Tuesday Afternoon Linebacker

Thirty-two seasons. 37,000 return yards. 511 games. The second most historic thing to happen to the Bucs occurred this past Sunday. The soon-to-be immortal Micheal Spurlock took the ball from the 10 and into the history books. Oh yeah, the Bucs captured their third NFC South Championship.

ManyOne Happy Returns

I can feel it kids; this is the year we get a kickoff return for a touchdown.
–TALB, October 3, 2007

I’m going to relish in that little prediction there for just a smidge. Now, how do we go about getting Spurlock into the Hall of Fame directly? Can we skip the retirement part? Maybe the waiting period? Something? Now watch the Bucs run one back with regularity. I mean, it was this craziest thing in sports. How do you not return a kick for a touchdown after 32 years? In hockey it’d be like never having a player register a hat trick. Or a basketball team that’s never made a half-court buzzer-beater. A baseball team without a grand slam. As you’ve probably read by now, both the Saints and Dolphins returned their very first kick-offs for scores. The Bucs long ago put sub-40-degrees, the Eagles, and a host of other bugaboos behind them. This was the one last traces of the Bucs’ history of futility. And in 13 seconds it was finally erased.

Genius? Really?
I do so enjoy this. It’s wrong, I know, to revel in the mis-fortunes of others. But let’s face it, Rich McKay isn’t really that bad off. Sure his job sucks. And his former employer has been doing better than his current one since he left. But at the end of the day he is moderately famous, and not to mention wealthy beyond anything you or I are likely to ever experience. But every time we smash his Falcons it makes me smile.

I’ll be the first to admit that I once thought pretty highly of Rich McKay as a GM, but look at this:
The Glazers made the call to hire both Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden. Rich McKay would rather have replaced Dungy with Marvin Lewis. And right now Lewis’ Bengals are the off-the-field laughingstock of the NFL; hardly the kind of “character” type that McKay was supposedly going after. McKay was the man who hired both Jim Mora and Bobby Petrino in Atlanta. That alone might lead to the conclusion that Bryan and Joel Glazer are much better judges of coaching talent than Rich McKay ever was. But wait, there’s more; the Glazers’ coaches have led the Buccaneers to 4 division titles, one conference title, and a Super Bowl victory. Whilst McKay’s hires or would-be hires (including Marvin Lewis) have amassed exactly two division titles and a single playoff victory. But you might also want to praise him for his aplomb at managing the salary-cap. But then you’d have to also remember that the Bucs had to wade through the proverbial “salary-cap hell” through the last couple of seasons. Paying the price for McKay’s “brilliance” at simply moving money around to later years.

The more time that passes, and the further down the Falcons slide, the more I realize that Rich McKay is not the genius GM that he’s made out to be. And while Bruce Allen may not be Einstein himself, he’s at least been able to repair the cap damage done by McKay.

Unvictorious
Every autumn a group of players gather. They await the day when an NFL team, pure of spirit and true of heart, will match their feat. These men are the players from the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The only team in NFL history to finish a season with zero victories. This past Sunday the Miami Dolphins notched their first win of the season over the reeling Baltimore Ravens. Box wine was poured and thrift store Twinkies were passed about as these gridiron greats celebrated that, for one more year at least, they would remain Unvictorious.

Fantasy Playoffs
The Rusty Trombones were bounced from the first round of the BJFL tournament. The final score was Harold The Greek 91 - Rusty Trombones 69. If the ‘Bones take anything positive from this playoff disappointment it would be that the “optimal” line-up would still not have been enough to defeat the Greek, and that their 69 points would have defeated all but one other team in the tournament during the first round.

This sorry state was precipitated by Tom Brady’s gaudy 0 point effort. But he wasn’t alone in his futility in Week 15. Tony Romo managed -1, and Peyton Manning only made it to 9. Next week the ‘Bones will face the Angy Pirates in the consolation bracket and a chance at 5th place. There’s no money there, but since the BJFL uses an inverted wrap-around draft, the closer I finish to either end the better my selection.

Running Items
None this week. I’ll revisit the Super Bowl after Week 17.

Next Week: Bowl-a-palooza