The Raiders should have a beef with their 2019 schedule. The Buccaneers could raise a similar complaint with the NFL.
Like Oakland, Tampa Bay will go six consecutive weeks in the first half of the season without playing a true home game. The lone contest as the designated home side will be a game in London on Oct. 13 vs. Carolina. Two West Coast trips bookend the stretch.
NFL SCHEDULE: Dates, game times for every team
Put all the travel together, and the Bucs are looking at approximately an 18,000-nautical-mile odyssey (by comparison, the Raiders will log at least 20,000 miles on their sojourn). It's true that most of the miles will be navigated via charter airplane and the Week 7 bye will help serve as a reset, but those are small consolations.
The itinerary, with estimated round-trip mileages:
- Week 4 vs. Rams in Los Angeles: 3,750 nautical miles
- Week 5 vs. Saints in New Orleans: 964 miles
- Week 6 vs. Panthers in London: 8,796 miles
- Week 7: BYE
- Week 8 vs. Titans in Nashville, Tenn.: 1,240 miles
- Week 9 vs. Seahawks in Seattle: 5,040 miles
Worse, none of these games figures to be easy. All but the Panthers had winning records in 2018, and Carolina finished 7-9 after a second-half collapse. The first two games of the stretch are against last season's NFC championship game participants.
BENDER: Who made the Raiders' schedule?
For a team with a new coach (Bruce Arians) who wants to win now and coming off a 1-7 road record last year (same as Oakland), this combination of games would seem to be a most unwelcome development.
The other six teams that are playing in London this year (Bears, Bengals, Jaguars, Panthers, Rams and Texans) will not encounter this situation; they'll play at least one home game a week or two before or after their London trips.
