Some random thoughts after Week 9 The Bucs continue to do it the hard way Another too-close-for-comfort victory sees the Bucs go into their bye week with a winning record and, absurdly, we might easily have been sitting at 7-2 with one foot in the play-offs. Clearly none of our opponents have been watching any game tape, but I’m sure that, eventually, teams will twig that Garcia to Galloway is our only big-play threat. Until that happens, the NFC South would appear to be a two-horse race – Atlanta’s season was over before it began and it’s a sure sign that the Panthers are struggling when Lee Bromfield doesn’t even bother writing about them. The Saints, however, now look very ominous. Time for the Buccaneers to get a small monkey off their backs San Diego Chargers’ cornerback Antonio Cromartie returned a missed field goal an NFL-record 109 yards for a touchdown and it was one of three 100-yard touchdowns* on Sunday. There are clearly some pretty hopeless defenses and some not-very-special Special Teams, as there seems to be an increasing number of these huge plays. Consequently, it’s about time the Buccaneers got rid of that unwanted record of being the only NFL team not to have returned a kick-off for a touchdown. * Another of the 100-yard touchdowns was scored by Maurice Drew-Jones, the only Oompah Loompah currently playing in the NFL. At 9-0, Captain Grumpy is still not happy Did you see Bill Belichick’s reaction at the end of the game at Indy? He was unusually animated with his players when the game was won but, when he walked to mid-field for the customary handshake, he was distinctly frosty towards Tony Dungy, a man who always conducts himself with class and quiet dignity. Belichick’s behaviour reminded me of his churlish reaction toward Eric Mangini, his former protégé at New England, when the Jets won at Foxborough a couple of years ago and Belichick was loath to even shake the hand of his ex-employee. Belichick may be a great coach, but he remains aloof and ungracious, even in victory. The Colts-Patriots game had been much-hyped for weeks and, for the most part, it actually lived up to its billing. Full credit to Indianapolis for making the Patriots look vulnerable for the first time this year, but good teams invariably find a way to “win ugly” (talking of ugly, did you see the caricatures of the two QB’s on the front of last week’s Pro Football Weekly? Peyton looked like a gargoyle!). Whilst many impartial observers don’t like the Patriots, I’d like to see them go undefeated throughout the regular season, just so we don’t keep hearing about the 1972 Dolphins every time a team starts well. I’d also like to see a team go 0-16 this year and I’m pinning my hopes on Miami and St. Louis both achieving that particular distinction. Hindsight is a wonderful thing How must the teams, including the Bucs, who passed on Adrian Peterson in the 2007 Draft be feeling right now? The seventh overall pick set a single-game rushing record of 296 yards against a decent Chargers defense on Sunday and he scored three touchdowns in a game for the second time this year. Peterson already has over a thousand yards rushing this season (plus another two hundred receiving) and is currently on pace to eclipse Eric Dickerson's rookie record of 1,808 yards set in 1983. In a season of mediocrity in the NFL, Peterson looks to be a star in the making. Opinions are like arseholes, everybody’s got one Like I said, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I was flicking through a copy of First Down (yes, I was the subscriber) from May of this year, when they gave 10 reasons why the Patriots won’t win the Super Bowl. Those reasons included:- 1. Randy Moss “will be a distraction”; 2. They have too many receivers and Brady will struggle to keep them happy (but Wes Welker “may spend most of his time returning kicks and punts”); 3. The Jets “have the ability to challenge the Patriots” for the AFC East and New England cannot take any of their six divisional games, against New York, Buffalo and Miami, for granted; 4. They have a difficult season schedule and “may be battling to stay alive come the final month”. Now the Patriots may indeed not win the Super Bowl, but I’d venture that it won’t be for any of these reasons. They say that opinions are like arseholes and, in this instance, First Down gave us an article containing a whole lot of arseholes. Get me Commissioner Goodell on the telephone I’m all for parity in the League, but not if it means that we just have a lot of really bad teams. I have an idea to make the League more competitive and to give teams greater incentive: instead of ‘rewarding’ the most incompetent teams with the pick of the best players from the college system, the two franchises with the worst records at the end of the year will be relegated. One team will join the Canadian Football League, where they’ll play against the likes of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (if Miami didn’t like a bit of rain in London, let’s see what they make of the weather in Canada), while the other relegated team will play in the Arena Football League against teams such as New Orleans VooDoo and the Dallas Desperados. The incentives for the teams from the Arena Football League and Canadian Football League to achieve promotion are obvious: the AFL team will get to play in a league that doesn’t have rubber walls, whilst the CFL team gets to play somewhere that isn’t Canada (and Ricky Williams gets the chance of a direct route back to the NFL). The Bucs might also get the opportunity to play in some proper local derbies against Tampa Bay Storm and the Orlando Predators. Leave it with me, I’ll finalise the details with Roger Goodell. Mike Davidson, November 2007