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TAMPA - In a locker room of athletes, it is a dirty word.
Not that it's lewd. Nor, in other settings, would it be considered controversial. It is merely descriptive in a most unflattering way.
We're talking about complacency.
And how, yet again, it applies to the Buccaneers.
Players, you might have guessed, despise its insinuation. Its suggestion of weakness in character. Or lack of devotion. When one Buc mentioned it recently, he was shouted down by the rest.
It has taken us a while, 10 games and countless breakdowns, to recall the look. Yet, as rationalizations have fallen short and excuses have grown tired, the clues have become increasingly familiar.
It's a lack of discipline. An absence of extraordinary effort. It is players with fat contracts, outside endorsements and little motivation.
You know what it is?
Tony Dungy's world, and Jon Gruden has been sucked into it.
You remember it, of course. The patience in explaining the inexplicable. The repeated criticisms of the indefensible.
Every fall, it seemed, the Bucs would begin slowly. Every season, Dungy would refuse to question the intensity of players. By now, we know he was mistaken.
What Gruden brought last season was a passion, not to mention an offensive game plan, that whipped this same crew of players into such a frenzy that it was February before the cheering stopped.
A handful of months later, that emotion is gone.
Players keep acting as if they can flip a switch at any moment. They keep talking about how they are no different from the team that overwhelmed Oakland in San Diego. They continue to sleepwalk through a season.
As a fan, there is cause to be unhappy with the Bucs this morning. It's not the penalties. It's not the broken coverages.
Here's why you should be angry:
Because the players are not.
No one is willing to stand up and shout. Not to point fingers, but to accept blame. Not to criticize, but to challenge.
If there is anything more infuriating than an excess of mistakes during a game, it is the lack of accountability afterward.
You know which player had the gumption to step up and accept responsibility for his play Sunday? Center John Wade, who is one of the few starters not walking around with a Super Bowl ring. I'm not even sure he played that poorly, but he had enough pride to say he did.
And that's what the Bucs are lacking. Their egos may come in super-sized portions, but their pride can be nonexistent.
Look, this would not be the first team to suffer a letdown after the Super Bowl. You spend a lifetime trying to climb a mountain, you're bound to take a breath at the summit. That's why so few teams repeat.
But why is it so difficult to admit?
Gruden heard a half-dozen synonyms for complacency in a half-dozen similar questions Monday. His answers were long, occasionally humorous, but never definitive. He never said whether he thought complacency was at fault.
But he did not rule it out, as he had earlier in the season.
"I think everyone's looking for a reason," Gruden said. "Everyone's looking for complacency, motivation, hunger.
"Do we have the same mind-set we had last year?"
He did not answer his own question.
And maybe that was answer enough.
It would help if they were overrated. If they did not measure up in some quantifiable way. If they were, say, a second-year team such as Houston.
So maybe they're not good enough to dominate a league two seasons in a row. And maybe the Super Bowl was closer to fluke than fact.
But, folks, they are not this bad.
This team has a half-dozen stars with frequent shopper cards in the Pro Bowl gift shop. This is a team, one of two in the league, that is ranked in the top seven in both offense and defense.
They will boast, at every chance, of their greatness. How this offensive line won a Super Bowl last season. How this defense should be considered one of the greatest in history. How the quarterback is not given his due.
"We're moving the ball and making yards," Gruden said. "Statistically, from a defensive standpoint, I think we're in the top 10. But for whatever reason - maybe it's injuries, maybe it's me, maybe it's a lot of things - we're not executing and performing at a level to allow you to win."
By now, they have grown accustomed to the insults.
The snide and the sarcastic. The profane and the pointless. The Bucs have heard it all before and appear to have ignored it once again.
I have but one insult remaining:
These guys are pretty darned talented.
And can you imagine a more damning accusation of a 4-6 team?