After seeing what has worked for the NBA and NHL and what has failed for MLB, 43-year-old Tom Brady’s Buccaneers are planning to use a “voluntary” bubble during the NFL season.
Tampa Bay coach Bruce Arians said on Wednesday that the team is committed to winning as well as preventing COVID-19 from affecting what has the potential to be a very important season for the organization.
Due to both of those commitments, the Buccaneers have copied what the division-rival Saints are doing and rented part of an area hotel for players who “want to remain isolated in a simulated bubble-type atmosphere,” according to The Tampa Bay Times.
“We have a hotel sequestered now,” Arians said. “We can’t force the guys to go, so it’s up to them. We have some veterans over there who don’t live in town, because they know how safe it’ll be and, obviously, we stay there the night before home games like we always have.”
A bus takes players who are staying at the hotel to and from the team’s facility and the organization is taking extra precautions like holding full-squad meetings in a larger space and putting some weights and training gear outside under a tent.
Arians said the team will also be taking preventative measures on the road to stay healthy as well as avoid being penalized by the league for violating protocol.
“When we travel, there’ll be no going to restaurants or going out,” he said. “We’ll be sequestered in the hotel that we’re at, play the game and get home. It’s so much different than baseball where you’re sitting in a city for four days, going to restaurants going out, than it is for us. Very seldom are we in the town for more than 28 hours.”
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