Key Data On The Week 2 Thursday Night Football Matchup
May 17th, 2019
BY ZACHARY SEIFTER
JoeBucsFan.com intern
The Bucs go to Carolina to face the Panthers on Thursday Night Football in Week 2, the eighth time TNF will be held during Week 2. If the Bucs want to win, all they have to do is see what the last seven winners have done.
Start fast.
Not one of those winners trailed at halftime. If the Bucs want to come back to Tampa victorious, they better be ready to go come kickoff.
Slow starts doomed the Bucs for the past three seasons. They can’t afford to have one doom them this season.
Two of their first three games are home against the 49ers and Giants. The game in between at Carolina may be their toughest test of the three-game stretch.
This could be a statement game for the Bucs. It’s a chance to get a divisional win and build momentum.
In the latest episode of TAMPA TWO, Bucs legend Derrick Brooks shared those feelings when the Sage, JoeBucsFan.com columnist Ira Kaufman, asked if having a primetime game so early in the season was a positive or a negative.
“I think it’s a positive because of how the season went last year,” Brooks explained. “Teams get a chance to look at you early, and now you build momentum.”
It’s an opportunity the Bucs shouldn’t take lightly, as four of the seven teams that won those Week 2 matchups went on to make the playoffs. Denver would win the Super Bowl in 2015.
Interestingly, the Bucs-Panthers game will be only the second time the Week 2 TNF game will feature NFC teams. The first was in 2012, when the Packers beat the Bears 23-10.
In all, the road team has gone 3-4 in those Week 2 Thursday night games.
What do the Bucs have to do to make it 4-4?
For one, they better take care of the football.
The losing team in those matchups committed three or more turnovers in five of the games. The Chiefs lost the ball five times in a 31-24 loss to Denver in 2015.
If the Bucs protect the ball, control time of possession and start fast, they may get a win and momentum early in the season.
Looking at the rest of the schedule, they’re going to need it.
In the spirit of Kramerica Industries, JoeBucsFan.com has a college intern for a few months. It’s a true rarity. In addition to soaking up wisdom from The Sage of Tampa Bay sports, Zachary Seifter has a pile of Bucs knowledge himself and you’ll see some of his work here occasionally.
May 17th, 2019 at 1:06 am
If you start fast, control TOP and win the TO-battle you will win not only a TNF matchup in week 2 but a lot of your games…
May 17th, 2019 at 4:38 am
Blitz, blitz, blitz!
TB is going to OWN Cam.
BA will have an offensive game plan that creates so many mismatches, the entire NFL will be put on notice.
The Bucs are BACK and are for REAL!
10-6 & Playoffs!
May 17th, 2019 at 5:13 am
Actually Zachary, you hit on the most important thing the Bucs need to improve upon this year IMO … SLOW STARTS. The reasons for our slow starts have varied: offense sputtering early, too many turnovers, shoddy defense. But still, those are more EXCUSES than anything, because underneath it all, it looks suspiciously like there’s one REASON we start slow: LACK OF URGENCY. I’ve had coaches who referred to that as WANT TO or DESIRE (and some descriptors best not repeated). But their point was always the same I think … Points scored at any point in the game influence the outcome. Get ahead by a bunch early and you still MIGHT lose, but the odds are a lot more in your favor than if you’re behind by a bunch early-on. Every point scored OR given up counts, no matter when it goes on the scoreboard.
May 17th, 2019 at 5:29 am
Tampa vs Carolina games are usually historically bad and uninteresting – I have no idea why people who pick games pick this mathup.
May 17th, 2019 at 5:42 am
Easiest path to victory ,start fast and keep the pedal on the medal. Play consistent winning football for entire game. Watch out for McCaffrey Its look like
he has morphed into a mini hulk in the off season.
May 17th, 2019 at 5:50 am
@Rod
Throw history out the window! It’s a NEW day! Mark my words, even the Stinkin’ Thinkin’ fans are going to lean towards the positive when we begin the season 3-0!
There’s a new Sheriff in town.
