If there's one team that has been dominating the NFC South over the past few years, it's the New Orleans Saints. Sean Payton's team has been on a roll since 2017 when they won the first of three straight division titles.
Although the Saints are once again the Vegas favorites to win the division in 2020, oddsmakers are also pretty high on another team in the NFC South, and that team is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs made the biggest move of the NFL offseason when they signed Tom Brady, which is a signing that has suddenly turned them into a trendy pick to win the division.
After watching the Buccaneers go 7-9 in 2019, Payton is expecting them to be even better in 2020 and that's only for one reason: They now have Brady. During an interview with ESPN's "Get Up" this week, the Saints coach shared his thoughts on Brady joining his division.
"The thing that is most troubling is you just know he's going to raise the bar relative to how that team then performs," Payton said, via the team's official website.
Although most people were surprised that Brady ended up choosing the Buccaneers, it doesn't sound like Payton was very shocked when he found that the six-time Super Bowl winning quarterback had decided to sign with Tampa.
"I don't know that it was that surprising," Payton said. "A lot of times you're kind of behind the scenes in the know relative to where a player like him is going. He's someone that we've got great respect for and obviously he's going to change the bar there. That's the one thing, it's the one player that travels somewhere and it's not, 'Man, we've got to face this really talented player.' And that's something that you have to obviously deal with."
Basically, Payton's saying that Brady is going to make everyone around him better which is going to make the Buccaneers a more difficult team to deal with.
Thanks to Brady's decision, the Saints will now have to deal with him twice per year, and Payton's already looking forward to that. As a matter of fact, he's already been joking with the Bucs' new quarterback about their soon-to-be rivalry.
"We were on a text not too long ago and I finished my text back to him with hashtag keep the canons quiet," Payton said, referring to the pirate cannons that go off at Raymond James Stadium after the Buccaneers score. "He kind of chuckled and I think that's the one thing he'll bring in such a unique way is his competitive fire. All those things that'll elevate the play of the whole organization."
If Brady does end up elevating the play of everyone around him, that could mean that 2020 will finally be the season where the Buccaneers end their 13-year drought without a playoff appearance, which is the longest drought in the NFC and second-longest in the NFL.
