Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be the perfect host for NFL playoff bubble
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are well on their way to earning a postseason berth and how perfect would it be for them to have home field advantage through the entire playoffs?
The Buccaneers enter Week 11 of the 2020 NFL season with a 7-3 record and will take on the Los Angeles Rams Monday night, but there has been an uptick in positive COVID-19 cases across the league over the past couple of weeks and there are some who are beginning to wonder how the NFL will function a month from now when there are potentially even more cases rising around the nation.
The NFL has mandated that all of its clubs function under its intensive protocols until the end of the season and there have been contingency plans discussed about potentially expanding the playoffs if the regular season isn’t going to be completed.
But what about a bubble?
There have been plenty of talks about potentially creating a bubble for the NFL postseason, but nothing has come to fruition as of yet. The task would be huge and you’d be talking about thousands of league personnel making their way into one or a couple of cities for a few weeks.
There’s no doubt that Buccaneers fans would love to see Tampa considered for a bubble
It doesn’t seem likely that the league is going to go the ‘bubble route’ simply because of the infrastructure and what it would take to pull off that many teams residing in one town and playing in one stadium. That’s not even to speak of how they would practice.
That being said, if we were to see a bubble of some kind, Tampa Bay would be the perfect choice.
Just think about this scenario: Perhaps the NFL creates two bubbles- one for the NFC and one for the AFC. Tampa Bay would play host to seven teams and you’d be able to open up the Bucs’ practice facilities, as well as neighboring high schools and colleges (USF) for practice areas.
The Super Bowl is already happening in Tampa, so it would just make sense for there to be a bubble there and that would give at least a bit more attention to the Bay area, which has been hit hard economically due to the cancellations dealing with COVID-19. (WWE’s WrestleMania was supposed to be in Tampa last year- and that was canceled- and now the Super Bowl will have at best a limited capacity amount of fans).
The Florida weather in the winter would be a nice touch and added bonus for competing teams and there’s no doubt that Tampa- and surrounding areas- have the infrastructure in terms of hotels and the like to host an incoming amount of long-term guests.
It’s not likely to happen as the NFL seems fairly set on playing its season out with travel, but the Buccaneers would undoubtedly be gracious hosts if ‘bubble talk’ ever became a reality.