The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have played three prime-time games this season. In none of them has Bruce Arians' team played crisply.
With their fourth night game on tap next Monday against the Los Angeles Rams, the veteran coach will change up the end-of-week practice schedule in hopes of getting his players' body clocks better in-tune with the late start.
"We've got to try something because we've had really, really poor starts in night ballgames," Arians said. "We're going to try practicing at that game time [on] Friday and Saturday night [and] do some more stuff, actually, Monday morning than we've been doing. We've got to try something, so luckily we have an indoor facility and we can work at night. We're going to do that and hopefully get a better result to start a ballgame at night."
The Bucs' three prime-time games thus far:
- Thursday night, Oct. 8, at Soldier Field, a 20-19 loss to the Chicago Bears. Tampa held a 10-0 first-quarter lead but fell behind before halftime, and ultimately lost as Tom Brady forgot it was fourth down on the final drive.
- Monday night, Nov. 2, at MetLife Stadium, a 25-23 win over the New York Giants. The Bucs trailed 14-6 at halftime and barely hung-on to beat the then-1-win Giants, who missed a two-point try to tie the game.
- Sunday night, Nov. 8, at home, a 38-3 loss to the New Orleans Saints. It was a wire-to-wire embarrassment for Tampa.
With Monday the Bucs' last scheduled night game of the regular season, Arians is doing whatever he can to help ensure it's better than the previous three outings under the lights.