bucs, second-highest among all of their opponents (they’ve hit .714 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, but across only 7 games). No team has played the Saints more often and lost more frequently. It’s not competitive enough to call it a rivalry.
In fact, they’ve won their last four in a row when traveling to Tampa Bay. The Saints are 14-7 at Raymond James Stadium, having won their last four games in a row at Tampa Bay (that venue opened in 1998; if we include games played prior to that milestone, New Orleans is 18-9 against the Buccaneers on the road). The Bucs haven’t beaten the Saints on their home turf since Jameis Winston was their starting quarterback.
And that game was a near thing. It was the 2017 regular season finale, with the Saints defending a 1-point lead in the game’s final minute — when Winston stepped up to throw a 39-yard touchdown pass to Chris Godwin with 9 seconds left on the clock. It was a big-time throw and catch in a huge moment. Maybe things could have gone differently if the Buccaneers hadn’t ditched Winston to go win a Mickey Mouse ring with Tom Brady, but this is the future they chose. Let’s see if Brady can finally win a home game against the Saints on Monday night.