This will be my first, and last, post on this subject. I feel it needs to be brought out because were are going to see more of what we have been seeing before it gets better, I can assure you of that.
As a precursor, one day I was browsing around Wikipedia, you know where you get lost clicking link after link after link?
I came across Faux Pas, which is basically making a social mistake. I was amazed at what was considered social mistakes in different countries and cultures. In france for example, its the rudest thing in the world to bring a bottle of wine when you are invited over for dinner, because you are saying to the owner of the house, that you are probably unable to provide us with a good enough wine. In Japan, China, and most of the eastern world, most of the faux pas involve rudeness to elders. Its a major sin to start eating before an elder, ect. They place a lot of honor on older people.
These are pretty foreign to us. We bring wine to a house, and we pretty much make fun of old people because they look funny (and sometimes smell funny).
What does this have to do with the Bucs? Read on..
My point is that it will be very easy to dismiss what I have to say as "well that was then, or who cares about the past", my point is also that as someone who has been a die hard fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers since 1979, I do not EVER try to come across as "Im better". In fact, I would say a person who is a fan of the Bucs since 2008 can be just as much a fan as I am, because its not how long you have been a fan, or if you have season tickets, or if you have been to 200 Bucs games vs 150, or if you have 180 Bucs shirts, hats, socks, underwear, pool supplies or whatever. Its what you do when the team is down.
And trust me, this team is down. Its on the down turn, and its not going to get better this week, and its probably not going to get better next month.
But it WILL get better.
I say that because this is NOTHING new. Its happened so many times in fact, that I can totally share with the complete helpless frustration that I see on here. I cant tell you how many times Ive thrown stuff at my TV(s) in the past.
A once proud team that was in the playoffs 3 of 4 years decides not to resign their QB because they are too cheap, and we win 2 games the next year. Followed by 6, 2, and 2 the next three years.
Trust me, this is not 83-86.
Then we had a tyranical leader in Ray Perkins who put the Bucs through three a days because he felt the team wasnt in shape. Oh they got in shape alright. They beat up teams in September, and were dead by November. Perkins Bucs record in December is abysmal. When he finally won one in 1990, he was fired just after it. The Bucs saved money by hiring offensive coordinator Richard Williamson. He won 2 games in 91. He was a players coach too, but unlike Raheem, he did not put any discipline into his players like Raheem does.
This is not 87-91
To shorten this post, Ill save you the repetition of the Sam Wyche era. You have no idea how bad we sucked in 1993 and 1994. In a home game vs Minnesota, fans started throwing binoculars at Sam Wyche, and circling their fingers in the air mimicking his offensive signals that seemed to be the same one every play.
Then suddenly, the Bucs won a game. Game 11.
Then they won game 12, and it turned into a 4 game winning streak.
Turned out to be false, as the next years team started out 5-2 but finished 7-9, but they ended the double digit streak.
Its going to happen. This team is well coached. Raheem Morris may be young, but he is not an idiot, nor even close.
This leads me to the real moral of this story.
We call for something to be done, we demand that change happen.
But the fact is, we are fans, and there is absolutely NOTHING we can do about it. You do not have access to the Bucs, you do not even know what to do if you did. We are fans, our job is to cheer our team on. You can throw as many things as you want to at the TV set, but its not going to change anything. ...until it just changes.
If your looking for positives, this Bucs team after week two has the 4th best offense in the league. Both games went into the 4th qtr undecided. This team is going to get better, it has the talent. But that talent is young. Check out todays ON THIS DAY video, and you will see Brooks, Sapp, Lynch, Hardy Nickerson, Culpeper, all getting beat up and scored on twice in the last 3 minutes of the 4th qtr. They just werent the Brooks, Sapp, Lynch ect that we came to know later on.
Sabby Piscitelli did a nice job of improving in one week! But things dont change from week to week. If anything, they change from month to month.
Its too early to know exactly what kind of year we are going to have. I for one am pulling for a year where we see improvement at the end of the season, something we can take with us in the offseason and hang our hats on.
I think we will see it, but if it doesnt happen, there is nothing I can do about it, except keep watching the team get better, and keep cheering them on, the same as that Bucs fan since 2008 who cheers when the Bucs are down.