Bucs Avoid International Game
May 13th, 2026
Feel free to exhale.
The Bucs won’t be playing overseas this year.
It’s a safe bet only a tiny percentage of Bucs fans want to endure a 9 a.m. football game while their beloved team’s routines are massively disrupted — just so NFL owners can make more money and still raise prices on fans.
The NFL finalized its foreign 2026 slate today and the Bucs aren’t on it. Among the NFC South teams, the slimy Saints will play the Steelers in France and the Falcons head to Madrid to take on the Bengals.
The Bucs beat Seattle in Germany back in 2022, but the team was bad after the bye week that followed the win. Tampa Bay resumed play two leeks later and lost to the bumbling Browns in Cleveland. In all, the Bucs were 3-5 that season following the overseas trip.
In 2019, the Bucs were humiliated by the Panthers in England. And the Bucs lost in 2009 and 2011 in England, as well. The team was never the same after the England trip of 2011, losing their next nine games to close the season.
The NFL’s nine-game international game slate for 2026 is here.
Jacksonville won’t be home much in October.
One day, each week of the NFL calendar will have a game on foreign soil. pic.twitter.com/wntkHtsZ0S
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) May 13, 2026
May 13th, 2026 at 10:52 am
The NFL wants to build its brand internationally. A big way to tarnish it would be sending the Bowles train wreck to some massive fancy stadium to be utterly uncompetitive in all three phases again and lose 37-3 to the Cowboys. No doubt the schedule makers laughed if they even discussed putting the Kit Kat eater on full display.
May 13th, 2026 at 11:00 am
Thanks for more dazzling insight. Maybe you could go back to your Saints fanpage now?
May 13th, 2026 at 11:05 am
Was there for the humiliation in London all 3 time 🙁
At least they won when i made the trip to Tampa – gonna have to save up and do it again some day!
May 13th, 2026 at 11:06 am
So the farthest the Bucs will have to travel is a 2 hour & change flight to Dallas this season
Yet Mike Evans – who admittedly hates flying and long flights – has to travel across the entire country for many of his away games AND the one trip to Australia might be more flying hours than the Bucs have to do all season (not liking that up, but the sentiment remains)….
And for Brock Purdy as your QB? And far less pay and far more taxes? And for a team the Bucs beat without Evans even playing?!
Yea something ain’t adding up, ain’t right in Mike’s head or in someone’s head around him. Something is up and/or just not right here with Mike and his “reasons”
May 13th, 2026 at 11:14 am
Great news, expect the Saints and Falcons to be worn out the week after their international games. Not having an international game will keep the Bucs focused. I like it, now if we could just get Carolina to join them.
May 13th, 2026 at 11:15 am
Mike left to be the number 1 receiver instead of 1A, 1b, or 1c. He wants way more targets to lock in the hall of fame. It’s as simple AS THAT. He was thinking about playing a few more years so was probably quite unhappy we drafted Egbuka in the first round too.
May 13th, 2026 at 11:15 am
Plus just living in San francisco. One of the last larger cities I’d ever want to live in.
Beautiful city in general but it’s the mentality, govt, local economy and earthquakes you can’t see coming that make it a no-go for me. I won’t even get into the next door power plant. LOL
I find it very funny that the Jags are playing in England twice. I wonder how that will affect their season? I’d be pissed if I was a fan of theirs.
May 13th, 2026 at 11:34 am
lol. California has the fourth largest economy of any COUNTRY in the world. San Fran, LA, and especially San Diego are beautiful.
Jacksonville’s owner is a short-sighted profiteer. If the NFL wants a NFL Europe then establish it separately and keep our games in America!
May 13th, 2026 at 11:49 am
The NFL Europe experiment has already been run. Didn’t work out very well…
May 13th, 2026 at 12:16 pm
glad we caught a break lol
as far as mike, he went to a contender that won 12games last year despite a roster full of injuries…
and Brock didnt choke in DEC like baker lol
wish you well mike!!!!…we’ll see you in the playoffs!!!!
GO BUCS!!!!
May 13th, 2026 at 12:36 pm
Have fun in Australia and Mexico City week 11 too jerk.
