Playoff Potential: A preview of the 2009 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have posted consecutive 9-7 seasons. One (2007) was the result of resting starters after locking up a playoff bid. The other (2008), was the result of an embarrassing string of four straight losses and a fall from first in the division to third and no playoff berth.

For fans of most teams, the burning question "Will my team make the Super Bowl?" starts hitting call-in radio shows sometime around the third week in February. For Lions fans, the burning question is "Is there room on, say, the Rams' bandwagon?" I've gazed deep into my crystal football, examined tea leaves, and slipped and fell in the shower, hitting the soap dish with my head on the way down and emerged from a two week coma to bring the Bucs' faithful my preseason prognostications.

Drum roll, please.

The Buccaneers will not make the Super Bowl in 2009, but they will make the playoffs. Let's see why.

1. An Improved Running Game

Football experts from Vince Lombardi to the local high school coach will tell you football games are won and lost in the trenches. It's a cliché, but it's true.

The Bucs' offensive line retains big maulers in Davin Joseph, Jeremy Trueblood, Arron Sears, Donald Penn, and Jeff Faine, plus key backups. They are joined by new draftee Xavier Fulton.

Take their intensity for the game and their willingness to deliver a big hit on an incoming defender and combine it with new offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski's zone blocking scheme, and you're already looking at a recipe for success.

Toss in former Giants running back Derrick Ward (182 carries, 1,025 yards, 5.6 average in 2008) to the already-powerful mix of Earnest Graham and a healthy Cadillac Williams and it should be full-steam ahead for the Bucs backs in 2009.

Still not convinced? The Giants ranked No. 1 in rushing yards per game last year with 157.4. Nos. 2 and 3? NFC South rivals Atlanta and Carolina respectively.

New Orleans is now the only team in the NFC South not running zone blocking on their offensive line. Look for them to hang around the bottom of the rushing list as they did last year.

2. Defense Still Dominates

Let's go to another cliché to explain this one: defense wins championships.

Tampa Bay's No. 1 defense proved that decisively in their Super Bowl XXXVII win over Oakland's top-ranked offense.

New defensive coordinator Jim Bates has defensive credentials out the ear, which will help mitigate the post-partum depression caused by Monte Kiffin's departure.

Bates' defensive schemes emphasize man-to-man coverage, which will help ball-hawking cornerback Aqib Talib improve on already-impressive rookie stats (23 tackles, four interceptions).

New head coach Raheem Morris hails from a defensive background as well. His first season as a coach in the NFL was with the Buccaneers in 2002, where he studied under then-defensive backs coach Mike Tomlin.

Astute readers will recognize Tomlin as the head coach of the NFL's stingiest defense (237.2 total yards allowed per game) last year.

Still not convinced? The players picked in this year's draft show the continuing commitment to defense.

Defensive tackle Roy Miller, defensive end Kyle Moore, defensive end turned offensive tackle Xavier Fulton, and cornerback E.J. Biggers are bookended by the only true offensive players chosen: quarterback Josh Freeman and wide receiver Sammie Stroughter.

3. Dumb Luck

Let's be honest, it's difficult to predict the outcome of a week of NFL football, let alone an entire season a full three months before the preseason begins.

And as long as we're being honest, I don't think it's unrealistic to expect a little luck propelling the Bucs to a 10-6 record and a Wild Card spot in 2009.

So, let's have a little fun and make some dumb luck predictions.

1) Luke McCown, who has shown flashes of semi-brilliance in his limited playing time, wins the starting slot in training camp and finishes the season with a quarterback rating in the top 10. This comes mainly from high-percentage, short-yardage passes across the middle to new tight end Kellen Winslow.

2) Michael Vick is reinstated by the Falcons. Arthur Blank finds it easy to give Vick a second chance. Not so for PETA, however, as their protests block every stadium Vick is slated to play in, forcing the Falcons to forfeit all of their games.

3) Turnovers. In some ways the dumbest of dumb luck opportunities, Bates' emphasis on containing the run and creating turnovers should create more opportunities for the greatest of sights in the NFL: a 300-pound defensive lineman scooping up an errant football before lumbering down field for 26 yards and a touchdown. It warms the heart just thinking about it.

Still not convinced? The Buccaneers play in Buffalo for the first time ever in 2009. You know what else happened for the first time ever recently? America elected an African-American President.

Anything can happen, Bucs fans!

