When Lovie Smith announced that 4:30 pm would be the startup time for Tampa Bay Buccaneers training camp, the first thing I thought about was rain.
As expected, the first practice was wiped out by bad weather. The team first got on the field for mere minutes before lightning took them off the field for over an hour. Once they came back, they only got to practice for under an hour before the whole thing was called again, this time for good.
The main reason for the time was player fatigue and attention span. If you wear a player out in morning, he is likely to be too tired to pay his best attention in classes. A better way of doing things is to have classes first, perhaps after a light walk-through. With a better attention span, the player will learn his assignments faster, and probably retain that info better too.
But another thing is well known, the late afternoon Florida rain shower! In July/August, you can pretty much set your clock to it.
Fans are another issue: having practice late allows for fan involvement which the Bucs sure could use. The night practice at Raymond James continues to grow in attendance. Plus both of the Bucs first two games start at 4pm.
So is it worth it? There are only 12 padded ‘contact’ practices allowed; if a storm interrupts one of those skirmishes, can the Bucs make it up? It’s one thing to play against your own- you begin to pick up on your teammates tendencies with repetition. As the saying goes, “I’ll tell you how a player is doing when he’s playing a guy in a different uniform”!
But playing another team Ill-prepared is not the answer either, and how the Bucs fare in preseason games will have a lot to do with what time practice starts next season. For as easy as you make it for fans to show up, sitting outdoors through a thunderstorm will put a quick end to the benefit provided.
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