The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Arizona Cardinals, 20-17, in Week 13 and will now turn their sights to a division opponent as they continue a three-game homestand. The New Orleans Saints visit Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, December 7, with kickoff scheduled for 1:00 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
After snapping a three-game losing skid with their win over the Cardinals, the Buccaneers will now go for a second consecutive season sweep of the Saints after their 23-3 victory in New Orleans in Week Eight. The Saints have lost six of their last seven games, capped in Week 13 by a 21-17 defeat in Miami against the Dolphins. New Orleans is 1-4 in road games season but did recently defeat the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte, 17-7, in Week 10.<\/p>\n
The Buccaneers’ offense showed signs of rounding back into its 2024 form in Week 13 after spending much of the season adjusting to a long list of injuries on that side of the ball. Quarterback Baker Mayfield played despite a left shoulder injury that had him limited until the Friday before the game and had an efficient outing, throwing for 194 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions and also running for 27 yards. Running back Bucky Irving returned after a seven-game absence and made an immediate difference, picking up 81 yards from scrimmage and scoring on a nifty 13-yard run in the second half. After his return in Week 12 saw him play on a “pitch count” against the Rams, wide receiver Chris Godwin once again took on a big role in the offense and caught three passes for 78 yards.<\/p>\n
New Orleans rallied with 17 second-half points on Sunday in Miami to make it close. The Saints actually had a chance to tie the game at 19-19 with a two-point conversion after Tyler Shough’s touchdown pass to Devaughn Vele, but Shough’s pass on the try was intercepted and retuned to the opposite end zone for a two-point play by Miami. Shough threw for 239 yards and two touchdowns in the game and the Saints’ defense sacked Tua Tagovailoa four times, twice by ageless veteran Cameron Jordan.<\/p>\n
The Buccaneers will have an opportunity to extend their league in the NFC South to a full game over the 7-6 Panthers, who will be enjoying their bye in Week 14. They could also post back-to-back season sweeps over the Saints for the first time since the NFC South was formed in 2002.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Arizona Cardinals, 20-17, in Week 13 and will now turn their sights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[589,135,137,136,38793,17451],"class_list":["post-65853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-featured","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-week-14-2025-saints","tag-whats-next"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}