The Tampa Bay Buccaneers opened their 2023 preseason on Friday night with a 27-17 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers that represented the first time under the NFL lights for roughly a third of the roster. In Week Two they'll have even more attention from the lights and cameras as they head to New Jersey for a week with the New York Jets.
The Buccaneers and Jets are due to square off at MetLife Stadium on Saturday, August 19, with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET. That won't be the two team's only interaction of the week, however, as the Bucs will head up early in order to conduct two joint practices with the Jets at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center on Wednesday and Thursday.
This is particularly notable because the Jets are this year's subject for the long-running and popular HBO Series "Hard Knocks," which debuted this past week. The Buccaneers will be tangential subjects on the series, of course, but this will mark the second time that HBO's insider look at training camp has captured the team's action. The Buccaneers were the main subject of the show in the summer of 2017.
As for the game, the Buccaneers will be looking to clean up their play after an opening-week loss to Pittsburgh that included 12 penalties for 127 yards, most of them on offense. Veteran quarterback Baker Mayfield got the start in that game and completed eight of nine passes for 63 yards and a touchdown, and third-year man Kyle Trask will get his shot at the opening snaps next Saturday. Mayfield and Trask are in a head-to-head competition to capture the Bucs' starting job in the aftermath of Tom Brady's retirement.
The Buccaneers may also choose to give a little more work to their front-line players after holding out the vast majority of their starters on both sides of the ball in Week One. Either way, fierce competition continues at a variety of spots on the depth chart, most notably within a receiving corps that has little experience behind Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Russell Gage. Young players Deven Thompkins and Trey Palmer and late-spring addition David Moore made a good early impression in the loss to Pittsburgh.
