The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will make history on Sunday as the first team to host a Super Bowl in their home stadium, but several advantages point to the visiting Kansas City Chiefs.
Jake Arians, the son of Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians, loves that the NFC Champion team will be staying in town.
“I love the fact that they don’t have to travel. It’s like what Tom Brady said. We get to eat our own food. We don’t have to eat hotel food or have to travel,” Arians described on the Locked On Bucs podcast. “We get to sleep in our own beds. We will be at our practice facility and in our locker room.”
The Bucs will benefit from not having to travel, but this is far from a home game.
Many of the COVID-related adjustments to this year’s Super Bowl minimize the effects of the home-field advantage the Chiefs must overcome.
“The NFL is in charge of the turf for the game so it’s a different grass than what you have played on all year. You should still know what it is. It should be perfect, but it’s still going to be a little bit different. The fans are going to be split and there’s only 22,000 of them,” Arians said on Locked On Bucs. “And this COVID year is, I think is, a huge detriment to the home team. You have family coming in town and there are all these NFL rules about when you need to get tested and when you need to get there and all this stuff that you have to deal with. The Chiefs don’t have to deal with that. They are flying in on Friday and didn’t have to do the media day in person. I think that is a huge advantage for them.”
This will be the first game this postseason that the Bucs will play inside their home stadium, Raymond James Stadium, after traveling to Washington, New Orleans, and Green Bay.