After shaking off my fever dream of realistic optimism, I quickly sank into catatonic pessimism.

Before me in my mind's eye I saw the hopes and dreams of a franchise laid to waste.

Here, then, are three reasons the Buccaneers will not win more than four games in 2009.

1. Their schedule is the stuff of nightmares
Let's go right to the numbers.

The Bucs will play only three teams with 2008 losing records.

The Bucs will play 11 games against quarterbacks who put up more than 3,000 passing yards last year, plus Tom Brady.

The Bucs will be forced to defend 11 receivers who had at least 1,000 yards receiving, plus six more who were on the happy side of 900.

The Bucs will play seven playoff teams.

Tampa Bay will have to overcome those numbers without once having back-to-back home games. Granted, their game against New England in Old England is counted as a home game, but when you've got to fly 4,000 miles to go home, how rested can you expect to be?

2. A near-total lack of a passing game
The Buccaneers have had nine unique starting quarterbacks since 2002.

There's no clear-cut starter this season. Why should there be when your choices are ossified Brian Griese, broken Byron Leftwich, hilariously under-experienced Luke McCown, Div. I-AA wunderkind and Jon Gruden vanity draft pick Josh Johnson, and rookie and Raheem Morris vanity draft pick Josh Freeman?

Even if one of those five earns starting honors by means other than being least awful, who is he going to throw the ball to down field?

Two of Tampa Bay's top three receivers (Ike Hilliard and Warrick Dunn) are gone.

Their fourth-best receiver, Michael Clayton, moves to number two by default. His stats last year (38 receptions, 484 yards, 1 touchdown) were the best he's done since his break-out rookie season of 2004 (80 receptions, 1,193 yards, 7 touchdowns), but still a ways off.

The Buccaneers are left with Antonio Bryant and... who, exactly?

3. Dumb Luck

If Lady Luck can smile on Tampa Bay, she can sure as shooting ruin their season, too. Let's see how that might play out.

1) Cadillac Williams could continue to underperform. It might not be fair at this point to call him a bust since he has had to have a third knee installed, but if he can't get back to rookie form, the Bucs' run game will suffer.

2) The Falcons reinstate Michael Vick. Without Derrick Brooks to spy on Vick, he runs wild through a defense that, last December at least, looked porous at best. The rabid (har!) PETA protestors are pacified when Vick poses nude for an animal-rights billboard overlooking the I-85/ I-20 interchange in downtown Atlanta.

3) Turnovers. Of the two Tampa Bay quarterbacks with any real experience under center, neither one has a truly stellar touchdown-to-interception ratio. Let Griese or Leftwich start throwing picks and suddenly you're looking at the worst thing the NFL has to offer: Chris Berman playing highlights going "Whoop!" as a defender flies past a Griese arm tackle.

Misery's the river of the world: a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan reflects

People are always asking me why I support the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Well, maybe not in exactly those words.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Are you high?”

“No son of mine is a Yucks fan!”

A guy in a faux-dive hipster bar in Brooklyn in 2005 insinuated I liked the Bucs only after Jon Gruden arrived and took the team to the Super Bowl. I insinuated we could take the conversation outside if he wanted to see if I bled crimson and pewter.

Actually, I bleed orange and white as a result of exposure to the sun’s radiation reflected a thousand times over off the bleachers in the Big Sombrero at a young age.

How, then, to answer the question? What the hell is wrong with me? It’s simple.

Every American loves an underdog.

I love the underdog, and I really love schadenfreude, a German word which translates to “satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.”

Let me give Detroit Lions fans an example: feeling glum because your team went 0-16 last season? Well, it’s not as bad as 0-26, which the Bucs were across two seasons starting in 1976, their first year.

How can a Bucs fan take pleasure in that misfortune? The Bucs aren’t the Saints or the Cardinals, the first two teams who lost to the Bucs, an act so unforgivable both teams’ head coaches were fired afterwards. Ah, satisfaction.

Eagles fans can forever rest uneasy knowing the Bucs closed out their beloved Veterans Stadium with a playoff win January 19, 2003 and then opened the new Lincoln Financial Field with another win September 8, 2003.

Every team in the league can quake in fear of the "Tampa Bay Curse," which states that any team which loses to the Bucs in the regular season will not go on to win the Super Bowl.

But it’s not all schadenfreude directed at other teams for me. I also take a sick pleasure in seeing the bumbling Bucs.

