The Tampa Bay Buccaneers return to the playoffs and the ultimate goal is to reach Super Bowl LV in their own home, Raymond James Stadium, on February 7th. But the Buccaneers will have to take the road first and start their journey back home in Landover, Maryland.
This is the website of FedEx Field, where the Buccaneers and the Washington Football Team will face a game with the Wild Card on the evening of Saturday, January 9th. scheduled to kick off at 20:15 ET. It will be broadcast nationally by NBC.
The Buccaneers drew Washington in the opening round due to the fact that they locked up fifth place in the NFC with a 44-27 victory over the Atlanta Falcons Sunday. It put together a game with the NFC East champion, who could have been one of three teams when the day started, but the Soccer team appears to be after their 20-14 victory over Philadelphia on Sunday night. Tampa Bay’s first playoff game since 2007 was not entirely determined until the 256th and final game of the 2020 regular season was over.
This is the third time Tampa Bay and Washington have met in the post-season, and the winner gets bragging rights for series. The Buccaneers won an 1999 NFC Divisional Round over Washington, 14-13, en route to the conference championship game in St. Louis. Washington took its revenge in 2005 with a 17-10 victory in the Wild Card round over the Buccaneers, which the NFC South won by an 11-5 record. Both games were played at Raymond James Stadium.
Saturday’s game will be the Buccaneers’ first playoff game on the road since the memorable 2002 NFC Championship in Philadelphia. The Bucs won that game, 27-10, to advance to Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego (a neutral game), where they defeated the Oakland Raiders 48-21 for their first NFL title.
Saturday’s game will place a red-hot Buccaneers offense against one of the league’s most flashy defensive points. Tampa Bay finished as the league’s third highest scorer with 492 points, just behind Green Bay and Buffalo, and in the last ten quarters of the game he produced 1,429 yards and 16 touchdowns. Meanwhile, Washington allowed only 329 points on the season to finish 14th in defense.
Washington’s swarming defense is led by a defensive front loaded with recent first-round concepts. The Football Team’s entire initial defensive line consists of the first round in the last four years: finishing Chase Young and Montez Sweat and tackling Da’Ron Payne and Jonathan Allen. Ryan Kerrigan, the franchise’s everyday leader in bags, is coming off the bench and has another 5.5 QB deliveries this year. Washington finished fourth in sacks per attempt on the final weekend of the season, and the pressure also helped the team’s defenders pick 16 passes to become second in the league. The football team was particularly difficult to pass and allowed only 191.9 net yards per game through the air.
The offense of the football team was not so dynamic yet and obviously had problems with the quarterback position. At the start of week 17, Dwayne Haskins, the first pick of the first round in 2019 who started six games this season and won 1-5, was turned down. Veteran Alex Smith has made an inspiring return from a devastating leg injury of 2018 and is now back at the helm after missing time with another leg injury. He threw two attacks against Philadelphia on Sunday night, but he has relatively overwhelming numbers this year, including a score of 78.5 passengers and an average of 6.3 yards per passing effort.
The Washington offense is not without dangerous weapons. Terry McLaurin, the 12th receiver drafted in 2019, was a revelation as a rookie and proved it was not a stroke of luck with 1,148 yards on 87 catches this year. The football team opted for another day-two pick in 2020, with Antonio Gibson, a second-choice pick in the second round, picking up 1,042 yards of scrums and 11 touchdowns despite missing two games.
The winner of Saturday’s game at FedEx Field will leave for Green Bay in the division round unless one or both of the division winners New Orleans Saints and Seattle Seahawks lose in the first round. Unless all three of the NFC Wild Card teams win this weekend, the Buccaneers, who were 6-2 away from home in games this year, will be on the road again in the second week. First, the Bucs must stay on the road back to Raymond James Stadium with a win in the opening round, and to get them to beat the Washington Football Team on Saturday night in their own home.