Prime Time BABY.........Prime Time

Since I'm from Deion Sanders' hometown, I thought I'd steal his moniker for the introduction of the 2008 Buccaneers schedule. 3 Prime time games are scheduled, after failing to play a single game on National TV during the regular season last year. The schedule is listed below.


1
Sept. 7
at New Orleans Saints
1 p.m.
2
Sept. 14
Atlanta Falcons
4:05 p.m.
3
Sept. 21
at Chicago Bears
1 p.m.
4
Sept. 28
Green Bay Packers
1 p.m.
5
Oct. 5
at Denver Broncos
4:05 p.m.
6
Oct. 12
Carolina Panthers
1 p.m.
7
Oct. 19
Seattle Seahawks
8:15 p.m.
8
Oct. 26
at Dallas Cowboys
1 p.m.
9
Nov. 2
at Kansas City Chiefs
1 p.m.
10
Nov. 9
Bye

11
Nov. 19
Minnesota Vikings
1 p.m.
12
Nov. 23
at Detroit Lions
1 p.m.
13
Nov. 30
New Orleans Saints
1 p.m.
14
Dec. 8 (Mon.)
at Carolina Panthers
8:30 p.m.
15
Dec. 14
at Atlanta Falcons
1 p.m.
16
Dec. 21
San Diego Chargers*
8:15 p.m.
17
Dec. 28
Oakland Raiders
1 p.m.

Upon first glance, I like the schedule match ups. The Bucs start their season with 2 divisional rivals. The home game on September 28th vs the Packers will showcase our home field advantage. The Packers have the frozen tundra in November and December but welcome to the 10th level of hell heat and humidity in the Florida sun Mr. Rodgers.

Seattle, a team we've now played a third time in 3 years comes to town in October, in the first of the Bucs Nationally televised games. Even though this is a night game, October nights can be very hot and humid as well and seeing that the Bucs have lost the last 2 games to Seattle, let's hope we can introduce Seattle to our 12th man.

The final 7 games of the season after the bye week, the Bucs get 4 home games, and 2 prime time games, 1 home- 1 away. Sandwiched between the Vikings, Lions, San Diego and Oakland, is a three game stretch of divisional games which will no doubt play a big roll in determining the eventual NFC South champions.

A few other observations from the schedule this year, this will be the Bucs first visit to the Broncos Invesco field. The Buccaneers last visit to Denver was in 1996. And, the Bucs have a away date scheduled in Kansas City, a place they haven't been to in 22 years.

The first cursory observation on the overall schedule, it's a general consensus that if a team wins their division or makes the playoffs, the NFL rewards those teams with a national prime time game or two. If this is the belief, why then do the Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns each have 5 prime time games this year? Inquiring minds would like to know?

All in all, it feels great to be talking football again and getting the juices flowing. 11 more days and we have the NFL draft. Can you feel it? Football is right around the corner.