Bucs fans have paid team's price Gary Shelton, The St.Petersburg Times, published 14 November 1994 All things being equal, the Tampa Bay Bucs would have won their eighth game of the season Sunday night rather than losing it. All things being equal, the Bucs would be on the way to their fifth playoff berth in the last decade, and their third Super Bowl, and their second world championship. All things being equal, their fans would not be twisting in the wind today, concerned about things much deeper than the fact this team lost again against the Lions. We are no longer a society of words. We are now a society of jingles and catch-phrases. Just do it. Make my day. I'll be back. Have it your way. And now this one: All things being equal. For Tampa Bay, this is a chilling phrase, because it is the foundation on which the future of pro football in this area rests. All things being equal, says Stephen Story, and the trust that runs the Bucs would like to see the team remain in this area. All things being equal, and the predators that would snatch this team away can pick another victim. But what does it mean: All things being equal? Does that mean that Tampa Bay's wallet has to be equally as thick as that of Peter Angelos of Baltimore? If Tampa Bay offers $189-million and Toronto offers fifty cents more, is the team gone? At the heart of it, Story should know that things can never be equal. Not really. How are you going to transfer the disappointment, for instance? How are you going to transfer the waiting for a turnaround that never comes? If you want things to be equal, this is what you have to do. All things being equal, fans in their new city would have to suffer through Leeman Bennett and Ray Perkins and Richard Williamson and Sam Wyche, all of them watching their reputations being dragged down by the quicksand of this franchise. They would have to see each of them in turn get more authority than they have ever had, and then fail. All things being equal, those fans would endure the endless search for a quarterback to replace Doug Williams, a hapless conga line of Jack Thompson and Steve DeBerg and Steve Young and Vinny Testaverde and Chris Chandler and Craig Erickson and Trent Dilfer. All things being equal, they would have watched the repeated failures to find a decent pass rusher, high draft picks spent on Broderick Thomas and Keith McCants and Eric Curry. All things being equal, they would scan the channels and watch the transplanted Bucs help their new teams. Young and Winston Moss and Rueben Davis. Even Testaverde. All things being equal, they would have to watch slow running backs plod behind offensive lines made of tin and lead-fisted receivers struggle to get open. They would watch ends who can't rush and linebackers who can't tackle and cornerbacks who can't cover. All things being equal, there would have been as many victories as losses, as many All-Pros as first-round busts, as many good trades as awful ones. All things being equal, there are as many peaks as valleys. There are a lot of years of paying for tickets here, and a lot of years paying dues. It has become fashionable as of late, and it will become more so in the future, for the team to grouse about its attendance. That is bull. See how 11 straight years of double-digit losses sells tickets elsewhere. All things being equal, the fans here wouldn't be questioned. They would get a rebate. Instead, there is a sobering reality that the NFL may not live here for very much longer. The league office, which seems ready to fall on the Los Angeles franchises like loose fumbles, shrugs about the prospects of a team leaving here. All things being equal, it would not require at least a tie at the cash register to keep this team where it belongs. All things being just, that would have been more important than it was to Hugh Culverhouse, and it would be more important than it appears to be in the scrimmage between the family and the trust. All things being equal, this would be about more than money. Because when it comes to paying the price for the Bucs, their fans have already done it.