Donald Penn Gets Apology from Tampa Bay Buccaneers GM

You can almost imagine something akin to the scene from the first Rocky movie, when the aged Mick is praising Rocky, telling him how great he is, how much he reminds him of another Rocky, Rocky Marciano.

Of course, Mick had found out that Rocky was about to fight for the heavyweight championship with Apollo Creed. He groveled and praised Rocky, to which Rocky simply responded:

"Yeah, but I ain't got no locker."

Perhaps you can visualize Tampa Bay Buccaneer general manager Mark Dominik meeting awkwardly with his left tackle, Donald Penn, prior to last weekend's FanFest at Raymond James Stadium.

"Uh, Donald, listen, about that comment I made, you know, about you being fat and all of that, well, shucks, I was just trying to entertain those suckers, er, I mean season ticket holders and well, I really didn't mean that. I mean how the heck was I to know that some hayseed was in there recording what I said? Heck, I was just joshin, you know. Listen Donald, I'm sorry, I really didn't mean it, I apologize."

And can't you just imagine Donald Penn's response, straight out of the Rocky Balboa school of wit:

"Yeah, but I still ain't got a contract, do I?"

No Donald, there will be no contract for you. Mark Dominik has bigger fish to fry.

Mandatory minicamp goes today through Wednesday, and then you've got basically 39 days to Buccaneer Summer Training Camp, 2010 version.

There are 39 days to try and sign the likes of Gerald McCoy, Brian Price, and Arrelious Benn. Those guys won't come cheap like the latest signings of seventh-rounders Dekoda Watson and Erik Lorig.

No, Dominik has bigger fish to fry, and Penn goes directly to the back burner.

While Dominik was in a mood to eat crow and apologize to Penn, perhaps he should apologize to his bosses, the goodly Glazer clan.

The great Angelo Crowell experiment—and the approximate $2,756,000 of Glazer money that was wasted on the useless linebacker—has ended. Crowell is done, gone, released.

Geez, that took a lot of research, didn't it?

So things are heating up at One Buccaneer Place. That's usually the way it is in July.

There's a lot of hot air outside in Tampa—same on the inside at One Buc Place.