The Tampa Bay Buccaneers entered the week as a three-point underdog to the New Orleans Saints in their Divisional Round clash on Sunday. The Saints have the bragging rights as they swept their two regular-season encounter against the Buccaneers. In Week 1, the Saints downed the Buccaneers (34-23) and completed a two-game sweep with a 38-3 win in Week 9. Despite this, former NFL linebacker and current Fox Sports 1 football analyst LaVar Arrington believes that it would be a different result on Sunday. “I think the Bucs are going to have too much for the Saints,” Arrington said during Friday’s episode of “First Things First.”

Saints showed too much in Week 9 win

Arrington expressed concern over the Saints’ Week 9 win over the Buccaneers, saying he felt that the scary part about that game was that New Orleans showed so much of what they do to have success against Tampa.

“The familiarity process of it, what that looks like and their comfort and being able to play against this Tampa Bay Bucs team,” said Arrington, as transcribed from the show’s YouTube video.

Brady doesn’t fear New Orleans

However, Arrington said “Tom Brady is a different animal” in the playoffs. “This is the playoffs and it changes things and Tom Brady doesn’t have the fear of New Orleans,” said Arrington, adding that the veteran quarterback isn’t used to bowing to the Saints even though he lost to them twice this season. “I think Tampa Bay has too much clicking right now. Too much explosiveness on offense and we don’t talk enough about how amazing their defense is playing right now,” Arrington stressed.

In his last four-regular season games, the 43-year-old Brady threw 12 touchdown passes with just one interception. In their 31-23 win over the Washington Football Team, Brady threw for 381 yards and two touchdowns with no interception to lead the Buccaneers to their first playoff win since their Super Bowl win in the 2002 season.

Favre says Brady-Brees matchup is awesome

Brady and Saints quarterback Drew Brees may be playing against each other for the final time as the latter might retire after this season. But they would make history on Sunday as the oldest starting quarterback to face off in NFL history with a combined age of 85. When asked about the said matchup on the SiriusXM Blitz., Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre said it would be an “awesome” clash.

“They’re fun to watch and now they’re competing against each other again, third time this year. Just good stuff. You couldn’t ask for a better setup,” said Favre, per a report by Amie Just of NOLA.com.

Bucs down 2 players vs Saints

Ahead of their Sunday’s clash against the Saints, the Buccaneers released their final injury report where two players were declared out while three were considered questionable. The Buccaneers will play without right guard Alex Cappa, who suffered a fractured ankle in their win over the Washington Football Team. Defensive lineman Jeremiah Ledbetter will also miss Sunday's game due to a calf injury. Among the questionables are back Ronald Jones and safeties Andrew Adams and Jordan Whitehead. Jones will be a game-time decision, so Leonard Fournette will be the starting rusher for the Buccaneers.