The New Orleans Saints beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9-0 at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, remaining hopeful for a National Football Conference (NFC) wild card.

No touchdown (TD) was scored by either side in the game but Saints kicker Brett Maher went 3-3 in field goals, the longest one at 42 yards, to get all nine points for his team.

Quarterback (QB) Taysom Hill was 13-27 to pass for 154 yards with no interception. He was sacked twice, but generally, the 31-year-old did not have a strong presence, either positive or negative, in the team's offense.

Cameron Jordan and his defensive teammates were the biggest heroes for the Saints on Sunday night, sacking Tom Brady of the Buccaneers four times with one interception and making sure that 22 of his passes failed to reach their target.

"Look, if we wanted to win, we had to put it on the D-line," Jordan said. "We installed a four-man rush front and we got after him. We hit him early, we hit him often and we sort of rushed him a few more times than he normally has been. I mean, to get Tom Brady – he's got one of the fastest releases in the game. So I'm just overly impressed with my D-line."

"Obviously, we would rather have touchdowns than field goals in those situations, but we were able to come away with points," said Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen. "And the way this game ended up playing out, it was more about protecting the football and playing the field-position game, because we felt good about the defense and the way we were playing."

Allen replaced the team's head coach Sean Payton, who tested positive for COVID-19, to make the calls on Sunday. The Saints are currently 7-7 and rank second in the NFC South, above the Atlanta Falcons (6-8) and Carolina Panthers (5-9).

This was the third shutout for Brady in his career as a starting QB. The last time it happened was 255 games ago in 2006. The only QB with a longer run than Brady is former Saints legend Drew Brees. 

It was also Brady's seventh straight loss against the Saints in the regular season, both in his time with the Buccaneers and previously with the New England Patriots.

"I don't think we were much good at anything tonight," the seven-time Super Bowl champion said after turning over the ball twice on third down and losing a fumble. "I wish it was just one thing. It was a lot of things. We've got to do better in every facet of offensive football to score points. We're not going to win scoring no points."

It would be unfair however to blame Brady for everything that went wrong, especially with the Buccaneers continuing to lose their top receiving yards leaders, with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Leonard Fournette all having to leave the field early on Sunday due to injury.

It took Brady 19 seasons and 265 games to reach 1,000 rushing yards in his career. Running with the ball has never been his game, despite his greatness. Without Evans, Godwin and Fournette able to play the full game on Sunday night, the Buccaneers saw Tyler Johnson complete four catches for 41 yards. Both were the best among the rest of the team but they were still beaten by Fournette who competed seven catches and Godwin who had 49 receiving yards.

"It was big," Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians said. "The young guys, I was hoping they'd step up a little bit more – the receivers. Overall, we just dropped too many balls."

Packers become the first to enter postseason

The Green Bay Packers beat the Baltimore Ravens 30-31 at M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday, becoming the first team this season to secure a spot in the playoffs.

Packers QB Aaron Rodgers was 23-31 to pass for 268 yards and three TDs with no interception. He tied Brett Favre to reach a franchise record of 442 throw touchdown passes.

The win also gave the Packers (11-3) their third straight NFC North title. In his three seasons with the team, coach Matt LaFleur has never let any other team close to that honor.

"You have to savor these a little bit," Rodgers said afterwards. "These are special. It's just the first step in our goals, but a lot of times the coach speak – I'm not saying that Matt did this – but a lot of times there might be coach speak that takes over and says, 'Hey, you know this is just one goal and we have bigger goals and stuff,' but I think it's important to keep that perspective on how special accomplishing this is three years in a row and so just to enjoy it, to savor it, savor these moments. These are special moments."

The Ravens saw their starting QB Lamar Jackson sit on a game because of injury for the first time in his career, but his substitution Tyler Huntley had an excellent performance by passing at 28-40 for 215 yards and two TDs with no interception. He also rushed for 73 yards and scored two TDs himself.

The Ravens made a very controversial call in their last offensive possession. Huntley scored an eight-yard TD run to make it 31-30 for his team with 42 seconds left. Instead of kicking for one extra point, which would have been much easier and would have led to overtime (OT), the Ravens decided to drive for a two-point conversion.

Nonetheless, Huntley's pass failed to reach tight end Mark Andrews in the end zone. Instead of facing more possibilities in OT, the Ravens suffered a third loss and saw their record fall to 8-6, the same as the Cincinnati Bengals in the American Football Conference North.

Other games on Sunday (away teams come first):

Dallas Cowboys 21-6 New York Giants

Houston Texans 30-16 Jacksonville Jaguars

Tennessee Titans 13-19 Pittsburgh Steelers

Arizona Cardinals 12-30 Detroit Lions

New York Jets 24-31 Miami Dolphins

Carolina Panthers 14-31 Buffalo Bills

Cincinnati Bengals 15-10 Denver Broncos

Atlanta Falcons 13-31 San Francisco 49ers