REAR ENTRIES: Staying Positive

August 26, 2010 at 12:54pm by Scott   •  9 Comments »

STROUGHTER PROBABLY STARTING: We’ll know for sure on Saturday when the Bucs are supposed to take the field with the group that will be starting the regular season, but if they needed to play a game today, it sounds like Sammie Stroughter would be the other starter along side Mike Williams.

“He’s got the most production in the camp, he has the most production in the season,” Morris said. “He’s got the most production off the grass for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.”

I’m so happy for him because he’s done everything the right way. Maurice Stovall was said to have an edge on him, but Stovall’s injury knocked him down a notch. The Bucs brought in Reggie Brown who has great speed and some good experience with the Eagles. They still have Michael Clayton who obviously has incriminating video of the Glazers or perhaps has kidnapped one of their children or something. And Sammie beat them all out despite their athletic or blackmaily advantages.

A lot of you aren’t ready to toot Mark Dominik‘s drafting horn yet, but just make a mental note that a fourth-round rookie and a seventh-rounder from a year ago are the starting wide receivers. We’ll talk at the end of the season about their performance and if Dominik deserves some kudos for his value drafting.

SAINTS CUT MARK BRADLEY: I thought it was dumb at the time when the Bucs cut Mark Bradley because the coaches were talking about using him as a model for route running and he had experience and good hands, but I guess the Saints know a thing or two about wide receivers.

It comes less than three weeks after Bradley signed a one-year deal with the team.

Whether he was originally signed just as camp meat or they really thought he had a chance to make the team, it’s not a good sign for Bradley. But it’s a great sign for the Bucs who obviously knew when to cut ties with him, and that’s pretty much all that matters. How many positive articles have I written in the last couple days? Three or four? Wow, it feels good to sound like a fan again.

WARREN SAPP TALKS HAYNESWORTH: It’s my kneejerk reaction to defend Tennessee Volunteers pretty much regardless of what kind of bullshit they pull. Hell, I’m even 1 for 2 on defending the ones that have actually taken human lives. But Albert Haynesworth is just a ridiculous jackass and his nonsense with the Redskins is indefensible. And I’ve always hated the cheating and orange-skinned Mike Shanahan, so trust me, I was looking for any old reason to be on Albert’s side here, but there’s not any shred of worth to hold onto. Warren Sapp agrees.

“[Albert's] wrong. He knows he is. He’s not in his first year. He’s not in his fifth year. He knows exactly what he’s doing. This is a man who stepped on another man’s face on the football field one time.”

That man was Andre Gurode and that time was 2006, so a lot of people might have forgotten about the incident, but if you start adding all this shit up, Albert is not a good dude. And now that he has enough guaranteed money to buy the Falkland Islands outright (although, who would want to?) he really doesn’t care what we think of him. Or, for that matter, what his boss thinks of him.

“Well, the check isn’t going to change. And that’s the whole key to this situation. He doesn’t care how many plays he plays. The plays that I’m watching he’s just jumping to one side ripping. I mean, he has no awareness of where the ball is. He doesn’t care. So if we’re talking about evaluation of his play compared to the check that he’s getting, he knows what it is. ‘I get eight plays and a big check, that’s not bad.’ It’s wrong, though.”

Fuck-ups like this ruin it for good guys like Barrett Ruud who deserve a new contract but don’t get it because management is scared that they’ll get all soft and doughy and lazy when they finally deposit that signing bonus. Haynesworth is putting in just enough effort to fulfill his contract so he can go on to collect his $41-million guaranteed. And the Bucs almost had this guy. For some reason, even though Tampa offered him more money, he went ahead and signed with Washington. That’s relief along the lines of getting a clean AIDS test after a bachelor party trip to Haiti.

Bucs Need To Give Brooks Love

August 11, 2010 at 01:56pm by Scott   •  3 Comments »

I make a lot of fun of Pat Yasinskas, and I will continue to do so because at any given opportunity, but the piece he did about the Buccaneers’ obligation to Derrick Brooks is absolutely spot on.

