Sunday the Patriots are taking part in the third regular season game in London, part of the NFL’s on-going efforts to grow the league’s global popularity. Tickets for the contest sold out almost immediately. The locals are said to be treating it like a UK Super Bowl.

“Now that’s a little different for us,” nose tackle Vince Wilfork responded when advised of the importance that UK fans were putting on the game against the Bucs. “Obviously that’s the last game of the season and that good stuff. But for the fans, they can…I understand why they say that. We’re here to put on a great match. And it’ll be fun.”

Wilfork is well aware of the impact of this week’s game for the potential global future of the NFL and even said he’d be open to the league holding a real Super Bowl in London.

“I think it’s real important,” Wilfork said. To come here and playing in front of a crowd like this is amazing. I don’t know what to expect. But I know the game is going to be sold out. There are going to be a lot of fans out there cheering. They might not know who they’re cheering for, but it’s going to be a loud stadium and playing in Wembley it’s going to be pretty exciting.”

Reports in London this week indicated that the NFL could have a pair of games or more in the city annually in the coming years, while Patriots Owner Robert Kraft expressed his support of putting a permanent NFL team in London within the next decade.

What do New England’s players and coaches think about such an idea of a team calling London home? Of potential annual road trips across the pond?

“Would I support it? Yeah, whatever the league wants to do,” Bill Belichick said before going on the praise London specifically. “But I love coming to London. If you have to play a game across the ocean I’d rather play it here than a lot of other places I can think of.”

And could Tom Brady envision himself, theoretically, as the quarterback of a team based in London? Or even Paris or Madrid?

“That’d be some hell of a road trips,” Brady responded with a smile. “That would be challenging. Whatever the league needs to do. But I don’t see that happening any time soon.”

Maybe the person with the best base of knowledge about the fans’ thirst for NFL action in Europe is Patriots rookie and German-born tackle Sebastian “Sea Bass” Vollmer. He certainly sees the NFL games in London as a positive step with a potential greater impact down the road.

“When I first started playing football over here the interest wasn’t as great,” Vollmer said. “But now I think the media coverage picked up [and] a lot of people know about certain teams and players. Games like these are going to be great. When I was growing up I always wanted to see an NFL game, but you can’t really afford to just fly over to the States to do it. So I think it’s going to be great. And I think if some first-timers watching the game, it might start a fever and fall in love with the game.”