Columns

Bucs halfway to nowhere

By GARY SHELTON
Published November 6, 2006

TAMPA -- This, then, is what the scenery looks like halfway to the outhouse.

An offense half-stumbles throughout the afternoon, and the secondary looks half-hearted, and the game plan looks half-witted.

Yep, this is halftime, all right. A season is half-dead, and a football team is half-miserable.

And from here, the next question seems fairly simple:

Do you think the Tampa Bay Bucs will win again?

Ever?

The plunge of a franchise from a cliff reached the midway point Sunday afternoon, and from the looks of it, there is going to be a large splat by the end. The Bucs were bullied by the New Orleans Saints 31-14, and in keeping with a theme, the game probably kept you half-interested.

Halfway? This was halfway to orange jerseys and Old Sombreros and the half-crocked days of Hugh Culverhouse. There for a while, I thought I saw Rod Jones in coverage.

Let's recap. The Bucs could not cover, and they could not run. They could not rush the passer, and they could not move a first-down chain. They could not compete, and they could not answer why.

Most of all, they could not provide any hints that any of the next eight games will be different.

The most frightening realization this morning is how close this team is being 0-8. In one of their victories, a 62-yard field goal beat the Eagles; in the other, an arguable roughing-the-passer penalty enabled a last-second touchdown to beat the Bengals.

Save for those two gifts, there is nothing halfway about the wretchedness of the Bucs. They are an unraveling team that seems to forget its basics by the week. This week, the secondary looked like four guys chasing the same cab. It was as if the Bucs had never seen a forward pass before and couldn't quite decide if it was legal.

Drew Brees hit his first 11 passes, and there on the sideline you had the feeling that Jon Gruden wanted to yell at his front office when he realized that Brees was his for the asking in the offseason. Brees was exactly the kind of quarterback the Bucs needed, tough and smart and competitive.

The Bucs, we must assume, have this to say about that: Oops.

On the other hand, the Bucs went three-and-out on their first six possessions Sunday, continuing that we'll-play-when-we-get-around-to-it eagerness that has filled the pregame locker room all season.

Look, it should embarrass the dickens out of the Bucs to get outperformed by the Saints this completely. While the Bucs were 11-5 last season, the Saints were stumbling through a 3-13 season. They have a new coach. They have a new quarterback. They have receivers no one in the NFL has ever heard of. And they are 6-2 and having the season the Bucs had planned on.

Perhaps you might have expected some outrage in the Bucs' locker room. Maybe some insight. Instead, you saw the glassy eyes of perplexed players.

Away from the cliches, however, you get the idea the players really don't have any idea what is going on. Is it focus that leads to the staggering number of botched assignments? Is it motivation that leads to the stagnant look of a game plan that goes nowhere? Is it coaching? Is it effort?

The cold truth of it, and the last thing an athlete will ever say out loud, is this: The Bucs aren't talented enough.

A locker room would prefer to talk about missed opportunities and close plays, of course, because if you admit you aren't talented enough, there are no adjustments to make.

Yet, look around. The safeties are worse than the offensive tackles, and the tackles are worse than the defensive ends, and the defensive ends are worse than the guards, and the quarterback hovers from promising to puzzling, and so on it goes. The subs have not stepped up, and the stars have not stood up. For instance, defensive end Simeon Rice had two tackles Sunday afternoon even though he was playing against Zack Strief (rhymes with "Had never played in his life").

Now that the silly part of the schedule has arrived, where are the wins?

Do you see the Bucs winning at Carolina? At home against Washington? At Dallas? At Pittsburgh? Atlanta? At Chicago? At Cleveland? Seattle?

How? Do you see the Bucs running the ball? With this offensive line? With Cadillac Williams averaging less than 30 yards a game the past two weeks?

Do you see them throwing the ball? Bruce Gradkowski had those two drives Sunday when he was a combined 9 of 12 for 122 yards, but on the rest of the day, he hit only 9 of 19 for 63.

Do you see them shutting down someone defensively? Outcoaching someone? Outlasting someone?

Or do you see them staggering around, the way they travel these days?

You know, half-lost.

[Last modified November 6, 2006, 05:15:26]