The Bucs — and I’m talking everyone from ownership to the front office to the public relations department — have to hit this one out of the park. Seriously, it’s that important. A team that needs to sell tickets and win back its fan base needs the best player in franchise history and it needs to keep him for the long term.

The Bucs need to do this, and not just because of the revenue implications. It’s just the right thing to do.

Multiple people close to the situation have told me there was an attempt by Brooks to come into One Buccaneer Place soon after his release that was blocked from very high levels.

That’s almost criminal. If anyone should have a lifetime pass to One Buccaneer Place, it is Brooks.

If that’s true, that’s fucking disgusting. What did they thing he was going to do, go in there and tear up the place? BROOKS? Honestly, there’s no reason why any former player who was with the team for a season or two shouldn’t be allowed in there. It’s not Area 51 — there aren’t any military secrets or captive aliens to keep hidden. At worst, someone would discover Joel Glazer‘s shoe fetish.

When he walks out of One Buccaneer Place on Thursday, Brooks needs to feel like he’s part of the organization. If this thing comes off as some kind of insincere gesture, Brooks, a man of tremendous pride, is going to walk out of that building for the final time and keep his distance from the team.

Yes, yes and yes. It’s not too late to announce a Derrick Brooks Day as the theme to a home game this season. They did it for Mike Alstott, they should do it for Brooks. I’ll even go one step further and say that if they don’t do something of a similar caliber for Brooks that they did for Alstott, people could interpret it as having some kind of racial undertone as the reason. Not to take anything away from Alstott, but Brooks was a better player than Alstott, period. He was with the team longer and more of a team leader. The only difference in Alstott’s favor is that he retired injured instead of being cut like Brooks. That shouldn’t matter.

It took years after Doug Williams’ original departure for the wounds to heal. The team accomplished that when they brought Williams back as a personnel guy. Then, they absolutely blew that bridge up again when they pushed Williams out the door a few months back.

I live in Tampa and I know this for a fact. Williams walked into a Tampa barber shop recently and was giving away the last of his Buccaneers’ golf shirts and saying he’ll never wear them again. That’s a shame and it probably never should have come to that point. But it has and it’s too late to repair the latest Williams fiasco.

Man, Williams must feel like the Buccaneers’ chew toy. Maybe it’s not all their fault. Williams may have thought he deserved a role with more responsibility or maybe he thought more of his own skills as a personnel man than he should have. You can’t placate a person when it comes to making business decisions. But there was probably a way to salvage the relationship for the sake of Williams’s historical importance to the team and still relieve him of his duties if he wasn’t performing well. There had to have been a better answer than whatever went down to make him give away all traces of his time with the Bucs.

With the throwback games and alumni days and the Ring of Honor, the Bucs have done a great job over the last couple years in embracing their past and keeping long-time fans interested. They can’t fuck up their relationship with Brooks. Lee Roy Selmon won’t live forever and then who have they got as a tie to their successful past? Someone like Al Davis can afford to piss off a Hall of Famer like Marcus Allen because the Raiders have so many other former Raiders who are both successful as players and still loyal to the team. Who do the Bucs have? Warren Sapp says he still bleeds red and pewter, but if there’s one guy whose temperament you don’t want to have to bank on, it’s Sapp. Maybe John Lynch, but I haven’t heard a peep from the guy since he did his retirement announcement at One Buc. Anyone seen Paul Gruber lately? The names run out pretty damn fast in Tampa. The Bucs cannot fuck this up. Stroke Brooks’s ego and keep him close to the franchise.

Derrick Brooks Makes It Official

August 11, 2010 at 09:43am by Scott   •  3 Comments »

Derrick Brooks will officially announce his retirement today on his web site, Derrickbrooks.tv (Really? Derrickbrooks.tv? Evidently, Derrickbrooks.com is available for the reasonable price of $450) and will hold a press conference at One Buc Place tomorrow at 1:30.

Oh… the video is already on his web site. In it, he thanks his head coaches and former teammates. He singles out Warren Sapp, John Lynch, Ronde Barber and Simeon Rice for personal thanks. Then he goes on to thank the ownership and his family. Not a lot of extra information there. He’ll probably open up more tomorrow at the press conference.

