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Jenna Laine, ESPN Staff Writer
TAMPA, Fla. — Within seconds of Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield snapping the ball and dropping for his second of two kneel-downs after a 30-12 Christmas Eve victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, the jumbotrons in both the north and south end zones at Raymond James Stadium flashed, “Next Week: Battle for the South, Bucs vs Saints.”
Members of the team’s marketing department weren’t the only ones looking ahead. When Mayfield was asked if Santa played a role in the victory, he said with a smile, “I did ask for a win. … But I’ve got another one coming. There were two parts to the wish.”
A win this week for the Bucs (8-7) would clinch the division for a third consecutive season and ensure a fourth straight postseason appearance for Tampa Bay. With the New Orleans Saints (7-8) and Atlanta Falcons (7-8) losing in Week 16, the Bucs need to win only one of their final two games — against the Saints or the Carolina Panthers (2-13) — to win the division.
“Close it out at home — that’s been our mindset,” said Mayfield, who has thrown nine touchdown passes and just one interception during the Bucs’ four-game winning streak. “The things we’ve had to do and go through to get to this point — it means quite a bit when you have to rattle off this many in a row and having to do it again at home.”
The Bucs and Saints have had a certain flair for the dramatic when facing off: From last season’s games, when the Tampa Bay defense had five takeaways (four in the fourth quarter) in Week 2, to tight end Cade Otton‘s last-second touchdown from Tom Brady to clinch a 17-16 victory on “Monday Night Football.” There was also the Bucs picking off Drew Brees twice in the fourth quarter of a playoff game (Brees’ last game ever) en route to the Super Bowl in 2020.
“They’ve been on top [of the division] for a long time,” coach Todd Bowles said. “They’ve had a good team over the years. … We’ve won the last two. We’re trying to fight and scrape and win three of ’em.”
And then there was wide receiver Mike Evans‘ ejection after a scuffle with cornerback Marshon Lattimore that caused a bench-clearing brawl in that Week 2 win last season. Players credited Evans for galvanizing the team after the incident.
Left tackle Tristan Wirfs asked reporters ahead of Sunday’s game (1 p.m. ET, FOX), “Isn’t Marshon Lattimore out? … Maybe Mike will be a little more tame. So we’ll see. I might still have to [break some stuff up].”
Wirfs was then reminded that Mayfield got chippy with a few Saints players in Tampa Bay’s Week 4 win, after a hit by defensive tackle David Onyemata and defensive lineman Nathan Shepherd forced his body to contort backward, a hit Mayfield described as “pretty scary.”
“They’re a physical team. It gets chippy,” Mayfield said. “It’s just one of those good rivalries — it goes back and forth, and so you see the intensity, you feel it on the field — the physical ballgame that it really is. Obviously, it comes down to this late December game. A lot on the line. So expecting it to be a physical game.”
While Wirfs will spend the week focusing on stopping defensive ends Cameron Jordan, Carl Granderson and Tanoh Kpassagnon in order to protect Mayfield, inside linebacker Devin White said his focus is on running back Alvin Kamara, who’s averaging 92.6 scrimmage yards per game, third in the league among running backs.
“I just like playing against [Kamara],” said White, whose interception last week bolstered his confidence after he missed three games because of a foot injury. “Coming in, knowing he going to get the ball a lot, knowing it’s a tough task, you can watch DBs covering him, people in the run game try to stop him — and I just think it’s a good task for our defense overall. I mean, you got to get geared up for a game like this. These are the ones I have circled the most, like, ‘You got to go stop him.'”
Much of that stems back to when White first came into the league, when the Bucs lost four straight to New Orleans in 2019 and 2020, before finally emerging victorious in that 2020 postseason game. White had a fumble recovery and an interception in that game.
“Since I’ve been here, they beat us a lot of times,” White said. “The table’s starting to turn, and we just want to stay on the right side, the winning side. We don’t want to overlook them. We ain’t put nothing past ’em. They are a great football team, and they got a chip on their shoulder just how we got a chip on our shoulder, so we just want to play good football and come out victorious.”
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