New Orleans @ Tampa Bay preview

Last Meeting ( Sep 9, 2018 ) Tampa Bay 48, New Orleans 40

The New Orleans Saints will have nine full days off to diagnose what went wrong in a rare loss last Thursday before continuing their march toward a first-round bye in the NFC playoffs. The Saints will try to avenge a Week 1 loss when they visit the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.

New Orleans, which dropped a 48-40 decision to Tampa Bay in the opener before ripping off 10 consecutive wins, put up its worst offensive performance last week in a 13-10 loss at the Dallas Cowboys on Nov. 22. "We would love to be perfect. But that wasn't the plan. And that's OK," Saints offensive lineman Jermon Bushrod told reporters. "Our goals are still in front of us. We've got four more weeks to do what we need to do. It's not gonna be easy. Nobody's gonna sit back and wait for us to punch 'em in the mouth. They're gonna punch us, and we gotta punch back. That's just what it is." The Buccaneers are in third place in the NFC South but are starting to play well with wins in the last two contests and are getting solid performances from the defense, which held the last two opponents to a total of 26 points. Veteran defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul recorded at least one sack in each of the last three contests and leads the team with 11.5.

TV: 1 p.m. ET, FOX. LINE: Saints -8. O/U: 55.5.

ABOUT THE SAINTS (10-2): New Orleans can clinch the NFC South with a win on Sunday and did some self-scouting after the loss to the Cowboys, which quarterback Drew Brees believes will get the team going in the right direction again. "Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win the war," Brees told reporters. "You learn a lot from something like that. I do not think we were getting ahead of ourselves or anything like that. I just think we honestly just had a bad day and you turn on the film and it's glaringly obvious where we failed and (we need to) make sure that that doesn't happen again." Brees is up to 30 TD passes and three interceptions on the season but posted a season-low 71.6 rating last week.

ABOUT THE BUCCANEERS (5-7): Ryan Fitzpatrick threw for 417 yards and four touchdowns in the Week 1 win over the Saints, but Tampa Bay is back to Jameis Winston under center. Winston guided the team to wins in each of the last two games by playing turnover-free football with a total of four TDs and zero INTs. "Jameis' production -- when we don't turn the ball over, when he doesn't turn the ball over -- his production is always going to be there," Buccaneers coach Dirk Koetter told reporters. "(He's) a fantastic player, and sometimes that gets negated by turnovers. But you could see the last two weeks, when we don't turn the ball over, we're a lot harder to beat."

EXTRA POINTS

1. Saints veteran WR Brandon Marshall could make his team debut on Sunday.

2. Buccaneers S Andrew Adams recorded three INTs last week.

3. New Orleans LT Terron Armstead (pectoral) returned to practice this week after missing the last three games and is questionable.

PREDICTION: Saints 35, Buccaneers 27