Bucs in a World of Hurt with Saints Marching In

As early as it is in this 2011 season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are staring at the crossroads.

Sunday's game against the Saints is huge. It's huge in the fact that it will tell us just about everything we need to know about this team and its immediate future for this 2011 season.

After that abomination in San Francisco, will these Bucs be able to bounce back? Raheem Morris called his team "youngry" as in young and hungry, but last week they were simply "yousy" as in young and lousy.

Right now it's not a stretch of the imagination to call the Saints one of the top three teams in the NFL at this point in the season.

The Bucs? They're in a world of hurt and here's why:

1. Josh Freeman looks like he could land a starring role if they resurrected the TV show Lost.

2. Mike Williams has decided to take the first five weeks off.

3. Arrelious Benn is on the same program as Williams.

4. LeGarrette Blount is hurt.

5. Gerald McCoy is hurt.

6. Ronde Barber is looking old.

7. Aqib Talib looks like he spent the offseason in prison.

8. Tight end Kellen Winslow simply wants to start a fight with everyone who tackles him.

9. There are no competent safeties on the team.

10. Only Mason Foster looks to be progressing among the linebacking corps.

11. Raheem Morris totally lost his cool in San Francisco.

12. Luke Stocker is always hurt.

Now there's a Dirty Dozen for you.

All things considered, you'd expect the Bucs to simply get blown out Sunday at Raymond James. But if you watch games in the NFL long enough, you'll come to understand that the obvious is obviously wrong.

Hopefully, that's the case for this football team because now is when these guys will be tested physically and mentally but a team that's better on paper and a team that hasn't had its psyche bashed in.

Today is Tuesday, the traditional "day off" in the NFL. These Buccaneers need to do some soul-searching and decide what it's going to be. They can either fold or bow their necks and fight.

This is the first of three games that can sink this leaking Buccaneer vessel.

After this game, the Bucs travel to London to face the Bears. We all know how the Bucs have fared in London. They get a week off after that then go right back into the frying pan in New Orleans.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that this team could lose all three of those games.

It's up to them.

Will they be "youngry" or "yousy?"