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Bucs Beat: Road Will Be Tougher In '08

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By ROY CUMMINGS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 9, 2007

HOUSTON - If you want to know how the NFL consistently churns out surprise playoff participants such as this year's Bucs, look at the league's scheduling format.

It's the only scheduling format in all of pro sports that penalizes teams for playing well and rewards teams for playing poorly the previous season.

The 2007 Bucs are a good example of how the weak often benefit. The schedule they were handed this year had them playing four games against 2006 playoff participants and was ranked fifth-easiest in the league at season's start.

That schedule since has proven to be as easy as projected. Only four of the 11 teams the Bucs have faced so far (Seattle, Indianapolis, Tennessee and Jacksonville) have winning records.

The Bucs are 1-3 against those teams, but because they are 7-1 against everyone else they are in position to win the NFC South for the third time since the division was created in 2002.

Next year, the Bucs will pay for their latest run of success with a schedule that already promises to be far more difficult than this year's.

As long as they win their division, Tampa Bay's slate will include games against fellow first-place finishers from the NFC West and NFC East, which means they will face the Seahawks again, though this time at home, while also playing Dallas, again on the road.

Both of those teams are headed to the playoffs this year. So, too, it seems are the Green Bay Packers and San Diego Chargers, whom the Bucs also are slated to play at home next season if they finish first.

That's four playoff teams, which is one more than the Bucs faced this year. It figures, then, that next year's Bucs schedule will be a little more challenging than this year's. In fact, it could be significantly more challenging. In addition to the non-division games already mentioned, the Bucs also will play the fast-improving Vikings and the slowly-improving Raiders next year, both at home.

Their non-division road games, meanwhile, will include the Cowboys as well as games against the 2006 NFC champion Bears, the Lions, Broncos and Chiefs.

Throw in the two games they'll play against the still-strong Saints and their annual grudge matches with the Panthers and Falcons and you can see where the Bucs likely will face a far more difficult slate of games in 2008.

That, in turn, could result in Tampa Bay having a much tougher time winning its division and reaching the playoffs, so no one should be surprised next year if the Bucs become this year's Eagles, Saints or Bears.

It's not the way they would want it, but it's the way the NFL wants it and it's the way it's going to stay, at least for another two seasons, as the current scheduling format is slated to remain in place until 2009.

At that point, the league will review the plan and extend it or make some tweaks and adopt a new one. The likelihood, based on how it has created balance and surprise each season, is that it will continue as is.

And why shouldn't it? Though it seems a little unfair on the surface, the scheduling format is one of the big reasons the NFL has obtained parity and why teams such as the Bucs rebound from disaster so quickly.

MONEY MATTERS: The Bucs could be one of the league's big spenders when the free-agent marketplace opens in March. According to figures released by the NFL Players Association last week, the Bucs and Chiefs lead the league in projected available salary cap space.

The NFLPA claims the Bucs and Chiefs both will have "well more than $10 million" of cap space available when the season ends. That's more than twice as much as the league average and at least $9 million more than the two teams projected to have the least amount of cap space (Houston and the New York Giants, $1 million).

It's still a little early to know (or even guess) how the Bucs will spend that money, but you can be sure some of it will go to players such as defensive tackle Jovan Haye, defensive end Greg White and left tackle Donald Penn. All can be come free agents after this year, and the Bucs probably don't want to let any of them get away.

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