Bucs Flashback Briefly, Then Prepare For a New Beginning

It is interesting how the simple game of football can sometimes provide the greatest instances of irony in an already ironic world.

On the eve of one of the more interesting and mysterious days in Tampa Bay Buccaneer history, the team traveled back to its roots and revealed the creamsicle throwback uniforms that they will be wearing for their Nov. 8 contest with Green Bay.

The Bucs seem to be diving head first into this tribute, even referring to them as the 1976 uniforms. Is that really necessary?

As the organization praised the past and talked about how excited fans were for Bucco Bruce’s return, it appeared difficult to keep the minds of everyone from wandering ahead to tomorrow.

Yes, tomorrow the Bucs will open training camp with a morning session at One Buc Palace and an evening session at Raymond James Stadium. They will also unveil some of the most drastic changes in franchise history.

Nothing says new and drastic like debuting a 32-year-old head coach who was the Buccaneer secondary coach just eight months ago.

Raheem Morris’ every move will be under the close, watchful eye of every caring spectator and Tampa area critic beginning tomorrow morning at 10:15.

Many fan favorites have been discarded including, most notably, the one man who actually wore a creamsicle uniform. The release of Derrick Brooks was shocking to his legions of fans in the Tampa Bay area and will leave an awkward hole in the locker room.

Add in the departures of Warrick Dunn, Joey Galloway, Cato June, Jeff Garcia, and first down machine Ike Hilliard, and many Bucs fans will be flipping frantically through their programs this year to match names with numbers.

The most common question that will bombard the Bucs this training camp is the one with the seemingly taboo “R-word.” Over the next 19 days, the Bucs will dance around the rebuilding question like Emmitt Smith in a teal sleeveless button-up on Dancing With the Stars.

They will say that they are trying to put a championship product out on the field immediately and that this Buccaneer team can contend.

They are lying.

The Bucs are now officially in a full-out rebuilding mode and — gasp — it is long overdue.

Over the last few years, Bucs fans have been tortured by the constant short-term solutions of Bruce Allen, putting Scooby-Doo Band-Aids on wounds that need stitches and time to heal. What with the steady stream of one year contracts and washed up veterans.

“Oh we need depth at running back? I hear Charlie Garner is available.”

“Sign that Tim Brown fellow up to be a punt returner and a team public relations disaster. At least he won’t fumble.”

What the Bucs need desperately is what they are getting right now. Not even the most casual of Bucs fans were fooled by the hopeless wild card runs and first round playoff exits with a team that was going no where. The necessary is being done right now but you will not hear anyone in red and pewter admit it.

If you think that the eye of the critics will stop at Raheem Morris and the R-word, then you must have slept through the month of April.

Josh Freeman, possibly the most despised Buccaneer draft pick since Bo Jackson, will make his big training camp debut tomorrow. Under Gruden, we had his “Raider Guys” and it now seems that under Morris we might have his “Kansas State Guys” that get the upper hand in personnel decisions.

Expect fans to have a short leash of patience hooked onto the wide-eyed rookie quarterback.

Other new faces will be much more happily welcomed. Kellen Winslow, Angelo Crowell, and Derrick Ward will certainly receive great hype from the fans attending practice sessions tomorrow.

It will be interesting to monitor the contributions of this trio along with Byron Leftwich. I personally feel that they were all pleasant additions to the franchise.

This is a season of overwhelming uncertainty.

This will be the kind of season that writers, critics, and analysts love. The season that provides the unknown, spewing storyline after storyline along the way.

Most are clueless as to what we are really going to see out of this Buccaneer team this season and that will leave many fans uneasy.

A new beginning is on the horizon and we are just one day away from its arrival.

Now, back to the creamsicles.

Struggles at Ticket Office Slightly Humble Buccaneer Marketing Tactics

Own The Moment. Own The Tickets.

If you live anywhere near the Tampa Bay Area, you have most likely been bombarded recently by commercials bearing this slogan. Yes, the time has officially come for Malcolm Glazer and friends to tuck their tails in between their legs and begin begging people to buy season tickets, a peculiar task once reserved for the baseball team across the Howard Frankland Bridge.

After roughly a decade of ticket sales coming easily, the mixture of a shoddy team outlook and extremely high prices has finally caught up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

After all, this is the team that, as recently as 2007, flaunted its 145,000 person season ticket waiting list all around town in a Boratesque “You will never get this!” manner. This is the team that once used a lackluster 9-7 season and first round playoff exit as a reason to significantly hike up ticket prices on every seat in Raymond James Stadium. Our family season tickets are now $100 per seat, but who’s counting.

A trip to the Buccaneers website now is a much more “please come watch us play” experience. There are half-season ticket packages, youth ticket pricing, and no long-term contracts. When did Oren Koules and Stu Sternberg team up to take over the Buccaneer ticketing department?

