Tampa Bay Buccaneers Stink It Up with a Throwback Effort

Hopefully the stench on North Dale Mabry is beginning to subside by now.

That odor emanating from Raymond James Stadium is there as a result of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Sunday performance that turned the venue into a sewage treatment plant.

You see, the Bucs' 27-20 loss to Detroit was just plain stinky.

Those who witnessed the stink-fest may have to burn their clothes. It will be the only way to get the smell out.

What the 55,000 or so who shelled out hard-earned money to watch this much-anticipated season opener saw was a throwback game, if you will.

The late, great Lee Roy Selmon was honored before the game, as were the victims of the 9/11 attacks, this being the 10th anniversary of that horrific event.

The Buccaneer players then went out and put on a performance Selmon would have recognized. It looked like something straight out of 1976, his rookie year. Standard game plan back then would be for the offense to be totally non-productive, then make the defense, anchored by Selmon, spend way too much time on the field until it eventually wore down.

Wasn't that exactly how it panned out Sunday?

When you consider the offense ran six plays in the first quarter for a whopping four yards, well, that's 1976 for sure.

To properly put it in perspective, we'll need to go back in time and get one of those humdingers from the late John McKay: "We didn't block real good, but we made up for it by not tackling."

Yeah, that's about sums it up.

In that opening game of the 1976 season, Jimmy Dubose and Louis Carter combined for 12 yards on 15 carries.

In Sunday's opener, LeGarrette Blount only touched the ball five times and had 15 yards.

Head coach Raheem Morris can't be serious.

Perhaps the coaching staff was still in the preseason mode and forgot to come up with a viable game plan for those Lions.

Maybe it was simply Morris thinking he'd just send the guys out there and see how they do, much like he did in the New England practice game.

The Bucs were in the squander mode all afternoon. They did nothing with Sammie Stroughter's 78-yard kickoff return in the first quarter, settling for a field goal.

The only first-half touchdown came courtesy of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who single-handedly put Aqib Talib in position to get the pick-six.

There was plenty of bad news to go around. Detroit had 324 yards at the half, Matthew Stafford read the defense the "Gospel According to Matthew" with 265 yards passing. And that was only the first half, mind you.

The defense was hung out to roast in the sun, forced to spend nearly 22 of the 30 first half minutes trying to stop the Lions offense, led by Stafford and his sidekick, Megatron, aka Calvin Johnson.

Josh Freeman became dehydrated watching from the sidelines, if you can believe that. Good thing he didn't have to spend much time on the field, he might have been carted off by the fourth quarter.

You might remember that Johnson was the man Jon Gruden coveted in the draft a few years back. Just another Gruden wish that didn't come true.

What's most disturbing about all of this is that when someone looks at that final 27-20 score, it might have the appearance of a tight, close game. Heck, there was the Bucs offense with that last-second gasp, the dipsy-do, Keystone Kops, throw-it-to-me laugher as time expired.

If only Donald Penn had 4.3 speed.

When it was all over, you'd hope everyone went home to shower immediately. No doubt the faithful had to feel quite dirty watching the manure that was being shoveled all afternoon by the lads from that building over there on MLK.

No complaints about the NFL blackout rule. In this case, it was merciful.

On site, concessions were half price after the screw-up during the preseason. The Glazers wanted to make it up to their fan base.

So what will they do for the next home game?

The team went out and really screwed things up on Sunday.

How about half price tickets? No, that's still probably not enough.

When the players collect their game checks on Monday, they should simply hand them back and donate them to charity.

That's one way to make the stink go away.