Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints, 4:25 pm
Buccaneers: Tom Brady begins his 21st NFL season with a new team for the first time in his career. He figures to do a much better job of taking care of the football than Buccaneers’ predecessor Jameis Winston, who turned over the ball 35 times in 2019. Meanwhile, Brady has a total of 33 turnovers in his last 48 regular-season appearances.
Saints: The club have been notoriously slow starters and are just 2-7 in their last nine season-openers dating back to 2011. A year ago, Sean Payton’s team rallied late on a Monday night to defeat the visiting Texans on a Monday night in Week 1, 30-28. That ended a five-game losing streak for the Saints in their first game of the season.
Arizona Cardinals at San Francisco 49ers, 4:25 pm
Cardinals: Last season, the Cardinals allowed gave up 38 touchdown passes and 21 of those scores were via players other than wide receivers. There’s a reason the club used the eight overall pick on Clemson’s Isaiah Simmons, whose versatility should help Vance Joseph’s much-maligned unit with its underneath coverage.
49ers: In 2019, only the Patriots allowed fewer total yards per game and no team gave up fewer yards through the air. But coordinator Robert Saleh’s unit was a mediocre 17th vs. the run, although some of that had to do with injuries. So can the Niners slow down Cardinals’ running back Kenyan Drake and elusive quarterback Kyler Murray?