Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2010: Welcome To Camp Hope

The doors are now open at One Buccaneer Place. Players are walking in, hopes are high, rookies are wide-eyed and talented.

Hopefully, this will be a far cry from the disaster of 2009—Camp Disaster.

Camp Disaster was a shipwreck beyond description. It made the Edmund Fitzgerald look like a swamped sailboat.

It was chaos of the highest order.

It was a complete waste. It was one drama after another. The futility still burns most of us, but it's something that has to be cast aside.

This is the New World Order. This is hope. This is a rebuilding program in its second year.

If you go back in time, it took the late John McKay three years to build from scratch. In year four, the 1979 Buccaneers were in the NFC title game.

This team has more talent in year two than McKay did in 1977, his second season.

It took the addition of Doug Williams to get things rolling in 1978, and then Doug and friends got on a roll his sophomore year.

Guess what? This is Josh Freeman's sophomore year.

This is a year to watch, and perhaps a year to be patient and understand that six or seven wins would be a major achievement for this football team.

This is the year that Raheem Morris will show if he is truly head coach material. Last year, he looked like a lost soul. This year, camp won't be wasted on some ridiculous Byron Leftwich vs. Luke McCown sweepstakes.

Hopefully, offensive coordinator Greg Olson won't have to be replaced before the season starts. Hopefully, the team will not have to make up plays as they go along in the regular season.

Hopefully, Raheem will not have to fire himself as D-coordinator.

The only drama this year is Donald Penn—and in this case, the Penn will not be mightier than the sword or wallet of the Glazers. His has no leverage for a new deal, and he can only stay away from camp for so long before he begins to put a damper on his career path.

Gerald McCoy will be signed sooner than later. He can begin to show the faithful if he's as good as the contract he'll sign.

And this just in:

Aqib Talib says he's going to behave.

Could it be that he's been visited by the ghost of Christmas future?

"I'm living my dream right now. I can't turn it back to a nightmare," is what he told Tampa Tribune ace columnist Martin Fennelly. "I doubt you'll see any stuff out of me anymore."

Now that sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

Yes, this is a day, a week, a month for hope.

We'll just officially name this 2010 training camp "CAMP HOPE."

Welcome to Camp Hope.

There's McCoy and Brian Price and Arrelious Benn and Mike Williams and Freeman.

No one's been hurt yet. There hasn't been a fumble or turnover.

You get the Miami Dolphins in 14 days. Real football, pads, helmets, tackling, a game with officials.

Go to work, men.

And welcome to Camp Hope.

Author's Note: Faced with the thought of having an untested Demar Dotson protecting The Franchise, aka Josh Freeman, GM Mark Dominik broke his policy of not negotiating extensions and reached agreement in principal to extend Donald Penn. The number could be in the six-year, $60 million range. Also, the Bucs are close to a deal with third round pick Gerald McCoy. Both Penn and McCoy could be in camp Saturday but perhaps no later than Sunday.