Up until Michael Spurlock took a kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown in 2007, I could look forward to seeing a graphic on the TV screen telling me this was, say, the 1,779th kickoff the Bucs had fielded without returning one for six.

Other teams have their best seasons led by names like Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, Bob Griese, or Joe Montana. The lone Super Bowl quarterback in Buccaneers history is Brad Johnson, and he was outscored by his own defense that game.

It’s not that Brad Johnson is the best quarterback to ever play for Tampa Bay, either. Doug Williams, Steve Young, and Trent Dilfer were drafted by the Bucs before winning Super Bowls elsewhere.

Vinny Testaverde could have been Tampa’s Brett Favre, the only Bucs quarterback anyone under, say, age 25, would remember playing.

Bo Jackson’s not a quarterback, but don’t get me started.

Those were the bad old Hugh Culverhouse days, but even after his death the team struggled.

Tony Dungy couldn’t coach his teams to a championship.

Jon Gruden coached Dungy’s team to a championship then went 7-9, 5-11, 11-5, 4-12, and 9-7.

The Bucs were 9-3 heading into December last year, but messed the bed, finishing 9-7.

Gruden wound up fired.

Phew. That’s a lot of self-directed schadenfreude.

But isn’t that what fans need? Don’t we need the lows to balance out the highs?

Patriots fans fully expected a return to the Super Bowl at the start of last season, despite posting the worst 18-1 record in sports history the year before. Tom Brady’s knee got blown out in week one and all of Beantown was swearing vengeance on “the fackin’ dahkie who done this to ya, Tawm.”

Steelers fans thought Ben Roethlisberger was set for back-to-back championships in 2006. Everyone but Big Ben will remember 2006 as the year of the concussion for Roethlisberger. Roethlisberger will remember 2006 once stem cell technology allows for repairing damaged brain tissue.

Being a Buccaneers fan keeps my blood pressure down. The wins are so much sweeter when your team is expected to lose. And if they do lose, no big deal, they weren’t supposed to anyway, right?

Despite the rich tradition of losing, I have always been and always will be a Bucs fan. It warms the soul to be a litmus test of terrible for other teams, while providing enough barbs to needle other fans with, and that is truly a unique fan experience in the NFL.

Plus they have a freakin' pirate ship in the freakin' stadium.

5 Questions Somebody Ought to Ask Jerramy Stevens

In the world of sports there are sinners and there are saints. Celebrated saints include Danny Wuerffel, Tim Tebow, and...I guess Drew Brees? On the sinners side, you have Albert Haynesworth teaching us about sportsmanship, Adam "Pacman" Jones giving lessons on meteorology, and Michael Vick educating the public on animal husbandry.

Unfortunately, sportswriters are often reluctant to grill these criminals about their misdeeds. It's sadly understandable, though: ask the wrong guy the right question and suddenly your organization is locked out of practices and games. Or maybe they're just afraid of Haynesworth stomping their faces in.


As a result, the world is full of empty questions and empty information. "Got any mildly inflammatory rhetoric for [hated division rival]?" "How about that [showboating wide receiver all over SportsCenter]?" "Coach, any vague comments on [underachieving first-round draft pick/injured veteran/Brett Favre]?"

What we need is someone with balls.

So these suggested questions aren't for the gainfully employed sportswriter with a pretty face. This is for the guy getting laid off next week. With the economy in the toilet and the newspaper industry crashing and burning faster than the Hindenburg, there's got to be someone out there with nothing to lose. Not me, though; I'm just starting out in the biz.

So to you, the disgruntled reporter facing "right-sizing," I offer you this list of five questions for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Jerramy Stevens. Knock back a shot of liquid courage and dive on in.

1. You played quarterback in high school. Did it frustrate you back then when receivers would drop easy catches like you do now?

2. You've been charged with reckless driving and driving under the influence a handful of times. Your salary is listed as just under $656,000. Why can't you afford to hire a driver or at least call a cab when you're intoxicated?

3. The Seattle Times reported you had some problems with complaints lodged against you from your condominium board including setting off fireworks, having loud parties/fights at all hours, vomiting on doors, double parking, and leaving used condoms on other residents' decks. Does the University of Washington still have etiquette classes?

4. Speaking of Washington, did you have anything to do with the drugging of the girl you raped or was that just you being in the right place at the right time?

5. How do you sleep at night?