Gary Shelton – Three games in, and the Bucs are winless. And helpless. And hopeless. And clueless.

Colin Cowherd – The Bucs offense is the worst offense in the NFL in the past two decades.

Martin Fennelly – We don’t even know if the Giants played well. We couldn’t tell. The key to victory was their plane touching down safely in Tampa.

Bucsstats.com – I had taken for granted for so long that football was supposed to be fun to watch. I mean, of course it was fun! It was football! But watching the first three and a half quarters of this game was like watching a documentary on the history of the tampon. And I refuse to do that again.

Raheem Morris – “We were clearly out-manned today,” he said. “We were beat by a grown man team today, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. They were the better team today, clearly.

Martin Fennelly – The plague year is only three games old, but already the new Bucs head coach is acquiring that faraway stare that comes when worst fears come into view. It’s like the look on Jonny Voight and Ned Beatty’s faces when they get out of their canoe in “Deliverance” and realize those guys with the bad teeth aren’t with the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

John Romano – Get ready for blackouts: Tough call for the Glazers. Do you keep fudging ticket sales so you avoid TV blackouts, or are you better off hiding this team from as many people as possible?

John Romano – Team motto:  No excuses, no complaints, no first downs.

Bucsstats.com – The Bucs sucked so bad and played with such little enthusiasm and life that I deliberately chose to watch something else. I can’t tell you the last time I didn’t watch an entire Bucs game live from beginning to end. I finally did watch the rest toward the end of the evening, just for the sake of completeness.

Ok, it didn’t take me too long to peruse the web for those quotes, because they are plastered everywhere.  I didn’t even dare take the time delve into some good Buccaneers forums, because I know the vitriol contained in those forums would be a bit more hostile.

My turn….

Since beginning to attend Bucs games every week in the late 90′s I have never witnessed an embarrassment on such a grand scale as the putrid display that was on the field yesterday.   The numbers have been rehashed and rehashed over and over at this point, so I’ll spare you a stat session, but there are three that stick out to me.

86 yards of Total Yards, 16 minutes of possession, 5 first downs

Any reader of this site is fully aware of the lack of confidence I have/had in this current version of our beloved Buccaneers, so after the first two losses, I have been uncharacteristically calm.  Yesterday’s though was the real topping on the cake.  I thought it would take me longer before I personally was angry about our ineptitude, but 3 weeks is all it took, or maybe just a 24-0 home drubbing was all it took.

This is what everyone asked for though, hence the title of this post.

Called Out #1 – Steve Deumig

You truly are a moron.  You spent 7 years skewering Jon Gruden to the point that the fans turned on a coach that won 3 divisional titles, 1 Super Bowl and had a winning record.  To me the worst part of it all is, even though you are a moron, and rarely say anything that has any merit (Bucs didn’t offer Albert Haynesworth money, Jon Gruden hated Mike Alstott, talking about the dead football players at sea, etc, and when I say etc, this list is long) you have such a following on the Tampa Bay radio airwaves, that people actually believe the caustic filth that comes out of your fat mouth.   You gave the fans no choice but to hate Jon Gruden,  and once they did on a noticeably vocal level, the Glazers (they’ll be Called Out real soon) had no choice but to make a change.  I hate you Steve Duemig.

Called Out #2 – Tampa Bay Buccaneers Football Fans

Not every single one of our fans falls into this category, and even more acutely, not every fan that wanted Jon Gruden gone falls into this category, but the majority of our fans do.  Bucs fans are not the most knowledgeable in the game of football.  Actually, I would put the majority of our redneck fans in the bottom half of NFL fandom and their intelligence as it applies to NFL fandom.   Most are bandwagon fans, something that I despise more than just about everything on Earth.   What really makes me mad though is the fact that you listened, and were allowed to be riled up by a rambling idiot on the radio, to the point that our owners were forced to listen to your retarded asses.  You are the majority of ticket holders, so they really had no choice.  BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO you Bucs fans.

Called Out #3 – Ownership

If I’m disappointed in the fan base allowing a babbling idiot to influence them, I have no real words to describe how I feel about you guys allowing this same idiot to influence  you.  Maybe you had no choice, by all means, the fans hated Gruden, and so did Jeff Garcia and Michael Clayton, so I guess you had to get rid of the guy!  How could business people with the savvy and acumen that your theoretical resumes contain, allow a bandwagon led fan base, to influence your business decisions?  I am just totally without words to describe how letdown I am at this particular fact.  To top that off though, you made a rash decision on the future of the team.  Were you that worried the Broncos were going to hire a guy in Raheem Morris that was not at all qualified to be a Head Coach?  That could be the only explanation; you saw a coach on your own team, and although he wasn’t ready to lead an organization, you feared him leaving so much that you just handed him and Mark Dominik the keys to the car and just said screw it.   Bryan and Joel Glazer, you make me sad.