We all were pretty sure he wasn’t going to get a crack with another team, and I think that’s just as well. I really didn’t want to see him in another uniform and it would have sucked if he hadn’t done well and then limped out of the league in another team’s colors like Paul Hornung or Johnny Unitas or Joe Namath. He’s up there with all those guys in terms of NFL greatness, and it adds to his legacy that he spent his entire career with one team.

He’ll be part of the Hall of Fame class of 2014, guaranteed. First ballot enshrinement. Now, consider the fact that Sapp may not actually get in on the first ballot when he is eligible in 2013. If Sapp could get in the same year as Brooks? How fucking awesome would that be? I think we’d all have to take a pilgrimage to Canton for that enshrinement.

Congratulations on your career, Derrick. One of the best Buccaneers of all time.

Note To Gerald McCoy: How To Stage A Holdout

July 20, 2010 at 01:49pm by Scott   •  10 Comments »

Donald Penn held a children’s football camp in southern California last Saturday, and included guests like Warren Sapp, Josh Johnson and Tanard Jackson. The kids had fun, a good time was had by all, blah blah blah. That’s not what I’m writing this about. Toward the end of the article, Penn talks about the upcoming season.

“I’m very excited about this season and I can’t wait to get everything started,” Penn said. “This organization did a great job in the draft and I’m very excited to hit the field – whenever that time comes.”

Penn has every reason to dig the team about his contract situation, but he doesn’t. No one would blame him if he mentioned how he thought he was being lowballed, but he never brings it up. Nothing about money at all. It was all positive, complimentary and forward-looking. Consequently, you’re not going to find too many Bucs fans who aren’t on Penn’s side about this. Gerald McCoy and Penn are in similar situations: The Bucs own both of their exclusive rights, but neither is under contract. Both are trying to extract as much cash from the Bucs as possible, but only one of them is explicitly saying so. McCoy will learn how this works eventually, but it still baffles me that a guy with two agents didn’t get the note to publicly keep his yap shut about money matters. Okay, on to the fun stuff.

“Warren was great with the kids,” Penn said. “He was running around with them so much that his shirt was drenched with sweat by the end of the camp. “He was cracking jokes about the old One Buc facility where he had to work out at and saying how the new place was a five-star hotel and he used to work in the two-star hotel.”

The old One Buc Place wasn’t even a two-star. Were you ever in that place? I was… it was a shithole. The weight benches were outside because there was no room. God, that must have gotten hot in July. As the number of assistant coaches increased there was no room to expand, so they divided up offices with temporary walls and had trailers parked out front like an overcrowded public school. But it was good enough to win a Super Bowl. Long live the Woodshed!

“He gave me some advice that I am going to take to heart. The main thing I took from him was Warren saying that a lot of stuff is out of my control and that I need to take care of what I control.”

On NFLN, Sapp generally is of the position that players should just shut the fuck up and play out their contract as agreed. Since Penn doesn’t have a contract, though, I’m not sure where Sapp really stands on this standoff. But Sapp a good guy to get advice from in this regard. Sapp never came across as greedy and was always a guy for whom football was the top priority. As long as Penn keeps following that path, he’ll never lose the public relations battle and the fans will always be behind him.

This all hinges on Demar Dotson‘s performance in camp. If Dotson is even serviceable, I think they wait Penn out until he eventually signs the RFA tender. They know he has to at some point. But if Dotson is obviously going to get Josh Freeman killed, the Bucs may be willing to talk.

The third option that no one is talking about because it is highly unlikely is that the Bucs get offensive and actually sign a left tackle free agent for some low contract like they did Keydrick Vincent. That is what is known as the nuclear option, and if the Glazers actually did it, I would advise them to not answer their door or open any packages addressed to them for a while. That move would heap such disrespect on Penn that the weight of it would undoubtedly cause his brain to snap like the Dr. Jekyll.

