Buccaneers to hold scrimmages at Raymond James Stadium prior to season opener

With the cancellation of preseason games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teams across the NFL are being forced to get creative when it comes to preparing for the 2020 regular season, which kicks off in less than one month.

The Buccaneers, for their part, will be holding scrimmages—with a couple of them happening under the lights at Raymond James Stadium—prior to their Sept. 13 season opener in New Orleans, head coach Bruce Arians said Wednesday:

“We’ll have at least one or two [scrimmages] a week, but we’re going to have a game in the stadium. Two of them, actually, so that we’re in the stadium, the lights are on and everything is game ready so we can know the stadium is ready, too. To get in that atmosphere and play a game live, special teams live, offense, defense – we’ll try to do two of those.”

In the absence of live contact against opposing teams, it’s good for the Bucs to get this kind of preparation done, though staying healthy through these “games” will certainly be the main priority—as it typically is in the preseason. If nothing else, these scrimmages will be a good chance for some of the unproven newcomers to shine under the lights, at least for the coaching staff to see.

The team hasn’t announced when these scrimmages at Raymond James Stadium will take place, nor if they will be streamed anywhere. It would be somewhat of a surprise if they were available to watch, though it’s at least possible that there could be some sort of coverage from the folks at Buccaneers.com, similar to what we’ve seen throughout training camp so far.