Don’t Worry About The Rain
June 20th, 2014
Rain and heat make steam.
When the Bucs announced their training camp practices open to the public, the thing that jumped was the times. All practices were to be held in the oven that is the late-afternoon.
The heat, the humidity, the lightning! What was Lovie thinking? Well, per multimedia maven Scott Smith of Buccaneers.com, Bucs coach Lovie Smith was thinking quite a bit. The timing of the practices was anything but an accident.
Lest we forget, Lovie Smith has been to training camp in Tampa before. Furthermore, he is capable of reading weather reports. And, let me tell you, he and his staff are meticulous planners, the kind who had a mid-June practiced scheduled out to the minute during a meeting in February. My point is, Smith and his staff are just as aware of the potential weather issues as you and I. Even so, they think late-afternoon practices are the way to go, and Smith gave two reasons during one of his mini-camp press conferences.
One, the Buccaneers will be playing their first two games of the season at about that same time of the day. That might seem oddly specific to plan for that, but why not? They can’t really simulate playing a night game in a dome, which is what they will do in Week Three, and their next two games after that are also on the road. The Bucs won’t play a 1:00 p.m. game at Raymond James Stadium until October 12, and they won’t play their second one until five days before Halloween. I’ll admit that I found this explanation a bit odd when I first heard it, but it makes more sense after taking a closer look at the schedule.
Two, Smith really does want to make training camp more accessible to a greater portion of the fan base. If you can get out of work a little early to see a Yankees spring training game in March, you might be able to do the same to get you and your kids to a Bucs’ training camp practice. The Night Practice at Raymond James Stadium (this year scheduled for Friday, August 1) is always the most heavily-attended camp workout; holding more practices that fall in the early-evening hours could offer those fans more opportunities to see their team being shaped for the regular season.
Of course, Lovie chose this schedule to benefit the team, which will (hopefully) benefit all Bucs fans down the road. With victories.
Talk to old-school mentality coaches (like Mike Tomlin) and they just love practicing in the rain. As with anything, the more you practice the better you get at something, and being conditioned to play in the rain, which very likely may the conditions during one if not both home games to open the season, the more advantageous it will be for the Bucs.
Joe can’t think of a Bucs coach who not want to use the brutal Florida sun as an advantage. Visiting northern teams from cooling climates (while the Midwest often gets hotter than Florida in the summer, by September, those sizzling temperatures slowly become rather temperate), just melt in the blazing sun and choking humidity.
If you have an awful team (see: Morris, Raheem) it doesn’t matter how hot it gets, you will still get taken to the woodshed by the likes of Charlie Batch. But if you have a decent or a good team, that weather becomes an advantage.
June 20th, 2014 at 9:23 am
Old West cowboy saying – “Ride’m hard and hang’em up wet!
June 20th, 2014 at 9:38 am
Too bad virtually every afternoon shower in Tampa is accompanied by lightning. Could end being a poor decision if they get unlucky with a string a bad weather.
June 20th, 2014 at 10:08 am
I agree lightning is a concern. They really need an indoor field as well. They have plenty of room for it. I remember Gruden having to move the team into a parking garage for practices back in the day. Seemed ridiculous, but you gotta get the work in somehow.
June 20th, 2014 at 10:40 am
you don’t have to cancel practice because of lightning unless the lightning is nearby.
Plenty of times we get rain and very little lightning.
Put it this way…
how many rained games have you seen in Tampa?
Now how many times have games been suspended or held up due to lightning?
You can count the latter on one hand.
June 20th, 2014 at 10:44 am
They can always use the tropicana if they need to.
I like the idea of the 1 pm practices. It trains their bodies to game time.
One thing about Monte defenses…the first few games of every season they play poorly in the 4th quarter. Dungy and Gruden had to deal with it.
“60 minutes of football”
This method now may prevent that from happening. I hope.
June 20th, 2014 at 10:55 am
It all began on one steamy muggy Sunday afternoon in Tampa……
June 20th, 2014 at 10:59 am
“Ride’m hard and hang’em up wet!”
Then that means, a person who is “rode hard and put away wet” seems ill-conditioned, tired out and unhappy, much like a horse that has undergone the same treatment.
June 20th, 2014 at 3:07 pm
If the NFL won’t allow 1:00pm games, in Tampa, during September, WHY do they schedule games, in northern open-air fields, during December? I.E., why is fair to give one team a ‘weather’ advantage, but not another team? And I don’t believe the ‘health’ argument. You are just as likely to tear a muscle because it’s not warmed up, as to get dehydrated.
Just my rant.
June 20th, 2014 at 7:48 pm
“Mumbles Says:
June 20th, 2014 at 9:23 am
Old West cowboy saying – “Ride’m hard and hang’em up wet!”
Sorry, but that’s something a real cowboy would NEVER do, a good way to kill a horse. Of course, not a bad idea for Bucs opponents…LOL!!!
June 21st, 2014 at 12:50 am
Stupid. Tortuous conditions (if they don’t get rained out) for maybe an advantage in two games. They’ll be worn out before the season starts. Mid October it cools down. Why not get an indoor training facility for those games.
June 21st, 2014 at 8:24 am
Theres a fine with the conditioning in the Tampa heat it can wear down players sweating that hard on a daily basis. It certainly wears down muscle mass. At some point it becomes more of a mental battle in that type of heat. Lovie will have them ready!