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Drew Brees looks to continue dominance over Tom Brady in Saints-Bucs playoff game on Yahoo Sports app
For most of their careers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady broke records and won championships on opposite ends of the NFL spectrum, rarely crossing paths while playing in different conferences.
This season they met twice in NFC South action after Brady’s move to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now the future Hall of Famers will meet a third time this season in their highest stakes matchup yet.
Brady’s Buccaneers and Drew Brees’ New Orleans Saints will square off with legacies on the line Sunday in a divisional round playoff matchup that can be live-streamed on the Yahoo Sports app..
The winner earns a trip to the NFC championship and a potential matchup with another quarterback icon of their era, Aaron Rodgers. That is unless the Los Angeles Rams pull off the upset in Green Bay.
Brees has gotten the best of Brady in previous matchups
While Brady and Brees have traditionally been infrequent combatants, they have had their share of meetings over the course of two decades, dating back to their Big Ten days. Brady’s Michigan Wolverines beat Brees’ Purdue Boilermakers in 1999 in a top 20 matchup.
Since then, the two have faced off seven times in the NFL. Brees has the edge in the box score and the win column, per a deeper dive into their career matchups by NBC Sports. While quarterbacking the Saints and the San Diego Chargers, Brees has a 5-2 record against Brady’s Bucs and New England Patriots.
Brees’ 20-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio in those games is dramatically better than Brady’s 9-to-11 tally. Of course, all Brady needs to do is point to 6-to-1 ring ratio in retort. And these numbers have little consequence in relation to Sunday’s game.
But two of Brees’ wins in that tally arrived this season. And that matters. The Bucs reeled off an 11-5 record and made the playoff for the first time since the 2007 season. Forty percent of those five losses arrived courtesy of Brees’ Saints, who bested them for the NFC South title.
Saints defense solved Brady in regular season
This matchup is about much more than the headliner of the prolific quarterbacks with a combined age of 84. The main reason the Saints swept the Bucs in the regular season is their defense. New Orleans’ fifth-ranked passing defense gave Brady fits in his Bucs debut leading to proclamations of the sky falling in Tampa one game into the Brady era as the six-time Super Bowl champion threw a pair of interceptions.
The sky remained intact in Florida, but produced another violent thunderstorm in a dominant 38-3 Saints victory over the Bucs in Week 9. Brady struggled again, throwing three interceptions while Brees dinked and dunked his way to a four-touchdown night without an interception.
This is the matchup to watch again Sunday. Five of Brady’s 12 interceptions came against New Orleans, which yielded just two of his 40 touchdowns this season. Will two games worth of tape unveil the key for Brady and Bruce Arians to solve the Saints puzzle? Or will New Orleans’ defense rule again?
Can Kamara, Saints run on Bucs?
The Saints aren’t the only team bringing a bruising defense to the Superdome. Tampa boasts the NFL’s sixth-ranked defense and the top-ranked unit against the run, which will provide a stout challenge to the Saints’ three-headed monster of Alvin Kamara, Latavius Murray and gimmick back Taysom Hill.
Tampa limited Kamara to 115 yards from scrimmage over the course of their two matchups, including a 16-yard rushing effort on 12 carries in Week 1.
Which Brees will show up on Sunday?
The matchup could compel the Saints to look less to their sixth-ranked rushing offense and more to Brees, who has become more of a precision game manager in recent years than the downfield bomber who set the record for most career passing yards.
Brees is four games back from a crushing midseason blow that resulted in 11 broken ribs and a collapsed lung. He has looked considerably better in his past two games (5 TDs, 0 INTs) than he did in his first two games back (3 TDs, 3 INTs).
He’s also working with the benefit of the return of All-Pro wide receiver Michael Thomas, who caught a touchdown last week against the Chicago Bears in his first game back from an ankle injury that limited him to seven games in the regular season.
Brady’s debut season in Tampa already qualifies as a resounding success. But the Bucs didn’t sign him to make short runs into the playoffs. And the Saints, by far, have been the biggest thorn in his side. Will New Orleans make it three in a row with a spot in the NFC championship on the line?
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