SaintsBro

Well, the premise is discounting the fact that in the Sean Payton* Bounty* Wiretapping* Katrina Refs* Slippery Dome Turf* Cheating With Whistles* Continue To Touch And Affect The Head While We Secretly Tape Your Locker Room * era, in our division, we own the Falcons AND the Bucs.

In order for your mathimaticatin' to work, for the Bucs to win the division, the Bucs have to improve. And they have to improve against the Saints. Who just beat them and their new coach 41-0, and 35-28 (and even with the worst defense in the world, it wasn't even that close, the pathetic Bucs trailed for most of the game).

Basically, the truth is that, in recent years, if the Saints play the Bucs, the only way the Bucs ever win is if SOMETHING CRAYZEE HAPPENS. If it's both teams at equal strength, normal game, with Payton, the Saints win, and it's usually a blowout.

The Bucs recent wins against the Saints are:

- when coach broke his freaking leg on the sideline;
- a couple of games at the end of the season where Saints starters were pulled in various points of the game;
- and of course the crazy game in 2009 where Hartley missed in OT, and Benson danced like a fool thinking he'd made it. So see, something CRAYZEE has to happen for the Bucs to win.

But it was still obvious that in THAT game, we had the lead and Payton snapped the playbook shut, and the Saints spent the whole second half handing off to 3rd string running back Lynell Hamilton, nursing the lead, trying to not get anybody injured for the playoffs. The game wasn't "meaningless," per se, but it didn't ultimately affect the playoff standings any, and Payton knew it.

Every OTHER time these two teams have recently played, the games were Saints beatdowns, sometimes on the brink of being riots. It's one of the games I look forward to every year, where Payton really turns on the juice and lets it rip.

So the Bucs have a very uphill climb to get anywhere out of the cellar, much harder climb than the Saints, who have a history of performing well in division games as long as SOMETHING CRAYZEE doesn't happen.