Buccaneers Round Table: Chris Baker Apologizes to Fans

James Yarcho

At this point, I find any apology from a member of the team or coaching staff as meaningless. This team shows no heart, no passion, no desire. That said, I feel Baker was genuine in his sentiment and that shouldn’t go unnoticed. Baker hasn’t had a great season by any means. We all, as fans, expected more out of him and I can guarantee the team and Baker himself expected more, too. This season hasn’t gone according to plan for anyone involved.

I appreciate Baker reaching out and doing what he did. He didn’t need to address the fans. He didn’t need to apologize for the team’s lousy first half of the year. He could’ve ignored it completely and gone about his life like most everyone else. Instead, in less than one season as a member of the team, he felt so bad for those of us that live and die with this team every week that he felt the need to reach out.

As usual, you have the idiots yelling at him to stay off social media and study film or his playbook or whatever. I hate that. Fans act as if the only thing these players are allowed to do is worry about football. These players have lives, families that don’t revolve around the game. How many people have terrible days or weeks at their job and when they get home, all they do is focus on the job they just left? Not many. I can promise you that. Don’t sit there and go off on a player because he’s posting about a dinner he and his wife are on or he got his car back from a custom job or anything like that. They’re people. They play football as a job. They have lives. Get over it.

So no, I don’t accept any apology from any Buccaneers player or staff member. Dirk apologizes. Jameis apologizes. It rings hollow. In this case, however, it seemed from the heart and I respect the move.