Our Ship Needs Repair: Mutiny On Board the 2009 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

I’ve seen the best and worse in Tampa.

I’ve sat comfortably in a near-empty Tampa Stadium, and took to the streets with a Super Bowl-charged heart.

I’ve seen the Devil exorcised from Tropicana Field and a complacent orange become red in a new-found passion for football.

We’ve taken steps forward as a sports city, but now—I fear—we may have to take a step back. Maybe I’m saying this because I'm also a fan of the St. Louis Rams, and have become cynical after seeing the Greatest Show on Turf become a travelling Vaudeville show, full of slapstick but absent of comedy.

Any Buccaneers fan by now is probably telling me to screw off, mentioning the Rams and all. After all, the Rams did steal a championship from the Bucs in 1999.

Such things are not soon forgotten—even though it has been 10 years.

This isn’t about the Rams—no, that would be an insult to Tampa fans. I only mention the Rams as an example of what can happen when changes are made in the office and coaching positions.

Goodbye Jon Gruden, thanks for maintaining Tony Dungy’s troops long enough to win a championship. I’ll tip my hat to you, but will stand for a round of applause to Monte Kiffin.

This is the reason why everyone should be concerned for the 2009 Buccaneers—without Kiffin’s knowledge reaching the players directly on the sidelines, I tremble and cringe at what might lie in stowage for the Tampa defensive.

Goodbye, Cato June, Ike Hilliard, Joey Galloway—all pivotal to the team for the last couple of years. But most of all, goodbye Derrick Brooks, the most idiotic move the team could have made. Who will lead the young bloods this year—Gaines Adams, Jermaine Phillips, Barrett Ruud? Sure we still have Ronde, but come on, let’s be real here.

A smile graced my face when I heard that John Gruden was released. I liked the fire he brought to the team, but with all the politics regarding the personnel issues—namely, his one-night stands with various quarterbacks—I was happy.

But then, I thought, damn—who will replace such a force like Chucky? Raheem Morris has been with the Buccaneers his entire career. He has nurtured a spot among the top passing defenses for the fifth time in six seasons in 2008 and one can only hope that he will have the same kind of impact on the team as a whole.

He is defensively minded, though, so I have little doubt in the Buccaneer offense's continued struggles in trying to stand and walk on its own.

Once Gruden left, I thought the whole mediocre quarterback craze was over.

We finally got rid of Garcia, who I felt never again lived up to his resurgent year in Philadelphia—but I wouldn’t dare say it was a fluke.

But then the question arises, we’re without a quarterback as well as a coach—but wait, you say, you have plenty.

Let’s run down the list, in no particular order: Luke McCown, Byron Leftwich, Josh Johnson, Brian Griese and Josh Freeman. It’s going to be a shootout that I'm afraid won’t hit any target.

I’m interested to see what Josh Freeman will do, but with 26 interceptions in his senior year of college at Kansas State, I don’t feel so assured. The last thing I want is for the long-repressed memory of history to repeat itself in Tampa, in that hopefully Freeman won’t become another Trent Dilfer—who I remember constantly found the opposing team more in important situations, or really in any situation, than his own team.

We can talk Byron Leftwich, but I won’t buy it. One of the main reasons why Jeff Garcia was ineffective and constantly thrown to the ground the past two seasons was because of a young line.

I keep waiting for Jeremy Trueblood to consistently lock down the edge of the box at tackle, and for Davin Joseph to create an impenetrable middle of the line at guard.

Unless they round out their game to play four full quarters worth of a wall, I can see Leftwich rocking back and forth with his face in the dirt all too soon. Leftwich can be promising if he doesn’t get touched, but like Samuel Jackson in Unbreakable, he always seems to shatter just as he begins to amaze the crowds.

So what kind of year is it going to be? To tell you the truth, this is the first year since ’96 where I’m not looking forward to opening kick-off. I don’t wish to deflate—in fact, I hope I’m proven wrong.