The logical question that most will ask is where did the 145,000 fans that were just dying to get a chance to see their Bucs go? To answer that, you must first assume that that figure is an artificially enhanced one and that the number was manufactured for marketing reasons.

Then you have to look at the obvious. The economy is bad, the team taking the field is very questionable, and the Glazers are not exactly known around town as the most endearing people to fans.

Their cheap ways have agitated many fans and caused many to discard their season tickets. Bucs season tickets have been in my family since 1976 and the times in which the long-term season ticket holders have been mistreated by ownership are numerous.

With many fans in doubt and local blackout threats already making the news, this may be the year that humbles the Glazers’ outlook on the franchise. They have slid by in recent years but this could be the first time that they are truly in over their heads.

Attendance may not be good and, if the team is not performing, it will be worse.

There is definitely a new smell sweeping across Tampa for the Bucs and their executives and it is not a pleasant one. 

How much longer until $1 hot dog days?              

My Thoughtless Journey into Buccaneer Fanhood

Choosing an NFL team can be be an utterly tedious and bitterly defining moment for a sports fan. I always pitied those that were faced with that decision. I never had a choice.

When you are born to a family that schedules weddings, Christmases, and other family functions around Tampa Bay Buccaneer games, picking an NFL team is not exactly a democratic process. When Grandpa is a passionate fan who has had season tickets since the team’s 1976 entry to the NFL and has only missed two preseason games since, you do not objectively evaluate options and decide which team you like the most. 

Being a Buccaneer fan was a de facto title placed upon me at birth. I happily played along. 

With some of my earliest memories taking place at Tampa Stadium, my childhood Mecca which has now become a grass parking lot, I idolized an ever-changing group of NFL misfits while rooting full-heartedly against legends such as Barry Sanders, Brett Favre, and the late Reggie White.

While horrendous attendance figures proved that other Tampanians were discontent with the Bucs, I thoroughly enjoyed watching my creamsicle orange-clad heroes that included Paul Gruber, Kenny Gant, Hardy Nickerson, and a very young Mike Alstott.

Game days were often painfully predictable: unless Green Bay or Chicago were in town, the stadium would be nearly empty and the game would almost always end in a Buccaneer loss. It was a big occasion if Coach Sam Wyche led the team to a victory but there was really no surprise or disappointment after a loss. 

Mentality would change when the hard-nosed but less fan-friendly Malcom Glazer took over ownership of the team in 1995. Tony Dungy was soon brought in as coach for the 1996 season and, seemingly out of nowhere, in 1997 loyal Bucs fans were finally rewarded with a winning season. The team would make it to the divisional playoffs that year and I became further mesmerized by the Bucs when I experienced the final game in what had now been renamed Houlihan’s Stadium, a 20-10 Wild Card victory over the Lions.

The 1997 season sparked a newer, much more highly profiled and successful era for the Bucs. Our philosophies as fans were completely changed as every game now seemed meaningful and trips to the new Raymond James Stadium were intense and nerve-racking.  It was a place that was fully embraced by the stereotype-following new fans who acted as if the Bucs had always been playoff contenders and took victories for granted. 

For me, it seemed surreal that the team that was once irrelevant and that you were constantly ribbed for cheering for, was suddenly a notable NFL franchise. 

There were numerous stories throughout the time. Some of them were incredibly joyful such as Alstott’s many punishing runs or Shaun King’s rise to home town prominence during the 1999 campaign. Others were heart-wrenching and nauseating like the loss of new fan-favorite Joe Jurevicious’ infant son or the simple mention of “The Bert Emmanuel Play” in the 1999 NFC Championship Game against St. Louis.

The crowning moment as a fan came obviously in 2002 when Bucs reached Super Bowl XXXVII and defeated the Oakland Raiders to become NFL champions for the first time in franchise history. Although I still think that I got more of a thrill out of watching the Bucs finally pull through against the Eagles in the NFC Championship on Veterans Stadioum’s final football evening, the Super Bowl gave tremendous closure to the best football season that we had ever witnessed.

The franchise has been on some what of a chaotic decline since their pinnacle moment in 2002. The Jon Gruden/Bruce Allen regime drew much disapproval from fans, including myself, in the years following Gruden’s major breakthrough as coach. They tested the loyalty of their followers by dismissing Tampa mainstays such as John Lynch and Warren Sapp without any form of grace or understanding.

It has been a trying time for the franchise in the last couple of years.  Due to a mix of public criticism and a struggling local and national economy, Buccaneer fan support seems to be dwindling.  The owners that once bragged about their season-ticket waiting list reaching upwards of 150,000 are now being forced to resort to the “buy season tickets, please” commercials and “come pick your seat” days that were once reserved for the baseball team across the bay. 

However, with the foundation that was laid during my early youth, there is no doubt where my NFL fan support will continue to lye. For better or worse, the Bucs are all that we have and whether it is creamsicle orange (which is making a return for at least one game this season) or red and pewter, our support will be firmly behind the team on the field.

After all, I do not have a choice.

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