Written by Rick Stroud at TampaBay.com
It’s a Hard Knocks life for the Bucs.
All indications are that the HBO sports documentary series, in conjunction with NFL Films, has chosen to go to training camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The team has scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m. Wednesday for an undisclosed ‘major announcement.’
However, for the past several weeks, everyone from co-chairman Joel Glazer to general manager Jason Licht and head coach Dirk Koetter have been bracing – if not embracing – the inevitability that they would be chosen for Hard Knocks this year. Both Koetter and Licht will be available to the media Wednesday, the team said.
“I know I’d embrace it,’’ quarterback Jameis Winston said Monday when players reported to off-season workouts. “You’ve got to cherish the opportunity that you’ve got. The whole world gets to see how great of an organization this is and see the great people that we have within the organization. But our job is the play football. They add the glitz and the glamour and all that comes with it. It’s an amazing show, but we’ve got to play football. We’re out there doing it for the fans, we’re out there doing it for the city, and Hard Knocks – they’ll just show the whole world.”
Winston, one of the NFL’s ascending young quarterbacks, clearly will be a primary focus of the series in Tampa Bay.
He was a polarizing No. 1 overall selection of the Bucs in 2015 after winning a national championship and Heisman Trophy at Florida State. But off-field issues dimmed his accomplishments and viewers may get a different view of the charismatic leader of the football team.
What’s unknown is how the Bucs, which at one point last season was the fifth-youngest team in the NFL, will handle the intrusion and distraction that a production such as Hard Knocks presents.
A 30-person NFL Films crew will have unencumbered access into the players’ and coaches’ meeting rooms, training rooms, team hotel rooms and practice fields. All told, they will record more than 1,500 hours of footage over the course of the five-week series.
“I’ve said it before, I feel good about our team and the maturity, especially for being a young group,’’ Licht said. “I know we have some great personalities on our team starting with Jameis, Gerald (McCoy) –the list goes on and on, [linebacker] Kwon [Alexander]. The fans would get an inside look at how our team really is. I know that you guys get a better feel than most, but I think the fans would get a real inside look at how we operate, how the players are. In terms of being a distraction, I think we’re wired to where we would be able to minimize that. Dirk has been through it. Mike Smith has been through it and I’ve heard positive things from them.”
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