May 13th, 2026 at 1:00 pm
With that schedule (49-ers), and with all the positive progress the Bucs made in the offseason, I wonder if Mike Evans has any regrets?
May 13th, 2026 at 1:06 pm
@Not A Good Look…
It appears Mike wants targets and yards and TDs. He was tired of the OC carousel in Tampa and the battle for targets like other WR1s get. On top of a soft D you couldn’t win with.
Shanahan will get him 6-10 targets a game. I don’t love that they open in Australia but Evans TD is a prop I will be gambling on early and often.
May 13th, 2026 at 2:37 pm
Not A Good Look…
you do know Mike left before he knew the schedule right?
May 13th, 2026 at 2:40 pm
I think Mike suffered a severe concussion when he hurt his collar bone.
May 13th, 2026 at 2:44 pm
jacksonville got the double whammy
May 13th, 2026 at 2:46 pm
will mike take a boomerang to the neck from crocodile dundee…
that is the real question
May 13th, 2026 at 4:20 pm
David,
You do know all teams’ schedules are known the day the season ends, right? Outside of international travel and specific dates and times….
Mike knew he’d be traveling a lot before he made his decision. So this article only accentuates my points further and now we know the Bucs don’t have to travel abroad at all. My post and point(s) made still stand regardless.
Should’ve thought twice before asking that silly question with no wherewithal whatsoever
May 13th, 2026 at 4:25 pm
Joe, the Bucs sucked after the bye week last year. Don’t recall they went overseas? Matter of fact, under Bowles they always limp out of the bye. That was a great game in 2022, and being a morning person, I’d rather watch at 9am game, than Thursday night one at 9pm. Good teams win no matter where, or when they play. Bucs haven’t been good enough lately. Schedule, like injuries, are excuses for the weak. Don’t be that Joe.
May 13th, 2026 at 4:55 pm
Thank The Lord for any favors, the NFL is such a seel out league now it’s almost becoming un likeable to ole school fans almost a quarter of the season is selling the game to fans who think football is played in shorts ,why.not just have teams do OTAs in Spain or Germany ###
May 13th, 2026 at 7:40 pm
Mauch is a good, German name. If the team goes to Germany, I believe we might just take a little vacation and go with them. Last trip I stayed a month on the Baltic Sea. Wonder if the League has any games in Hamburg? North Germany is a certain kind of tough. The Elbe runs right through Hamburg and the shipbuilders and the port markets are world class. Alot of history. Soccer freaks, but I bet they’d love them a good game of American football. One of my fondest memories of that trip was staying buzzed on wonderful libations every single day. And night. I don’t believe I’d be able to go a month next time, but I’d be happy to give 4 or 5 days a shot!
May 13th, 2026 at 8:14 pm
First, Mike doesn’t have to go anywhere near San Francisco if he doesn’t want to. The Niners play 46 miles south of SF, and fly out of San Jose for road games, which is about 5 miles from Levi stadium. Many of the Niner players live south of Santa Clara in Morgan Hill, which is a sleepy little town about half the population of Brandon, with lots of available acreage for large lots and large homes. Mike will be a hour flight from LA, Vegas or Lake Tahoe in the Sierras, or an hour drive from Pebble Beach and Carmel or 90 minutes from the Napa wineries.
What the area also has is tons of investors, venture capitalists and lots of billionaires who love to sniff jocks, and the local stars, like Curry, Steve Young, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice have certainly taken advantage of their cachet to be partners in real estate and investments ventures. I can see that fact being very important to Mike.
Team wise, Mike is the only legitimate receiver on the Niners. They have Kittle trying to come from an Achilles injury and Pearsall has been a disappointment.
Lynch and Shanahan pissed off and chased away both Samuel and Aiyuk over the past few years. Funny thing is the radio is 50-50 on wanting both Lynch and Shanahan gone after this year if they don’t win the SB. Shanahan has the rep locally of being a choke artist.
May 13th, 2026 at 8:45 pm
A trip to Germany to watch the Bucs would be amazing. Hopefully, I’ll be retired from high school football by the time the next international game is scheduled so I can make it.
May 14th, 2026 at 12:48 am
Kenton Smith, you’re a cool dude.
May 14th, 2026 at 5:23 am
3.28. Thanks. And Prost! Zum Wohl!