The official announcement is still a week away, but we know pretty much for sure the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will give up a home game against the Chicago Bears at Raymond James stadium for the right to play in London, England in historic Wembley Stadium, the second time in three years the Bucs have done so.
While the plan was supposed to be a rotating schedule where every team gets to go over there so there are no foul cries, it would seem that is not exactly the case. Make no mistake about it, its a Bucs home game. The Bears are already scheduled to play the Bucs in Tampa, there is no way this can be turned into a Bears home game, it doesn’t work that way.
While initially I was upset and against the move (Im still against the move to be honest, I just choose to focus on the positive rather than cry over spilled tea!) I’ve come to see the good that will come from this event.
Lets face it, you know, the Bucs know, everyone knows, the Tampa Bay Area has a big “screw us” sign on our backs. Last year the Bucs were an exciting offensive football team that never, not once at any time, had a losing record during the 2010 season. We finished 10-6 and its the first time in decades a team missed the playoffs with a 10-6 record, and first time ever the Bucs did not win a division or make the playoffs either with such a record. Yet the national spotlight stayed as far away from Tampa Bay as it could. You would have thought the Bucs turned into the Rays and Joe Morgan was in charge of scheduling TV Broadcasts.
The NFL has flex scheduling so they can take attractive teams/games and move them into the spotlight. They did that a few times, but only moved our games from 1pm to 4 pm, and broadcasted those games to maybe one or two extra markets.
Say it all together Tampa Bay….weeeee.
Not even when we had the chance to play the Saints for a playoff spot, did we get anything more than a 4pm start. Not even close to a Sunday Night Football game, when we played an exciting brand of football, and offensive for the first time too. Back in the Day the Bucs would always be on Prime Time, with boring offenses that couldn’t score more than 13 points on a good day, but with a defense that would light it up. Now the Bucs light up the scoreboard more than they ever did, and still no national exposure.
That ends this year; the very first preseason game vs KC will be on National TV (FOX), and now the prime event of the NFL Season, the International Series will feature the Tampa Bay Buccaneers again. This will give the country a chance to check out the Bucs who should be even better offensively than last year with a returning Arrelious Benn, LeGarrette Blount, Mike WIlliams and more, all with yet another season of experience.
Josh Freeman is emerging as one of the better QBs in the NFL, and it’s important to get his name out there. Many times last year on the FOX presume show, Jimmy Johnson, Howie Long, and Terry Bradshaw talked the praises of No.5 and young Head Coach Raheem Morris, and we need more of that exposure.
The Game in London will give us that; not only nationally, but locally too. Last season the Bucs fans only got to watch 8 games. This year 9 are guaranteed to be on the tube, and with home games against Dallas and Indianapolis, its very possible the Bucs could be playing on Television for even more weeks in 2011.
I’m not all that happy about losing a home advantage (if there will be one) to the Bears, who could have been sweltering in the heat but instead will play in more Chicago like weather. But the Bucs have shown they are capable of overcoming such distractions. Raheem Morris has them playing without making excuses, even when they have every right sometimes too. But the Bucs have a lot of fans in the UK (BucPower.com is home to the Bucs UK of which I am an honorary member) and no doubt that will be picked up again, maybe even more so this time around, and will turn into a huge media spectacle just like last year when Paul Stewart, founder of Bucs UK and runner of Bucpower.com made the better part of the Bucs 2010 Video Yearbook by NFL FIlms presentations!!!
All that exposer, all that talk will help put Tampa Bay back into more of a prominent role in the national landscape, and locally too. And lets face it, I love hearing more and more about our Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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