You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!

June 18, 2009 at 03:07pm by Scott   •  2 Comments »

The Buccaneers had their paintball outing today in lieu of an actual practice, and by all accounts it was a major success. You kind of got the feeling that the bowling and movies were losing their appeal in the previous regime. But put rapid-fire guns in the hands of physically gifted, jacked-up athletes who are professionally aggressive? Welcome to flavor country.

Near 11:00 a.m., for instance, the undefeated squads led by [Adam] Hayward and General Manager Mark Dominik agreed to a six-on-six battle in an arena named X-Ball. Running north to south and completely enclosed in mesh, the arena featured about eight rows of large, inflatable obstacles.

The article makes a joke about this, but someone needs to tell linebacker Jamall Johnson, who certainly qualifies as camp meat, what a CLM is and why he shouldn’t be committing them against his general manager whose job will be to cut guys just like him in two months.

Young linebacker Jamall Johnson had nailed Dominik in an earlier match, and then proceeded to pump 10 more paintballs into Dominik’s prone back before letting up.

Some guys even brought their own equipment, Gaines Adams going so far as to buy his just for this occasion.

“I went and bought a gun,” Adams admitted. “Those guys had guns, so I went and bought one. But I was just having fun. This is about team-bonding with the guys and I’m just having fun today. [The competitiveness] is what you get out of football players but we all know it’s fun. It’s got a good purpose. We took a day off of mini-camp, and I want to thank Ra for that.”

As you can see above, Josh Freeman didn’t bother wearing protective sleeves. Because when you’re an athletic, big, giant human walking the planet, you don’t have to. But somehow the tough guy look is lessened by what appears to be a fanny-pack.

The Bucs don’t meet again officially until July 31 when they’re required to report for training camp.