May 17th, 2019 at 5:51 am
Not really a fan of Thursday football setup. There isn’t enough time to recover
and prepare for the matchup. The visiting team also has to waste one those precious days traveling.
May 17th, 2019 at 6:19 am
@Bob
Yeah, our schedule is truly brutal. But imagine meeting the adversity head-on. In watching all the enlightening documentaries on BA, you just KNOW he started war-gaming the fight of schedule-adversity the second he saw the schedule and said out loud, “You gotta be sh!tting me!”
He didn’t waste a lot of emotion, he just teamed up with his capable staff and started planning.
I’d hate to compete against the Bucs this year. Lighting in a bottle.
May 17th, 2019 at 7:07 am
The truth is, focus on being a good team that can overcome adversity, instead of being a team that creates it’s own as this team has done recently (Winston selfishly hurting his team instead of leading, other dumb suspensions, bad FA deals, cash-strapping, etc). This team often beats itself, and doing that will take you from 10-6 to 6-10 every time.
Gotta love Derrick and his always positive attitude. Sure though; it’s always positive until it’s a negative. A bad team that happens to get a win or two early in the season is still a bad team.
Also, no matter who plays, when, or where the game is played, a fast start is always good. Yeah, we can talk about early season momentum. And for the Bucs it has usually meant nothing.
May 17th, 2019 at 7:10 am
The schedule is not that brutal and is very soft for the start!!!!! That mountain just looks high to climb because the Bucs are at the very bottom!!!!!!!!! On the road looks tough, which would not have been that terrible, except for losing that home game, but that is the price for the QB no contest plea deal from last year!!!!!!!!! No where to hide now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2019 will reveal answers to the sheep, that the “real” fans already know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 17th, 2019 at 9:16 am
The Buc Realist Says:
June 21st, 2018 at 6:48 pm
Huge pass to the coaching staff issued by the “real” Buc fans!!!!!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!
May 17th, 2019 at 9:23 am
realist
still making excuses huh….lol….
i wouldnt mind if we started just like last year during the first 3 games……2-1 aint bad…i’ll take that….
the difference will be COACHING!!!!!!!!!!…..BA and his staff wont allow a 5game losing streak like dirk was famous for!!!!!!!!
GO BUCS!!!!!
May 17th, 2019 at 9:25 am
I wish more supposed fans would stop trying to support their narrative and just be fans of the damn team. News flash, none of us knows how this is going to pan out yet. And I mean no one. Will know sometime in February. Until then I hope for the best and I try to convince myself does the Brain trust knows more about football than I do.
May 17th, 2019 at 9:26 am
And by Brain trust I’m mostly referring to the new coaching staff. I have my doubts about the GM and we all know ownership has made some questionable decisions.
May 17th, 2019 at 9:27 am
It’ll be interesting to see how our premium pick stacks up against one of the guys he was drafted to stop
May 17th, 2019 at 10:19 am
Defense Rules,
Best most accurate post I’ve seen in a while. Three words have haunted this team for a decade…..Lack of Urgency! This teams slow starts have gone through three coaches now and should be the #1 thing this new coaching staff addresses. It’s almost like the entire team is stoned and starts coming out of it around the 3rd quarter.
May 17th, 2019 at 11:15 am
early in the year thursday is an advantage. we will have an advantage week 3 too! Can’t cry about our schedule… thats what happens when you giveaway a home game!
May 17th, 2019 at 12:15 pm
Bucs will have a huge advantage going into that week 2 game. Generally speaking, teams use a lot of what they did in week 1 in week 2. But because it is so early in the season, they will likely do a large install for week 1 (with starters getting two weeks to implement it as they won’t play week 4 of preseason). The biggest reason for the huge advantage (as Carolina will have the same circumstances as us), is that Carolina will barely have any time to look at Buccaneer film on how Arians and co. use the personnel on offense and how Bowles is tooling the defense. The Panthers should be getting very little advance scouting coming into this game while the Bucs will have years of scouting Rivera and company’s scheme, personnel groupings, and utilization of talent. We will have a big advantage here.