Bucs Focused on Opponents, Not Marathon Road Stretch

As a seven-week stretch without a true home game comes to an end, the Bucs don't have time to focus on anything but who they're playing.

When the 2019 NFL schedule came out, it didn't take Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans long to notice something strange: A seven-week road trip in which their team's only "home" game would be outsourced across the pond.

Since losing in heartbreaking fashion to the New York Giants in Week 3, the Bucs have traveled to Los Angeles, New Orleans, London and Nashville, with a much-needed bye week sandwiched in between.

The complete the grueling road stretch with another trip out west, this time to face one of the NFL's best teams, the Seattle Seahawks, in one of the league's most hostile environments.

Still, offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich thinks he and his players haven't had much time to focus on where they're playing as opposed to who they're playing.

"I don't know if they're thinking about it, I know I don't have time to think about it," Leftwich said Thursday. "You've got the opponent, so you're thinking the opponent. You don't really care about where the game is at. You're looking at the opponent, and you let the tape tell you. When you're worried about the opponent so much, the location really doesn't matter. You try to get these guys prepared, for the guys that have never been there, never played there, to have an understanding of what the atmosphere's gonna be."

The Bucs might be too focused on their opponents to worry about where they're playing, but I'm betting they'll still be happier to playing a handful of home games over the final two months of the season instead of racking up frequent-flyer miles by the thousands.