Sapp To Tutor New Guys On June 21

May 20, 2010 at 09:25am by Scott   •  3 Comments »

According to a Twitter conversation between Warren Sapp and Steve White (which is where I go to get all my news and weather updates), Sapp will be meeting up with Gerald McCoy and Brian Price in LA on June 21. Seems weird that it wouldn’t be happening in Tampa since Sapp likes coming back to Florida at any opportunity, but this was apparently the best time and place. Maybe Sapp is putting them on NFL Total Access or something. Ooh, I’ll bet that’s it. And they’ll all get on that little fake field that is completely unnecessary because all people do is slowly walk into each other on it while the host mysteriously holds a football that never gets used. Just once I’d like to see a full-speed play on that little field. It could be a pass-rushing demonstration with Jared Allen or something and Fran Charles could play the quarterback and Allen would absolutely hammer him and drive him into the plywood riser and then do that calf roping thing he does. I do not enjoy Fran Charles.

Anyway, even if it isn’t televised, McCoy and Price will be getting the benefit of Sapp’s knowledge and experience on June 21 in LA. June 22? A tour of Mann’s and then they’ll go see Ratt on the Sunset Strip. It’s still 1986, right?

Warren Sapp: Double Agent

May 11, 2010 at 10:41am by Scott   •  7 Comments »

Warren Sapp has made it no secret that he wants to become a regular visitor to One Buc Place during camp and help out the newly drafted duo of Gerald McCoy and Brian Price. And why wouldn’t he? All-time great Buccaneer defensive tackle sharing his years of knowledge and success with the next generation is a great way to continue the tradition. BUT SAPP WAS NEVER A LION! A quote from Ndamukong Suh:

I didn’t have too many football idols because I grew up playing soccer. But as I started getting into football, I really started watching Warren Sapp and Simeon Rice and that Tampa Bay (Buccaneers) defense. I really love the way Warren Sapp played. I actually got to talk to him a few days ago, and he was more than willing to help me and teach me, so I’m looking forward to working with him a little bit, as well as my coaches.

Aww, man. Why does Sapp have to give Suh pointers in a season where the Bucs play the Lions? Now Suh is going to use all those techniques against the Buc offensive lineman and… ohhhhh. I get it. Sapp is going to teach Suh all the wrong shit to do. That makes more sense. If Suh should be taking a step inside, Sapp will tell him to take a step outside. Sapp will show him all the wrong places to put his hands and bad techniques for counter-moves and how to keep his pad level super-high. And then in week 15, Davin Joseph and Jeff Faine will run over him like Gary Shelton through the line at a Krispy Kreme. Very clever, Mr. Sapp.

Sapp Will Shove Leadership Down Their Throats

April 30, 2010 at 09:27am by Scott   •  8 Comments »

Despite his four years in Oakland, Warren Sapp is still a Buccaneer for life and is still invested in the team. That’s why he has committed to helping out the two new defensive tackles, Gerald McCoy and Brian Price, and sharing his trade secrets with them. But it’s not just rushing techniques and game-specific things he’s teaching. Sapp wants them to imitate his dedication to the team. That’s a good bit harder.

“We’re about to see how much does he really love it? You see his enthusiasm, but does that correlate to hours and hours in the office? When you want to go home to Oklahoma, maybe you should want to bring the family to Tampa. Everything he needs is here. Disney is right up the road.”

Sapp had similar thoughts about Price:

“What does Price do coming back and forth to California? (McCoy) needs to be able to tell Price, ‘When I come here, you come here.’ They need to work together and fight as a team.’ “

It’s the same kind of lesson he wanted to teach Keyshawn Johnson but was never able to. Everyone being so dedicated to winning a Super Bowl that you move your entire lives to Tampa so you can be close to work. Everyone practices together, even in their off time. Everyone eats their meals together and watches film together and lives and breathes football. And not just any football — Buccaneer football. That kind of cohesiveness is what made the Bucs defense a well-oiled machine for a decade.

