The Washington Capitals are down south on a road trip that won’t bring them back home until next weekend.
After a 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night, the Capitals stuck around in Florida for their day off on Sunday. Instead of just lounging around a pool somewhere, nearly the entire roster made their way to Raymond James Stadium to take in some NFL action between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots.
Former Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden snapped a photo with the Capitals in a suite as they watched the game.
“Washington Caps in town!” Gruden tweeted. “Great guts!! The one and only Ovechkin!!!”
The whole group of Capitals at the game included team captain Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, Martin Fehervary, Sonny Milano, Charlie Lindgren, Ryan Leonard, Matt Roy, Rasmus Sandin, Dylan McIlrath, Anthony Beauvillier, Declan Chisholm, Aliaksei Protas, Logan Thompson, Hendrix Lapierre, Ethen Frank, Brandon Duhaime, Nic Dowd, Dylan Strome, Connor McMichael, and Trevor van Riesmdyk.
John Carlson, Jakob Chychrun, and Justin Sourdif were the only active players not present for the photo.
Gruden’s younger brother, Jay Gruden, was the head coach of the Washington Commanders for five seasons(2014-2019). The elder Gruden resigned from his last job as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in 2021 after it was publicly revealed that he wrote and sent many racist, misogynistic, and homophobic emails between 2011 and 2018.
Ovechkin and other Capitals players have become regulars at Washington Commanders games back home at Northwest Stadium. Ovechkin has previously admitted that he has become a huge fan of football after spending over 20 years in the US.
“When I first came [to DC], I did not understand what baseball, American football is,” Ovechkin said in 2023. ”It took me five to six years to understand at least some rules. And now I really love going to games, I love watching matches. It’s really exciting. They are just machines. They run very fast.”
He added, “I especially love it when we come with a big group before the start of the game, kebabs, burgers. They love to do it all.”
The Capitals saw an exciting game between the Buccaneers and Patriots as the two teams remained within one score of each other for almost the entire four quarters.
Unfortunately, for the home fans, New England running back TreVeyon Henderson snapped off a 69-yard touchdown run with just 1:31 left in the fourth quarter to put the Patriots up 28-16.
Despite Baker Mayfield then leading the Buccaneers down the field for a touchdown drive to bring the score to 28-23 with 33 seconds left, the Patriots claimed the ensuing onside kick and had quarterback Drake Maye kneel to seal their victory.
