Oh dear - 0 and 3 Well, it's not quite what we all thought was going to happen this year. In fact I'm fairly sure that if every member of the club had been polled to find out what our record would have been in week 3 the general consensus would probably have said 2-1. 0-3 on the other hand is an alarming treading water type of start. If the Bucs lose to the Broncos this weekend I feel that we will have a long hard season of "well if" again. So what's gone wrong? Reading between the lines of the footballing press is a bit tricky, most of the footballing hacks are as fickle in their reasoning as wily old trout in a stream. They like to nibble at the edges but not come out in the open. Some have stated that they think the fault lies with Gruden, others that the Bucs players are too old while yet others have most certainly come off of medication and have some wild ideas. The fact of the matter, I feel, is it's a simple answer. The offensive line. Don't get me wrong, we've had some good players along the line throwing their bodies into the fray every game, however, you don't get a solid line by changing it every season. Last year's O line was pretty bad, however it was beginning to gel towards the end of the year. I do agree that you need to tweak your team each year but the wholesale changes that have happened are a yearly cause for concern. If the Bucs are truly trying to rebuild then a much better route would be to fill your O line with young eager and rather large men, large as in the "How many bargain buckets can I get for $30?", rather than annually go searching for the bulls past their prime. I have nothing against gathering a few wise old heads to lead the line, in fact I think it is a necessity, but you do have to question the reasoning behind virtually scrapping the O line from one year to the next. Any cohesion that had been garnered from last year has been broken and the new line, although it seems to be making less mistakes, is going to take a lot longer than a couple of weeks to fix. Once more our darling Bucs are going to be 1 dimensional but instead of Tony D leading the defensive charge we have Jon G. It is going to be a long, long season ahead. But this is football, our team may delight, infuriate, bedazzle, bemuse and just plane drive you nuts, but they are our team. Love them, hate them, bang your head against the wall about them but at the end of the day, Once a Bucs fan, always a Bucs fan. But God help us, it can be painful! Nick Mort October 2004