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Tom Jones'

By TOM JONES
Published September 11, 2007

League of the day

For the third straight season, all 16 games of the NFL's Kickoff Weekend were sold out before the local TV blackout deadline. According to the NFL, it was the fourth Kickoff Weekend in league history to have blackouts lifted for all games.e_SClBIdea of the day

Lakers coach Phil Jackson used his Hall of Fame induction speech to call for a radical change in basketball. He is suggesting a bigger court and higher baskets. Yes, it would completely change the game and cost millions to raise the hoop on every court in the country, but he is right. It's time for a change. "We sometimes put our players on too short a court with too short a basket for the way the game is now," Jackson said. "I think the game has to evolve."e_SClBThis week's poll question

Based on Sunday's performance against the Seahawks, how many games will the Bucs win this season?

To vote, go to bucs.tampabay.com.e_SClBThe list

Hey, Tampa Bay football is one of the best in the league at something:

Tailgating.

According to America's Best Football Tailgating Cities Index, the Bucs are seventh out of the 31 U.S. cities with an NFL franchise.

The top 10 tailgating NFL cities:

1. Baltimore

2. Denver

3. Houston

4. San Diego

5. Cincinnati

6. Miami

7. Tampa Bay

8. Kansas City

9. Buffalo

10. (tie) Philadelphia

10. (tie) Phoenix

The Seahawks might have laid out the Bucs on Sunday, but at least we have this over the Great Northwest: Seattle came in last in tailgating. The others in the bottom five: Detroit, St. Louis, New Orleans and Atlanta.

Your two cents

When will Jon Gruden realize that Cadillac Williams is not an every-down running back? Williams wasn't an every-down back even in college, where he shared duties with Ronnie Brown. The problem with Williams, as everybody knows except maybe Gruden, is that he is a poor pass receiver and is vulnerable to injury when used too often. There must be a good reason the Bucs are several million dollars below the salary cap this year. Perhaps the Glazers are saving up money to go after a quality coach and a general manager at the end of the season. Or perhaps they need the money to pay the Raiders to just take Gruden back.

Henry J. Weese

Palm Harbor

Subject: Joe Maddon gets contract extension

This is the manager that wanted to put Carlos Penaon the bench and let Jim Hickey almost ruin Scott Kazmir's career. Two more years of 90 plus losses.

Frank Van Nostrand

Seminole

The ratings game

Neither Williams sister was in the U.S. Open women's final. Neither was Maria Sharapova. Rafael Nadal couldn't keep up his end of the bargain by reaching the men's final against Roger Federer. So what does this all mean? Not surprisingly, television ratings for the U.S. Open were way down.

Ratings for Federer's defeat of Novak Djokovic in the men's final Sunday were down 17.6 percent from last year's Federer-Andy Roddick final.

Meanwhile, Justine Henin's victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova in the women's final Saturday had an 18.8 percent drop from last year's Henin-Sharapova final.

[Last modified September 11, 2007, 00:54:23]