Trying to break out

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Sep 7, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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There’s a little bit of symmetry to today’s season-opening game between the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Superdome.

The Saints won the NFC South title in 2006, while the Bucs took it last year. And most NFL observers believe one of those teams will wear the crown again at the end of this season.

So it’s only fitting the Saints and Bucs get together today at noon (Fox and WJBO-AM, 1150) in an early-season divisional showdown.

Most NFL coaches put a greater emphasis on divisional matchups because they could be important later in the season for tie-breaking purposes. As a result, today’s game is all that — and even more — for Saints coach Sean Payton.

After advancing to the NFC Championship Game in 2006, the Saints fell flat on their faces at the start of the 2007 campaign. They dropped their first four games and struggled all season to get back in the playoff race — which they did before finishing 7-9.

So that’s what Payton, who’s beginning his third season as the Saints coach, wants to avoid at all costs against the Bucs.

“Certainly it’s a divisional game and from another standpoint, it’s our first game of the season,” Payton said, in talking about the game’s importance. “Getting off to a better start than a year ago has been one of the things we’ve talked about.”

He’s not kidding as Payton and his coaching staff preached it over and over again to their players this offseason.

In case the game didn’t carry enough meaning, though, Hurricane Gustav added a little more last week.

The Saints and most of the city’s population evacuated in advance of Gustav’s arrival last weekend, with the Saints heading to Indianapolis for four days of practice.

“I was pleased with the week of work,” Payton said. “It went without a hitch, and we all pulled together and focused on what we had to do to get ready to play a very good football team on Sunday.”

Saints quarterback Drew Brees said the team took advantage of the situation to bond as a team — much like it does in training camp.

“I feel like it brought the team closer together,” Brees said. “You always try to look for positive situations when there is adversity. I think our team was a close-knit unit before, but we became even closer this week and we had a great week of practice.”