Falcons-Buccaneers: Tampa Bay Fails To Launch in Season Finale

Surely it was a bit much to ask.

With good tidings and cheer, could it all come to a robust end for the Buccaneers? Could they possibly finish with three straight wins?

The Atlanta Falcons said “NO” with an exclamation point.

There was little firepower from the Buccaneers in chilly Raymond James Stadium on Sunday. Almost none came in the first 30 minutes that sent them stumbling to a 20-10 season-ending loss to the Falcons.

There was no carryover from the marvelous play in New Orleans a week ago.

Sure, it started out right for those Bucs. An Atlanta fumble on the opening kickoff led to a field goal and a 3-0 lead, but that was the extent of the good news in that first half.

Thirty minutes and 52 total yards of offense later, the Bucs trailed 10-3 at the half.

This team showed it has made huge improvements from the season’s first half. Instead of getting blown out, Raheem Morris’ guys worked themselves back into the mix and tied it up with less than 12 minutes left in the game.

Then it was an old problem that resurfaced and doomed the outcome.

You saw the problem as he ran all over the defense in the second half. The problem was Jason Snelling, who had a career day in the process. He ran over and through Raheem’s defense for 147 yards on 25 carries.

It was the Falcons dominating the final 10 minutes to end any hopes of a fourth win.

So these Bucs are done.

They are 3-13, and now the real questions will come.

This interesting, agonizing season will lead to an even more interesting offseason.

Will Morris be the head coach of this team in 2010?

Will Mark Dominik still have a job?

Which players can pack their bags and head elsewhere?

It will all unfold in this new year. And goodness knows 2009 was one rough ride for the Buccaneers. 

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Falcons-Buccaneers: Tampa Bay Fails To Launch in Season Finale

Surely it was a bit much to ask.

With good tidings and cheer, could it all come to a robust end for the Buccaneers? Could they possibly finish with three straight wins?

The Atlanta Falcons said “NO” with an exclamation point.

There was little firepower from the Buccaneers in chilly Raymond James Stadium on Sunday. Almost none came in the first 30 minutes that sent them stumbling to a 20-10 season-ending loss to the Falcons.

There was no carryover from the marvelous play in New Orleans a week ago.

Sure, it started out right for those Bucs. An Atlanta fumble on the opening kickoff led to a field goal and a 3-0 lead, but that was the extent of the good news in that first half.

Thirty minutes and 52 total yards of offense later, the Bucs trailed 10-3 at the half.

This team showed it has made huge improvements from the season’s first half. Instead of getting blown out, Raheem Morris’ guys worked themselves back into the mix and tied it up with less than 12 minutes left in the game.

Then it was an old problem that resurfaced and doomed the outcome.

You saw the problem as he ran all over the defense in the second half. The problem was Jason Snelling, who had a career day in the process. He ran over and through Raheem’s defense for 147 yards on 25 carries.

It was the Falcons dominating the final 10 minutes to end any hopes of a fourth win.

So these Bucs are done.

They are 3-13, and now the real questions will come.

This interesting, agonizing season will lead to an even more interesting offseason.

Will Morris be the head coach of this team in 2010?

Will Mark Dominik still have a job?

Which players can pack their bags and head elsewhere?

It will all unfold in this new year. And goodness knows 2009 was one rough ride for the Buccaneers. 

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Buccaneer Win Was Homecoming Joy for a Tampa Hero

It was the treat of the year to see the underdog Tampa Bay Buccaneers take down the high and mighty New Orleans Saints last Sunday.

It was an even bigger treat to see the face of one of our nation’s finest react to his team’s great victory.

Meet Major Earl Bedford, 172nd Infantry (Task Force 1-2), veteran of four tours in the fields of Iraq.

It was a joy to finally have him home. A huge reception of friends and family welcomed him with open and loving arms while the Bucs pulled the surprise of the year on the Saints.

Earl Bedford, field call sign “Black Hawk 20”, is a Tampa guy. He’s an unwavering fan of the Buccaneers and all things Tampa. His friendships were forged on the playing fields of Port Tampa, Robinson High School, and Florida A&M University.

He is a member of this Bleacher Report community as well.

He had his hands full Sunday with his mom (Irene), wife (Janice), and his children Chanice (14), Yovan (10), Kierra (5), and baby Pearl, who is a year old.

With another 80-100 people showing up to welcome him home, Bedford had to catch portions of the Buccaneer action and rely on some of us to call him over as things turned in favor of the Bucs.

He was the man of the hour; you could see it on the face of his wife, mother, and all those with him as they rejoiced in his return. He has returned with a Bronze Star, awarded to him for his courage and leadership in combat.

