Super Bowl LV has officially been set and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will face off against the Kansas City Chiefs. It is an interesting game in a lot of ways. There is the understandable level of history involved as Tom Brady continues to cement himself as the undisputed GOAT. Another layer involved to the upcoming game is that the Buccaneers will become the first team in NFL history to literally host the Super Bowl as the game is taking place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay.
There will be another game happening in that same venue that the Buccaneers will be in later on in 2021, one that we will all care just a little bit more about. The Dallas Cowboys are scheduled to visit the Buccaneers next season as they play the NFC South, and they are also set to play the AFC West.
This means that the Cowboys will play both of the teams playing in the Super Bowl on the road. It will hardly be an easy schedule for a team that finished in third place in their own division.
The mothership outlined how rare of an occurrence it actually is for the Cowboys to play both teams that were in the previous season’s Super Bowl. This will be only the ninth time.
Actually, in 1982, the Cowboys were expected to play at San Francisco and Cincinnati (Super Bowl XVI) but both games were canceled due to the players strike.
Here are the other times the Cowboys have faced both Super Bowl teams in the following year:
1970: at Kansas City / at Minnesota
1973: vs. Miami / Washington
1982: at San Francisco / at Cincinnati (both games canceled)
1995: at San Diego (win) / vs. San Francisco
2010: at Indianapolis / vs. New Orleans
2015: vs. New England / vs. Seattle
2019: at New England/ vs. LA Rams
2021: at Tampa Bay / at Kansas City
As you can see this happened as recent as the 2019 season for the Cowboys and actually happened three times in the previous decade. That was the second time that Dallas played both of the teams in question on the road, the first was back in 1970 when the Cowboys went to the Super Bowl for the first time themselves (a loss to the Baltimore Colts).
There is a lot to figure out between now and these games in 2021, something like who is going to be the reigning Super Bowl Champion that the Cowboys visit.
Who do you have?