Hurricane Milton Is Unearthing the Humanity In Bucs-Saints Rivalry
Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are set to face off against the New Orleans Saints this Sunday. This is a huge game with playoff implications for both teams, and there’s no love lost between these two division rivals. In 2017, Mike Evans got into fisticuffs with Marshon Lattimore after the All-Pro corner punched a helmet-less Jameis Winston. The All-Pro corner threw another punch in Week 2 of the 2022 season, this time towards Leonard Fournette, which sparked a second-round bout between Evans and Lattimore that led to both players getting ejected.
Fight breaks out at Bucs vs Saints game! Mike Evans and Lattimore get ejected! #TBvsNO pic.twitter.com/z7FRdFP0Gp
— Rate the Refs App (@Rate_the_Refs) September 18, 2022
Ultimately, The Bucs beat the Saints 20-10, and Devin White took a shot at his former quarterback: “When Jameis left our team, everybody knows what he did that last year… He threw thirty picks, and we just knew he’d give us the ball.” Ahead of the Saints’ Week 4 matchup with the Bucs in 2023, Cameron Jordan downplayed the rivalry saying: “Is there a rivalry with the Bucs I don’t know about?” Funnily enough, the Saints lost that game 26-9 and Baker Mayfield responded to his comment post-game adding: “It’s a passionate rivalry, whether they want to admit it or not.”
While the rivalry between the Saints and Buccaneers is very real, and this upcoming game is still must-watch television, it’s currently being overshadowed by the threat of Hurricane Milton. This isn’t just your average hurricane, as Milton is already making the record books. At its peak intensity, Milton was a Category 5 hurricane with a minimum central pressure of 897mb and 180 mph maximum sustained winds with gusts over 225 mph. In layman’s terms, that makes it the fifth-strongest hurricane by pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean as it barrels its way toward the Tampa metro area.
Hurricane Milton's minimum pressure has dropped to the infamous sub-900 mb mark, with a central pressure of 897 mb, making it the 5th most intense hurricane in Atlantic history by central pressure.
A monster Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 180 mph and gusts to 225 mph. pic.twitter.com/oonALiH3Ee
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 8, 2024
Hurricane Milton has uncovered a level of empathy that is seldom found among fierce rivals. Saints head coach Dennis Allen can relate to what the Buccaneers are going through right now as the Tampa community has been forced to evacuate their homes ahead of the storm. “Yeah, we’ve done it a couple of times.” Allen said. “It’s a challenging situation. In particular, when you’re talking about, not just the team leaving, but taking care of the friends and families and all those things that you’re having to make sure that they’re taken care of too.”
Ryan Hall, a meteorological analyst and YouTube personality who is commonly known by his online nickname “Ryan Hall, Y’all”, compared the forecasted weakening and widening of Hurricane Milton to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in August of 2005. “I want you guys to think of some of the biggest, [most] disastrous hurricanes that have ever happened,” Hall said in a video forecast on October 7th. “Ivan, Katrina, those kinds of storms did the same exact thing. They were Category 5s, Category 4s, really strong storms out in the gulf, and then they kind of spread out and became weaker whenever they made landfall.”
Hall continued: “Hurricane Katrina made landfall as only a Category 3 hurricane, but the storm surge that came along with that was a result of the expanding windfield and all of the momentum that it had gained over the gulf. So even though we do expect Milton to weaken quite significantly on its approach to the Western side of Florida, the storm surge situation is probably worse. Because the weakening is also coming along with the expansion of the windfield that is actually going to make the storm surge more of a problem than it would be if it continued to be that tiny little compact storm.”
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers along with many other organizations organized relief efforts for the victims of Katrina. A boatload of Buccaneers players donated money to relief efforts including Ronde Barber, Michael Clayton, Brian Griese, Dexter Jackson, Jermaine Phillips, Shelton Quarles, Simeon Rice, Jeb Terry, Kenyatta Walker, Carnell Williams, and Ellis Wyms. Volunteers from the American Red Cross collected monetary donations from fans entering Raymond James Stadium for the Buccaneers game against the Buffalo Bills that immediately followed the disaster.
Nineteen years after Katrina devastated Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, Hurricane Milton is projected to do the same to the Florida peninsula. The Buccaneers evacuated from Tampa Bay to New Orleans on Tuesday, and they’re staying on campus at Tulane University where they’ll practice at Yulman Stadium. The families of Bucs players and coaches reportedly evacuated with the team to New Orleans as well. However, many residents in the Tampa Bay and Orlando area, including myself, have found it difficult to evacuate due to the levels of traffic congestion on northbound freeways and have decided to weather the storm and shelter in-place.
This is a look at the escape from the Ft Myers/Naples/Cape Coral area of Florida on I-75 towards Miami. Similar scenes on I-4 towards Orlando and on NB I-75 out of Tampa. pic.twitter.com/Mk1E6jJrtz
— Jayson Luber (@Denver7Traffic) October 8, 2024
We are about to experience the sheer magnitude of Hurricane Milton and its impacts on the Gulf Coast and the state of Florida. However, we can at least take solace in knowing that fierce rivalries will be set aside for a moment as the Saints, the Buccaneers, and the rest of the NFL community come together to help those in need.
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