And he’s seen way too much combat. He thanked his mother and wife, “for being patient and keeping the faith. I stayed strong because of her (wife Janice). I can’t imagine what she was going through and can’t imagine what my mother was thinking when she hadn’t heard from me in a while.”

He presented them with the “black scarves” of the 1-2 Infantry. It is their unique addition to their uniforms and a tradition from the Vietnam combat era.

Then the Bucs presented Earl with a victory.

It was a thriller in overtime. A stunner, to say the least.

But in many ways, it seemed less important than the work Bedford has performed.

You see, he’s a member of the real “team of the decade”; that would be the United States military.

Major Earl Bedford is weary of combat. He’s spent the equivalent of three years in harm’s way.

And it was a mortar attack on his company headquarters at 4:30 one morning that was “the last straw.”

He lost two of his men in that attack.

Look in the face of a combat veteran and you can see the toll it takes.

But Earl Bedford is now home, in Tampa, back with those who have prayed for him and are now overjoyed to be back with him.

He’ll be at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, pulling for his Bucs when they face Atlanta.

Sure, the Bucs want to win for embattled coach Raheem Morris on Sunday.

But if they knew Major Earl Bedford, they’d want to win for him too.

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Loss to Jets Simply Unwatchable

Behold the natural progression for the 2009 Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

Bad, worse, terrible, horrible and finally, unwatchable.

The Buccaneers lost their 12th game of the season Sunday at Raymond James and this one was beyond description. It was simply unwatchable.

But we watched it, didn’t we?

Don’t tell us you need to see the film, Raheem Morris. You need to tell it like it is.

This was deplorable at best. As in 26-3 deplorable, horrible and just plain putrid.

Don’t drum up any excuses for us, Raheem. You cannot fool us. You simply cannot.

If it waddles and looks like a duck, and quacks, it’s a duck and this is one dead duck of a football team. They call it a professional football team but this Buccaneer squad has become a professional folly. It is a joke and it showed on Sunday.

It’s almost too bad to believe: 81 yards passing? FORTY-THREE yards rushing? You fired Jeff Jagodzinski and gave us this?

Shame on everyone at One Buccaneer Place.

Those grinches we call the Glazer family should immediately refund every season-ticket holder the price of this so-called ball game they paid for Sunday.

It would be the right thing to do.

Suffice to say that it is very difficult for an NFL team to play an entire half without a first down. These Buccaneers did exactly that.

And rubbing their Pewter noses in this pile of manure was none other than Thomas Jones, the running back Tampa Bay cut loose a while back. He ran for 99 yards and two touchdowns. The announcing team on CBS referred to him as “one of the dominant backs in the league.”

And the Bucs gave up Jones and drafted Cadillac Williams? Sure you can blame that one on Gruden and Allen, but there may be enough blame to go around this franchise for quite a while.

It was quite a while before the Bucs got that initial first down Sunday. It took a personal foul penalty by Bart Scott of the Jets to get it for them.

Hopefully you missed this one. It was 19-0 at the half and the Jets had more points than the Bucs had yards on offense.

The Buccaneers were being humiliated, not by rookie hotshot Mark Sanchez, but by the greatness that is Kellen Clemens, backup extraordinaire. He spent the first half trying to figure out how to hit the broad side of a barn with his passes. Still, the Jets had the Bucs closed out after 30 minutes of football.

So here are your Pewter Pirates, squatting in the corner of a 1-12 season and urinating upon themselves.

They looked helpless out there.

Somebody throw these guys a lifeline.

They need it.

They seem beyond help and simply unwatchable.

But this team is like a train wreck. It’s a disaster, but you can’t help staring at it.

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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers Are Horrible and No One Cares

And so it has come to this in Tampa:

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a horrible football team and at this point, no one really cares.

No one cares because the harsh reality of preseason predictions of oh so many observers have become true.

In fact, these Bucs are WORSE than most expected.

Tampa Bay has grown oh so tired of the ramblings of Raheem Morris.

Indeed, Morris admitted recently: “until this team improves in certain situations, we won’t win games.”

A 1-11 record will do that to even the most optimistic.

These Bucs are horrible at best.

Tampa Bay fans are forced to live on the dogma of “the improved defense” that Morris now oversees. All that does is show how incredibly stupid it was to hire Jim Bates.

The sins of this young coach and his sidekick Mark Dominik hit Tampa Bay fans in their collective faces every week.

Rookie quarterback Josh Freeman show promise with his size, speed, arm, and poise. But his late season presence only shows that he probably should have been named the starter from the day he walked in.

Michael Clayton is as horrible as he ever was and shame on Morris for believing he isn’t.

