Report: Bucs Play At Bears On “Sunday Night Football” Nov. 8
May 14th, 2026
Bucs will play under the lights in Chicago.
Well, we know when one game is.
“This Joe” hoped upon hope the Bucs would open the season in Chicago, since it appears Bruno Mars is forcing the Bucs to open the season on the road.
The Bears are one of the Bucs’ road opponents this year and knowing the miserable Chicago weather — as the late humorist Lewis Grizzard once typed, “Chicago has two seasons: Winter and the Fourth of July,” opening the season in Chicago would be dodging a bullet.
And it appears the Bucs got a crummy deal. Joe once served seven years working in that town — hated it. Just like Grizzard, Joe just hated the climate. It seemingly never got warm. The traffic, cops regularly pulling you over on fishing expeditions and parochial nature of the locals added to the, um, charm.
Joe vividly remembers a former co-worker there told Joe that annually, around Halloween, Chicago has some of the worst weather of the calendar. And guess when the Bucs play in Chicago this fall?
A week after Halloween.
Per Aileen Hnatiuk of WFLA-TV Channel 8, the Bucs will face the Bears Nov. 8 on Sunday Night Football, seen on NBC.
Given the expected rotten weather and Todd Bowles’ sterling record in primetime games, Joe is already dreading the trip to the Second City.
Joe vividly remembers the night the Bears retired both Dick Butkus and Gayle Sayers’ jerseys. It was Monday Night Football, Oct. 31, 1994 against the Packers. It looked like the game was held in a tropical storm. Complete downpour. Wind was ridiculous.
The only way to tell it wasn’t a tropical storm was the temperature was 40 degrees.