The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, fresh off their 32-9 NFC Wild Card Round victory over the Philadelphia Eagles Monday, will face the Detroit Lions on the road this Sunday with a spot in the NFC Championship Game on the line.
Temperatures for the contest call for a high of 22 degrees and a low of eight degrees. Fortunately, the Lions play their home games inside the cozy confines of Ford Field and the weather won’t be a factor. But apparently, that isn’t quite as common knowledge as one might assume.
Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles, addressing the media Tuesday, was asked about steps his team was taking to get acclimated to the chilly temperatures in Detroit this weekend. Bowles, poker face and all, listened to the entire question before dropping a truth bomb.
“You do know we play indoors, right? They got a dome,” Bowles told the reporter. “No. Nothing planned. We’re indoors and we only have to be outside for 20 seconds getting off the bus… so we’ll be OK.”
That they will and it is, in fact, a big break for Tampa Bay to be playing in a dome, seeing that their neighbors down south had trouble in sub-zero temperatures in Kansas City this past Saturday.
Buccaneers continue to thrive playing the underdog
Regardless, the Buccaneers will be the underdog, as they have been all season long. Picked by many to be one of the worst teams in the league following the retirement of quarterback Tom Brady, Tampa Bay won the NFC South for the third consecutive season. At one point, they were 4-7, but rattled off five wins in their last six games to secure the top spot in the division.
Bowles credited his bunch for weathering the storm throughout the season and staying together through the ups and downs.
“You’re going to go through adversity in the NFL,” Bowles said Tuesday, via ESPN. “You’re not going to go through unscathed. Very few teams go through 17-0 and they win every playoff game and win the Super Bowl. You’re going to have to learn some lessons. You’re going to have to get mentally tougher. That comes with chemistry.
“The culture we created here, the chemistry they developed in training camp and minicamp — as long as you go through the downs together, you’ll come out of it together, and these guys have stayed the course.”
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