With one week of OTAs to go and then a three-day mandatory mini-camp to follow, the Bucs are nearing the end of this early summer phase of the offseason. Following mini-camp from June 16-18, the team will be off for about a month before coming back together at the AdventHealth Training Center for training camp in late July.

By that point, the focus will be firmly on preparations for the upcoming season, with the three-game preseason slate also serving as a big part of that. And the head coaches of two of those preseason opponents have confirmed that their teams will be holding joint training camp practices with the Bucs ahead of their scheduled exhibition matchups.

Jets head coach Aaron Glenn told reporters at New York’s OTAs that his team will come together with Todd Bowles’ squad for two practices before the Bucs and Jets open up their respective exhibition slates.

The Bucs and Jets are scheduled to play each other in Week 1 of the preseason, with the game kicking off Friday, Aug. 14 at 7:00 p.m. at MetLife Stadium. With the game taking place on a Friday, perhaps that sets up for joint practices on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Bucs and Jets previously held joint practices together in 2023, though the vibe will be much different this time around for both teams. Back then, Tampa Bay was working through a quarterback battle between Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask and was facing some uncertainty in its first year without Tom Brady. Meanwhile, New York was riding high, having just landed Aaron Rodgers in hopes of fixing its long-term quarterback problem.

Former Jets HC Robert Salah and Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: USA Today

This time around, there’s no Rodgers. He’s heading into the final year of his NFL career, which is also his second with the Steelers. Instead, it’s former Jet Geno Smith who is back in green and white after a short-lived stint with the Raiders.

Not to mention, Robert Saleh is also not around from those 2023 joint practices. He was fired in 2024, spent time back in San Francisco as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator and now enters this season as the new head coach of the Titans. In his place in New York is Glenn, who has already matched up with Bowles and the Bucs in his one year as New York’s top man. The two teams faced off in Tampa during Week 3 of the 2025 season in a game that saw the Jets nearly pull off the upset only for Chase McLaughlin to hit a game-winning 36-yard field goal as time expired.

For the Bucs, there are a lot of the core pieces still in place from that 2023 preseason. However, there are two massive names who will not be there from back then. Of course, that would be Mike Evans (now with the 49ers) and Lavonte David (now retired). This is a bit of a new-look Tampa Bay team in 2026, even if a lot of the main veterans are still suiting up in red, white and pewter.

While Glenn’s Jets and Bowles’ Bucs are set for two practices together ahead of the preseason opener, it’ll be interesting to see if both come to fruition. Back in 2023, the second joint practice between the two teams was canceled.

Bucs Will Also Have A Joint Practice With Jaguars In Jacksonville

Pewter Report previously reported that the Bucs were working on these joint practices with the Jets, as well as another joint practice with the Jaguars two weeks later in the leadup to their preseason finale in Jacksonville.

Following his own OTA practice last week, Jaguars head coach and former Bucs offensive coordinator Liam Coen confirmed that his team will have joint practices with all three of its preseason opponents. That obviously includes Tampa Bay.

The Jaguars’ joint practice has been in the works for a while now, as Coen told Pewter Report at the NFL Annual Meeting in March that the two teams were lobbying the NFL for both a preseason game and a joint practice.

Jaguars head coach Liam Coen – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Mark J. Reblias

The exhibition game obviously worked out, as the two sides will do battle on Friday, Aug. 28 with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m. With that in mind, the joint practice would likely take place on that Wednesday, Aug. 26.

There was quite the uproar in Tampa when Coen left to become Jacksonville’s head coach, especially with the way it went down. Ultimately, a financial offer that was too large to refuse as well as the ability to hire his own general manager led to him taking the job and leaving the Bucs after one wildly successful season with Baker Mayfield and the offense.

There might be a perception that there is bad blood between Coen and Tampa Bay with the way everything unfolded, but that is not the case. Coen is actually best friends with new Bucs offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, and now the two will have a chance to catch up in Jacksonville this August.

With the game on Aug. 28 being the preseason finale for both teams, it’s unlikely that the starters will feature much, if at all, that night. But with a practice together two days earlier, the regulars will have a chance to compete against each other, which should be a treat.