The offense has that kind of guy on it already. Josh Freeman isn’t kidding about being the best he can be. Before this rookie minicamp starts today, Freeman will have already put three months of practice in with assorted receivers and backs — even when coaches were prohibited from helping him. I don’t know if he got in guys’ faces like Sapp did and demanded their loyalty and dedication, but he got guys to show up one way or another. Can McCoy and Price be those guys for the defense?

The veteran purges over the last couple years left the defense with only Ronde Barber as a veteran leader. And he’s got his quiet determination and “lead by example” methods that some people respond to, but Sapp’s “Fall in line or get the fuck out” philosophy is decidedly more effective. It’s pretty cool that even though there’s not much leadership on the roster, a leader from the past can come back to fill the gap.

Let’s Talk About Trading Back Into The First Round

April 15, 2010 at 09:38am by Scott   •  3 Comments »

In this Times article about the Glazers not putting any financial constraints on the war room team, Mark Dominik says this:

“We’re in a lot of strategic planning as we go right now in terms of how to maximize our ability to take advantage of the talent in this draft, at the same time understanding we must do so,” Dominik said.

And then in another Times article, the focus is on reflecting on the 1995 draft and how the Bucs hit pay dirt with Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks in the first round.

“I firmly believe that the 2010 draft is as critical as the ’95 draft was for the Bucs, just from the standpoint how talent-rich the draft is,” said general manager Mark Dominik, who was hired as a 22-year-old scout a few months after that draft.

“In ’95, it turned out to be a good draft, but no one took advantage of it in the first round better than the Bucs did. This draft class, to me, has more talent throughout. … It’s why we’ve spent an exorbitant amount of time preparing for this class.”

Not to go all Florio on you here, but are these hints that the Bucs are considering using their two second-rounders to trade back up into the late first round? They would be getting two players instead of three, but the second round hasn’t been so kind to the Bucs lately. Dexter Jackson was a colossal bust, Sabby Piscitelli has been disappointing, and the team currently doesn’t know if they like Jeremy Trueblood or Barrett Ruud enough to keep them around beyond this year. That doesn’t happen as much with first-round picks.

I’d really like to see them make that move for LB Sean Weatherspoon (Missouri), but I don’t think the need is great enough at linebacker for them to actually pull the trigger on it.

A move back into the first would almost guarantee getting WR Golden Tate (Notre Dame), although the third and fourth rounds should still be stocked with quality talent at receiver (Eric Decker (Minnesota), Mardy Gilyard (Cincinnati), Riley Cooper (Florida), Jordan Shipley (Texas), Mike Williams (Syracuse)) — maybe they think the draft is deep enough at receiver that they can pass on one until the third.

What about safety? Eric Berry will be gone before they can trade back up, but Earl Thomas (Texas) may still be there. Mike Mayock calls him the most instinctive safety he’s seen in years.

In case Arron Sears doesn’t come back, they could probably snag the top guard in the draft, Mike Iupati (Idaho), by trading back up into the 20s. But is it really worth making that kind of splash trade only to get a guard? Guards are important and all, but if you’re going to make the move, it should be for an “impact” player.

My guess would be a defensive end. Derrick Morgan (Georgia Tech) will likely be gone and some poor sap will have already taken Jason Pierre-Paul (South Florida), but either Brandon Graham (Michigan) or Carlos Dunlap (Florida) could still be hanging around. Everyone knows that the Bucs’ war room loves Florida Gators. Dunlap is physically gifted and when he plays to his potential is nearly unblockable with one man. But he has maturity issues and been known to take plays off and not put forth a lot of effort in practices. Graham, on the other hand, is a super-hard worker with excellent intangibles, but is a little short with stubby little T-Rex arms. He has learned to use his leg strength to gain leverage because he’s not an elite athlete like Dunlap.

If the Bucs are going to trade back into the first round, I’d put my money on one of these guys. If off-the-field issues are dealbrakers for the Bucs these days (Santonio Holmes, Brandon Marshall, etc.) then Graham is the guy. But if Morris is confident that he’s the one that can get through to him and turn his career around, they could take a chance on Dunlap. Your turn in the comments.

