Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Green Bay Packers: Bad Bay Against Good Bay

The Battle of the Bays arrives on Sunday at Lambeau Field, and this one's pretty simple to size up. It's Bad Bay versus Good Bay.

Green Bay versus the Bay of Pigs.

I am trying to make a case for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but it is so very, very difficult.

What we have here is a team on a severe downward slide going up against the NFL's best team, which sits undefeated through the first 10 weeks of the season.

These lowly Buccaneers—and that's probably giving them too much credit—are better than a two-touchdown underdog to the 9-0 Packers, and you don't see too many spreads like that during an NFL season.

So, really, what are the Buccaneers' chances?

To think that the Buccaneers can win this game is a pretty tough proposition. Sure, there have been some mighty upsets this season.:

Exhibit A: Jacksonville 12, Baltimore 7

Exhibit B: St. Louis 31, New Orleans 21

Exhibit C: Seattle 22, Baltimore 17

The only one of those three that would even come close is St. Louis. In Week 8, the Lambs, 0-6 at the time, put it on the Saints.

No one saw that coming.

Now, back to this business at Lambeau. After last week's flumboozle at Raymond James, you'd think the simple hope would be that the Buccaneers can at least compete with the Pack and not get run off the face of the earth by Aaron Rodgers and that potent offense.

You've got one of the worst defenses in the league against an ultra-high-powered offense, and that doesn't sound like a formula for success.

So what extreme circumstances could set the table for the upset of the year in the NFL?

You might start with an alien abduction of Rodgers on Saturday night.

You might wish for 14 Green Bay turnovers on Sunday.

You might hope that the Buccaneers forget who they are for four hours on Sunday and simply play over their heads, Never-never Land fantasy football.

And so on and so forth.

But as things stand today, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have proven week-in and week-out this season that they cannot avoid stupid penalties at inopportune times. They have shown that there's a total lack of leadership on this team. Josh Freeman hasn't looked anything like he did in 2010. The Bucs have proven that they'll easily abandon their hopes of running the football and let Freeman and his bad thumb put the ball in the air 40 times.

Now throw in some really pitiful tackling by the defense.

Arrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!

These Bucs of the past several week have shown they've got that formula for failure down pat.

Did we mention that Freeman's receivers lead the NFL in dropped passes?

Great.

Raheem Morris said he'd have his team in pads this week. Yeah, they had shoulder pads and helmets on Wednesday, but shorts? Any serious contact with shorts on?

It will take something out of a Harry Potter movie for these Sucs, er, Bucs to win on Sunday.

The sad part is, these Bucs haven't had any real magic this season. And I'm not sure there's any to spare on Sunday.

But who knows, stranger things have happened.

Watch out for those flying pigs.