Winston speaks, and players practice at One Buc Place
When the Buccaneers make a big play to get across midfield, radio voice Gene Deckerhoff has been known to exclaim “we’re in business!” On Thursday at One Buc Place, it was back to business. The first practice of 2018 training camp did not come with fanfare. The hype and high expectations that had become a staple of Buccaneers football in recent years is entirely gone from Tampa Bay at the moment.
That may seem like a bad thing, but in fact it was a refreshing look for the Buccaneers to come into camp and just have to go about their business. Nobody is asking questions about the playoffs right now, and that absence allows the Buccaneers to get down to the hard work of preparing for football season.
Pro sports in general are about adaptability, but none more than the NFL. A team is really put to the test when they have to resort to Plan B or even C. There is enough talent in the league that just about every team will look good if they’re able to play the way they planned to play. What a team does when they cannot play their preferred style is what separates contenders from also-rans.
If there is a silver lining in the Jameis Winston suspension, if there is a positive takeaway, it is that the Buccaneers are forced to work on Plan B from the very start of training camp, knowing that they will be without their starting quarterback for the first three games of 2018. While Winston was often the first quarterback to take a snap…