Sapp Fell For The Pussy Trap

March 31, 2010 at 10:33am by Scott   •  1 Comment »

Luther Campbell, who you may remember as the mastermind behind classic songs like “Throw the Dick” and “The Fuck Shop” as the leader of 2 Live Crew, has some advice for Warren Sapp: Don’t fall for the pussy trap.

I’ve taken guys to the club to show them how it unfolds: A big-time professional athlete has his own VIP table. He’s buying bottles left and right. A group of girls will parade back and forth until he invites them to join him. A girl will start talking to him, telling him she doesn’t know anything about football or basketball or whatever sport he plays, how she is not a party girl. That’s the one you have to be leery of because she will do the one-night stand and the next day expect more, like a relationship. And when the athlete tells her he is not interested, she hollers rape!

How is it that the chicks that pull this don’t just disappear? You’d think that with the amount of money these athletes have that they’d just pay a dude to follow them around everywhere with a bottle of chloroform and a rag. As soon as the rape threat comes out, your boy goes to work. Then in a couple days you’re answering questions like, “Did she tell you where she was going?” instead of ones about rape and jail and all that unpleasant shit.

Famous players fall for the pussy trap time and again because they want to believe they are in control. It doesn’t work that way. The woman has the advantage. Look at Tiger. All of his mistresses turned on him as soon as they found out he had more than one girl on the side.

Yes, Tiger is quite the victim. Who could have predicted that banging several dozen ragged out porn queens and Waffle House waitresses and texting them about how he was going to fuck them in the ass then smack them around would come back to bite one of the most popular and media-saturated athletes in the world? That ain’t a pussy trap; that’s pussy suicide.

Then you have the gold diggers who have children with superstar athletes and use the kids as tools for revenge. Trust me — I know. I learned the hard way. I have kids with three different gold diggers. Those women are the worst.

I feel ya, Luther. Right now, I have the children Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson left behind after they used me to get out all their own sickest, deepest carnal desires. They each arrived in designer baskets at my doorstep with a terse note pinned to their knit Versace caps. YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS YOU WHORES!

Anyway, whether or not you believe the pussy trap story, you have to acknowledge that there is an increasing number of accusations that come out against athletes that are never followed through on for one reason or another. Campbell mentions Sapp, Michael Irvin and Kobe Bryant in this article alone. And this is Irvin’s second unsubstantiated charge for this kind of thing. You know the men aren’t completely innocent in these situations. After all, they’re men. But it’s starting to get suspicious. Maybe this should have been filed under documentaries instead of comedy.

No Charged Filed Against Sapp

March 24, 2010 at 12:54pm by Scott   •  1 Comment »

Whatever happened between Warren Sapp and whoever it was he was accused of slapping/choking either wasn’t a crime or never happened at all. Either way, Sapp has been cleared of any wrongdoing and will not be charged.

Sapp, who was not present in court Wednesday when the charge was dropped, said via text message: “The State Attorney’s office declined to file charges. BS is over!”

This is an important distinction. He didn’t say that charged were dropped. He said they were never filed. It’s not that the State Attorney’s office filed charges, started doing their research and ran into a snag or something. They never even went through the process of claiming a crime had occurred. Legally, this is a total non-event.

According to a prosecution memo, further investigation uncovered problems with the victim’s account. For example, she told police that a man helped her walk down a hotel hallway, but surveillance video shows her walking with the man unassisted. She also told investigators that she had trouble walking after the alleged attack, but surveillance footage shows that she walked without a limp.

“Victim gave sworn testimony that she was in excruciating pain from the moment she fell on her knee and was teary-eyed while in the lobby moments after the incident,” the memo states. “However, there is a security witness who observed the victim giggling with an anonymous man, as well as walking in high heels without any trouble.”

Sapp was removed from Showtime and the NFL Network because of this. He should be re-instated immediately, with a story on each network specifically exonerating him. And I should also apologize personally to both him and the woman he was photographed with who said she had proof he didn’t do anything wrong. I guess I just assumed he was guilty because of his reputation with fans for being a belligerent ass. It’s lazy and sloppy to make that connection and I shouldn’t have gone so far with the story. Sorry ’bout that.