Shame on this coaching staff for putting their only Pro Bowl player, Clifton Smith, on kickoff coverage teams. They knocked him right off the team and onto the injured reserve list with another concussion.

That’s the way it has gone for this awful football team. 

Sunday the Buccaneers play a lousy New York Jets team.

On paper, it’s another game the Buccaneers have a chance to win.

Home game, no Mark Sanchez, better defense, and perhaps Freeman won’t throw five picks again.

Only problem is: Does anyone really care?

There are so many other things to do this time of year.

Pulling for these 1-11 Buccaneers isn’t one of them.

So now the Bucs will duke it out with St. Louis to determine the league’s worst team.

Cleveland took a step forward Thursday night with its upset victory over the slumping Steelers.

One and eleven.

It sounds oh so horrible.

That’s because it is.

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Buccaneers Draw A Blank In Red Zone

The great news is that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers amassed 469 yards of total offense Sunday afternoon in Carolina.

The dreadful news is that the now 1-11 Buccaneers could not score a touchdown against the 5-7 Panthers.

This was a game we thought the Bucs just might have had a chance to win, what with backup quarterback Matt Moore starting for Carolina and DeAngelo Williams, Buc Killer Extraordinare, on the sidelines.

Carolina scored the game’s only touchdown on that first drive of the contest then watched its defense take over to format the 16-6 victory that was a stinker to watch.

Josh Freeman exercised his healthy arm often, throwing the ball 44 times. He found his guys 23 times but sadly completed five, his jersey number, to the Panther defenders.

Five picks by the big guy, three in the red zone that killed potential scores.

No doubt head coach Raheem Morris will shower us with all the positives from this game, just as he has in the previous 10 losses.

But this one was hardly a work of art.

Sure Cadillac Williams nearly got himself 100 yards rushing. He settled for 92 after 17 carries, but it wasn’t enough. He needed some yards in that frustrating red zone, where the Bucs could not operate.

The two Conner Barth field goals were all the Bucs had to show for the day. He missed two others, including a mere 36-yarder, and looked nothing like the guy who hit those three bombs against the Dolphins. He looked more like a guy the Bucs found on the street, which, incidentally, is exactly where they found him.

Sure the Buccaneer defense continued to play better, but Carolina ran for yards and hit some big passes when needed. And the sad fact is that they only needed that one touchdown.

Such is the life of these Pewter Pirates of Raheem Morris.

Such is life at 1-11.

That’s the bad news.

Good news is there are only four games left for this team.

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers Suffer Heartbreak In Atlanta

For 59 minutes and 37 seconds, Raheem Morris coordinated and his Tampa Bay Buccaneers put forth one great defensive effort in Atlanta.

It was that 23 second mark that sent it all down the drain.

With just 23 seconds to play Sunday in the Falcon-Dome, backup quarterback Chris Redman fired one laser of a pass to Roddy White and the Buccaneers had their hearts broken.

Heartbreaking was the 20-17 final tally that spelled the 10th loss of the season for Tampa Bay.

It was heartbreaking because Morris showed why he should have been the defensive coordinator for this team, and perhaps not its head coach.

The return to the old “Tampa Two” was a breath of fresh air for this trampled defense. The Jim Bates nightmare was gone.

There were no long bombs by Atlanta, there were no long runs, in fact, not much running at all. Atlanta managed just 75 yards on the ground. It’s not a misprint. SEVENTY-FIVE yards rushing, not 275!

Six sacks and constant pressure on the quarterback. It was enough pressure to get Atlanta starter Matt Ryan out of the game after the first series.

Yes, the breaks were going Tampa Bay’s way. Ryan out with an injury and running back extraordinaire Michael Turner would follow him to the bench early, taking two key Falcon weapons away.

Yes, we all saw it with our own eyes. The defense was thriving. Players were swarming to the football, passes were broken up and runners were gang-tackled. Looked like an old Tony Dungy team.

Indeed, Josh Freeman did his part with 20 completions for 250 yards and a pair of TDs, one to Antonio Bryant, the other to Cadillac Williams, of all people.

It was a Tony Dungy era kind of score. It was 10-10 at the half and lo and behold, 17-13 going into the final 15 minutes with the Bucs ahead. First time all year they weren’t behind.

Things were really going Tampa’s way when Jason Elam missed a short field goal attempt with 6:30 left. Yes, it looked like Morris’ first road win was in the offing. All that stood between the Bucs and victory was 60 yards and two and a half minutes. Surely the defense would hold up.

Redman moved the Falcons to the Bucs 10 with but 49 seconds left. The Falcons would have not one or two or three but SEVEN shots at the end zone. And that five-yarder to White was the lethal blow.

