Todd Bowles admits he only looks at three things on Bucs schedule

Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles admitted that he only looks for three things when the NFL schedule finally gets released. 

Last week the NFL schedule was finally released, and with it came a clear picture of what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers journey this upcoming season will look like.

At least, that’s what most of us thought.

We’ve known what teams the Bucs would be playing since the end of the season, as home and away opponents are revealed well in advance. It’s the finer details of when the games will take place that gets revealed when the schedule officially comes out. Knowing what the makeup of the season helps get a better idea of how things will go, at least as much as you can predict four months before games are even played.

That seems to be the difference between the coaches on the sideline every Sunday and those watching them do their work. NFL Network devoted three hours to breaking down the schedule and predicting games, while coaches like Todd Bowles glanced at the games and moved on.

Bowles said as much when asked about what he thought about the Bucs schedule this season now that it’s been officially revealed.

Todd Bowles reveals the only things he looks at on Buccaneers schedule 

Rather than deep diving into the schedule like the rest of us, Bowles said he simply looks for three key factors before moving onto the next bit of preparation he needs to do during the offseason.

To be fair to the folks who get granular with the schedule release, there are valid reasons to break it down. It’s objectively interesting to see when teams play certain opponents and when in the season those games will happen.

For instance, the Chiefs and Bengals playing a potentially pivotal matchup late in the year could have a more obvious impact on the playoff picture than if it were to happen in September. Ditto the Buccaneers closing out the season against the Panthers in a game that might decide who wins the NFC South one way or another.

Bowles doesn’t play those games, though. As he puts it, he only cares about when the bye week is, how many cold weather games the team plays, and what the short weeks look like.

Via JoeBucsFan:

"“The first thing I look for is where the bye week is (Week 5) and the second thing is how many cold games we’ve got in December,” Bowles said. “So, obviously, we’ve got Green Bay in December (Week 15); you prepare for that one. Then you kind of see the turnaround from the Sunday to the Thursday game (Week 8 in Buffalo) to see what you’ve got to prepare for early. And you look at those three things and that’s about it.”"

That’s all pretty logical, and Bowles has much larger fish to fry than worrying in May about who the team is playing in November.

If Bowles is doing his job right, it shouldn’t matter what the schedule looks like now. How many people looked at the Eagles schedule this time last year and predicted they’d start the year 8-0? Was anybody able to look at the Bears schedule in May and confidently predict they’d own the No. 1 pick in the draft? Broncos fans would like a word or two about schedule predictions made last May versus how things actually went once the games were played.

The point is, Bowles’ approach to the schedule is perhaps the best way to look at it. Three things matter right now and the rest depends on what happens over the next few months. Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask are battling it out to determine who the starting quarterback will be, which seems like a major factor in how the Bucs perform during the season. Injuries can derail a season before it even begins too, something fans in Tampa Bay are no strangers to given what happened last August.