Called Out #4 – Raheem Morris

I certainly can’t fault you for getting a job that you were not ready to undertake.  You take those opportunities in life, and you run with them.  Once you became the coach though, and you realized you were over your head, you actually built a nice little staff around you to take away some of the full burden of coaching an NFL football team.  Then your ego got in the way.  Jeff Jagodzinski didn’t want sorry ass Byron Leftwich to play, you did, and instead of having some debate on personnel  with another young and up and coming coach (little worried huh?) you gave his ass the boot.

***Editors Note – I have received an email from one of the few people in the Tampa Bay media who I really respect, and he re-iterates to me with full confidence, that Jagz was fully behind Leftwich and that is not the reason he got fired.  I didn’t want to change this piece, but wanted everyone to know this.***

Regardless, of what their beef was, Jagz was a Raheem hire that 11 days before the start of the season, he bailed on.  This is after an offseason of the players praising the new scheme put in place by Jagz.  Raheem felt threatened a little bit, and made a rash move, which is generally what happens when someone who isn’t quite ready to be the boss, becomes the boss.  You took it a step further even and traded Luke McCown away. Complicating matters even further is the fact that the guy you are “married” to at QB, the guy you traded up to draft, looked so awful at camp, that you can’t even justify him getting some run now that we suck.  You are putting into the game, a guy that Jon Gruden, the same Jon Gruden who all our fans think is the worst personnel manager of all time, drafted for gods sake.   You seem like a nice guy Raheem, although your public speaking skills are awful, but your in way over your head.   Lame Duck coach in year 2, if you make it there.

…

Signs of horrible coaching

1. Running the ball less than 10 times
2. Too many dumbass penalties at the worst possible times
3. Getting less than 10 first downs
4. The unit that you should have coached up the best looks the worst on the whole team (DB’s)
5. Having the Romeo Crennel stare off into space look on your face on the sidelines

Players that looked good against the Giants

Players that looked awful against the Giants

1. Byron Leftwich
   
2. Everyone else

Personally, I’m pining for QB Luke McCown.  I think that McCown’s legs are quite underated and his arm strength is ideal for Jeff Jagodzinski’s new offense.  Of course, Byron Leftwich has similar arm strength to McCown, but a much slower release and Sluggo obviously is lacking in the wheels department.  The one thing Sluggo has on all the QB’s on the roster sans Brian Griese (who wants to be released) is his experience.

Today, Head Coach Raheem Morris might have given us the first glimpse of who has a leg up on the competition.

On Byron Leftwich’s experience in relation to his competition for the starting QB position -

“You’ve got to say it’s an edge, because there is experience, but it’s all going to be determined in the preseason,” said Buccaneers Head Coach Raheem Morris, on which the final decision rests. “These guys have got to go out and do it here. We want to see what have you done for me lately, to be honest with you, so we’ve got to get them out there on the field, let those guys go out and compete in the preseason and be ready to go.”

“You’ve seen why he was a starter in this league,” said Morris. “What he’s done is come in here, he’s got a good grasp of the offense. He knows how to control the huddle. He has some of the intangibles that some of our other guys don’t have without that experience. So that’s what he does bring to the table. He has that swagger, to bring some of that stuff from playing that all of our guys don’t have. That’s what we thought, and that’s what we got. We got a veteran, a young veteran, so we’re happy about it.”

This post is not intended to be callous and disregard Sears health, because that is obviously the first concern, but the impact to the Bucs would be fairly large.  Sears was begining to look like one of the best young gaurds in the game.  Combined with Davin Joseph, you would be hard pressed to find me a better young tandem in the league as far as potential and current ability are concerned.  

If Sears is not able to play, swing lineman Jeremy Zuttah would definitely step into Sears’ place.  Zuttah was a 3nd round draft pick 2007 and has been a very nice fill in for Sears and for Joseph during times of injuries.   I have even speculated this offseason that Zuttah might have gotten a chance to overtake the penalty prone Jeremy Trueblood in Jeff Jagodzinski’s new offense.  He is a very solid player, and will fill in just fine for Sears if it were to come down to that.  

The biggest issue would then be the depth on the offensive line.  Zuttah played every position except Center on the line in college, so having him as a backup is quite a luxury.  The Bucs are really only forced to carry two backup lineman as long as Zuttah is one of those two.  If he is forced to start, Sean Mahan would be the backup interior lineman and one of the few tackles on the roster currently, or a player on someone elses practice squad would have to come in and backup the T spots.  It is possible that depending on the versatility of said player, two T’s might need to be brought in, one to man each side.  This will have a direct correlation on the roster as we might not have the luxury of carrying 4 pure running backs, or 6 wide receivers or 7 or 8 defensive lineman.  

So not only does Sears injury effect the overall product moving forward, the potential for him to be out could have a devastating effect on the final 53 man roster.