Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Power Rankings from ESPN Show Toughness of NFC South

The highly-paid folks up there at ESPN have come out with their preseason power rankings and you will be pleased to know that your Tampa Bay Buccaneers are pretty well respected by the gang from Bristol.

You'll also see that the Buccaneers happen to be in the toughest conference in the NFC.

John Clayton, Ashley Fox and some selected bloggers bumped their collective noggins and came up with the rankings. They sure crawled out on a thick limb up there and went with the defending Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers at No. 1. Talk about wearing suspenders with you belt!

The Buccaneers' second preseason opponent, the New England Patriots, check in at No. 2, followed by the team that is going to the Redskins' "Buy Every Free Agent You Can Plan", the Eagles. Then come the NFC South Saints at No. 4, those always-tough Steelers at No. 5, the nemesis Falcons at No. 6 followed by the Jets, Colts, Ravens and Chargers.

The G-men (Giants) are ahead of the Bucs at 11, then come Raheem and the gang.

Not bad, really. Not bad for a team that many have put the "too many question marks" tag upon.

You'll notice in the comments that they say: "It starts with the quarterback and Tampa Bay has a good one in Josh Freeman."

Yes, Freeman's getting his respect around the league and from the way he's been performing in camp, he may be better than good this season.

Still, you look at the NFC South and see how tough the Bristol bunch considers the Saints and Falcons to be.

So maybe Raheem Morris was right on when he said it's all about winning the NFC South.

If these Buccaneers were to do that, there's no telling how well they might do this season.

Oh, sure, forgot to mention those Panthers at No. 30.

So, yes, most likely if you were sitting up there in Bristol, you'd go for the Saints and Falcons then the Bucs. So did they get it right? Well, like they said, these are preseason power rankings.

For whatever that's worth.