Surely the Bucs deserved better.

They regained respect because the defense did not get wiped all over the turf. The defense was solid. It was proud. It was not the embarrassment that Bates had saddled the team with for 10 weeks.

Which begs the final question: why did Raheem do this to us? Why didn’t he take over sooner?

This entire mess could have been avoided had he only stayed the defensive coordinator and not the head coach.

But now, perhaps he can remain as both.

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Bucccaneers Squashed By Saints and It Wasn’t Pretty

Told you so.

All you dreamers—go to your rooms. Go there now and stay there until you’re told to come out!

Sunday, you saw what 10-and-zero looks like.

And you saw what one-and-nine looks like.

You saw a 38-7 undressing of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by the New Orleans Saints. You saw the Saints flat out de-pants the Bucs in front of the home crowd.

You saw more exposure of the horrible Jim Bates defense that has scribbled this unit into the Buccaneer history books as the most generous ever when it comes to surrendering points.

You saw Drew Brees do what Drew Brees does. You saw the Buccaneer run defense make Pierre Thomas and Mike Bell look like Barry Sanders.

You saw the Saints defense make Josh Freeman look like, well, a rookie. Three interceptions and a fumble left no hope that he’d somehow manufacture a fourth-quarter comeback.

There would be no comeback from 31-7, only an early departure by the home crowd, leaving the stadium virtually empty at the two-minute warning.

All that pregame talk about the Saints being an indoor turf team, the Saints missing Reggie Bush, the Saints having a tough time in St. Louis, etc., etc., etc. was bunk.

Pure bunk!

The only thing that could have helped would have been the Saints missing their charter to Tampa.

By the third quarter, the Saints’ huge offensive line was DOMINATING the Bucs defenders.

All you dreamers, did you not know about the Saints’ offensive line?

Sure you can say the Bucs were great early. For goodness sakes, they did score the game’s first touchdown. Good for them.

It got plenty ugly after that.

Sure the defense got a few licks in. But that’s the problem, they typically only get in a few licks. Sunday they got licked.

I will remind you one last time: Saints—five touchdowns and a field goal; Buccaneers—one touchdown.

Sure you dreamers told us the Bucs could keep it close.

If you want to dream, go to Kansas City for a week. Dreams came true there Sunday when they upset mighty Pittsburgh in overtime. They were able to give light to that “Any Given Sunday” phrase.

Go to your rooms, dreamers and come out, let’s see, how about Wednesday?

You can figure out how the Bucs have a shot against the Falcons next Sunday in Atlanta.

Perhaps they do.

Atlanta is NOT New Orleans.

And that’s no dream.

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Buccaneers Vs. Saints: Massacre Or Miracle?

Must be something wrong with my hearing.

Gotta be.  I  can’t begin to fathom what’s being said out there.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, yes those 1-8 Tampa Bay Buccaneers could POSSIBLY upset the mighty New Orleans Saints on Sunday?

Wait one minute. These are the “we’re really thinking long and hard about a top three draft pick” Buccaneers going up against the “we’re totally eyeballing the Super Bowl” Saints.

Not sure this one could turn out well for the Buccaneers in my wildest dreams and trust me, the Buccaneers are NOT in my wildest dreams.

Perhaps in Raheem “The Dream” Morris’ wildest dreams, maybe, somehow.

Nah.

Isn’t gonna happen.

Let’s face reality. Please.

For some reason, ever since Raheem took the cover off his new guy—Josh Freeman—Tampa is gushing with hope. Now, granted, the Buccaneers are fun again. They’re not getting crushed, not getting slaughtered.

But Sunday, reality comes to town.

That’s 9-0 reality.

Makes David vs. Goliath look like a coin toss.

A chance?

Someone please convince me. Convince me that this amazingly bad defense that Jim Bates and Morris have put together can withstand the Saints.

Not buying into it. Even Barack Obama might have a tough time finding “hope” in this one.

The audacity of a Buccaneer win?

That’s a lot of audacity.

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers Stunner: Arron Sears Is Back!

So you think the lose-almost-every-game, quarterback-merry-go-round, lousy-defense-rebuilding, re-tooling season of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers can’t get any crazier?

Arron Sears is back!

The last we heard of the former offensive lineman, he was sequestered somewhere in Alabama and then was rumored to be seen in Tampa.

He will be seen, sooner or later. The Buccaneers reinstated Sears on Tuesday, according to official team news releases.

Speculation has been that Sears has suffered from depression or some other related problems. But now he’s back.

General Manager Mark Dominik said the team had stayed “in close contact” with Sears throughout his absence.

No timetable has been set for his return to action.

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