OK, I'll bite...
What the @%#! is wrong with my Buccaneers....
Lot's of teeth gnashing around these parts re: the Bucs 0-4 record so far. Hard to 'blame' anybody but as we all the know, the buck stops with the head coach. Gruden is on suicide watch until further notice. As is usually the case when an otherwise talented team does not perform up to expectations, injuries are the main cause. The Bucs have 5 starting wide receivers unavailable. Joey Galloway (received in a trade with the Cowgirls for Me-shawn); groin, out 6 weeks; Joe Jurivicius (fully recovered from a knee injury last year only to injure his back in training camp) out 3 more weeks; last years surprise starter Charles Lee, hamstring, (actually played on Sun., but fumbled to set up a Donkey TD); Edell Shepard (free agent who won a job in camp) knee, out for the season; and last but not least is Keenan McCardell who is under contract for 2.5MM, but refuses to play for less than the 4.5MM he thinks he is worth.
Starting tight end Ricky Dudley and off season acquisition Charlie Garner (a true 1,000/1,000 guy) out for the season with injuries. Draftee/kick returner Mark Jones, out for the season. Frank Murphy, special teams pro/second string kick returner, tore an Achilles on the opening kickoff on Sun.; out for the season.
So now our starting wide receivers are 38 year old Tim Brown, Packer cast-off Bill Schroeder, and rookie Michael Clayton. Tight end is Will Heller. You can see why we have opposing defenses quaking in their cleats.(NOT) Gruden's MO has been to use a wide variety of shifts and formations but with all these new guys it looks like a chinese fire drill sometimes. No continuity. At all.
Defense is playing well enough to win, but they have got to have some help. On Sunday it was painful to watch though. The Bucs only ran 3 offensive plays in the 4th quarter. We punted them down to the ten yard line with 7 minutes to go and they proceeded to run the clock down to three seconds on a long time consuming drive. Key play- stopped them at 3rd and 1 on the thirty only to have a defensive lineman offsides keeping the drive alive. A terrible 30 yard pass interference call keeps another third down play alive.
Coming into this year the expectations were not real high. Most people felt like 8-8 would be about right. 9-7, maybe 10-6 if we got real lucky. That was before the injuries. Hard to say now. If we can get our $&*^ together and get some of these injured guys back we could finish decently but it seems the playoffs are out of the question. We still have not played a division game so even 8-4 from here could give us an outside shot. But I look down our schedule and can't see 4 teams we are going to beat, no less 8.
We've got NO and STL on the road the next two weeks and then CHI at home and then the bye week. If we don't win two out of those three we're toast.
But hey, my seats are on the shady side of the field, they didn't raise beer prices this year and there is a new crop of cute cheerleaders, so I guess there is always next year.
Signed,
A dissapointed, but still loyal, Buc fan.