It’s not often, like never before, that we head into the Sunday Night Football game with four games left to play on the other side. But, the rescheduling due to COVID concerns that would have forced some teams vying for a playoff berth to play without a number of key players, that is what we have this week.

Tonight, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers look to stay among the leaders in serach of the top spot in the NFC when they host the New Orleans Saints. The loss earlier today by the Arizona Cardinals opens the door for Tom Brady and company to earn the top spot and first week postseason bye in defense of their Super Bowl title.

Tomorrow, two Monday night football games will be played when the originally scheduled game between the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears at Soldier Field will be joined by a matchup between Las Vegas and Cleveland that was originally to be played on Saturday. On Tuesday evening, the NFL will play two other rescheduled contests when the Seattle Seahawks meet the Rams in Los Angeles and the Philadelphia Eagles host the Washington Football Team.

As for tonight’s game, the double-digit spread seems a bit hefty for a Buccaneers squad that ended Drew Brees’s career in New Orleans last January in the postseason. Brees made a gallant effort against the Buccaneers in that Divisional Playoff loss but was simply too banged up to play up to his lofty standards.

The result was the Buccaneers moving onto the NFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers and Brees a cap on his career that will result in him being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

The Saints had Jameis Winston in the wings ready to step in for the retired great, but he was injured and lost for the season when these two teams squared off on Halloween in their first meeting of the year. In that game, the Buccaneers upset the defending champs, 36-27.

Few things have gone right for Sean Payton’s Saints since.

Trevor Siemian was the next man up to play quarterback for the Saints, and his tenure was short and unproductive. A few weeks ago, Payton turned to Taysom Hill to run the Saints attack, and his initial starts weren’t any better than the ones that got Siemian benched.

But, last week, New Orleans snapped a five game losing streak with a convincing win over the New York Jets, 30-9. The victory was indeed gained when Hill got his primary offense weapon added to his arsenal, all-purpose back Alvin Kamara, who had missed multiple weeks with an injury.

Tonight, Kamara and Hill will try to lead the Saints to a second win this season over the talented Buccaneers.

Seems unlikely.

But, are they good enough to stay within the double-digit point spread?

New Orleans doesn’t have enough for me to think they can beat Brady twice in the same season … but I’m not betting into a point spread that is driven by popular demand.

Or, more importantly, are the Buccaneers good enough to keep the action in front of them without a need to run up the score on the overmatched Saints?