If the season ended today, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers(7-5) would be one of the three wild card teams in the NFC and would have to travel to Los Angeles to battle the Rams. A team Tampa Bay lost to at home on Monday Night Football.
Coming into the season, the Buccaneers, like most teams, wanted to have home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, but 2020 is not like any other year. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, most teams are playing in front of little to no fans, which on some level, takes away some of the advantages of playing at home. Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians discussed home-field advantage on Tuesday. According to Arians, whose Buccaneers host the Minnesota Vikings(6-6), home-field advantage won’t matter as much as it did in the past, so for him, it’s all about just making the playoffs.
“Just getting in the dance. We’ve been a one seed and won it [and] we’ve been a six seed and won it,” AriansThis year especially – with no fans – the home-field advantage is really going to be out the window. It’s just going to be lining up and playing in empty stadiums. What has been a big, big part of the playoffs in the past is home-field advantage [but] I don’t think it’s going to be an advantage this year. It’s just a matter of getting in.”
Arians may have a point. What made playing at home such an advantage is the fans. The fans help create the atmosphere in the stadium, and the players feed off the home crowd’s energy. Plus, with the increase of COVID cases in America, you wonder if the NFL will go to a bubble come playoff time, which minimizes home-field advantage even more.
So, for Tampa Bay, it’s about making the playoffs, and hopefully, for them, they are playing their best football in the postseason.
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