FanHouse Tampa Bay Buccaneers

TAMPA -- A very amusing story died on Sunday. A better one might have been born.

We came not to bury the Bucs, but laugh at them with their rookie quarterback and creamsicle uniforms. Instead, the joke is on the Packers.

"I don't think it's embarrassing," Packers guard Daryn Colledge said after the 38-28 loss. "The fact is they are a professional football team."

Just barely. The Bucs were so inept in their first seven games they gave us real hope we'd see another 0-16 season.

It's not that I enjoy watching Raheem Morris suffer. It's just that if you're going to stink, you might as well really stink to keep things interesting. These Bucs will never be the novelty act their forefathers were.

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TAMPA, Fla. -- Halftime. A few precious moments for an NFL player to make adjustments and catch his breath.

For Chicago Bears offensive tackle Ted Albrecht, it was just enough time to make a confession.

The date was Dec. 4, 1977. The Bears were battling the Buccaneers in Tampa Stadium. The game was a scoreless tie, but Albrecht was already beat. A Bears assistant walked across the visiting locker room to talk with him.

"Coach, there are four things in this world I do not want to do under any circumstance," Albrecht said. "No. 1, I don't want to milk a cobra. No. 2, I don't want to be buried at sea. No. 3, I don't want to be hit in the head with a hockey puck.

"And No. 4," he said, "I don't want to play the second half against Lee Roy Selmon."

No one did.

It's often said that a team with two quarterbacks really doesn't have any. With that spirit in mind, FanHouse will keep you updated weekly on NFL teams facing potential quarterback controversies.

Stubbornness sometimes pays off. The Carolina Panthers found this out on Sunday.

One week after giving up on the run way too easily in a loss to Buffalo, the Panthers mercilessly pounded Arizona's run defense into the ground, and their reward was an easy win. Of course, it doesn't mean Jake Delhomme has magically turned his season around. It just means the Panthers have found a way to hide him, while keeping him on the field. Delhomme is off our magical list for now, but other shaky starters aren't so lucky.

As we near the halfway point of the NFL season, there is a slew of really bad NFL teams stinking up the joint. The 0-7 Tampa Bay Buccaneers obviously qualify. That means it's time for a bunch of delusional people to start making claims about how so-and-so could beat the Bucs. You know, college teams, "my rec league team," high school teams and, of course, UFL teams. Usually these claims are tongue-in-cheek, but Tatum Bell of the UFL's Florida Tuskers seems pretty serious.

Michael Pittman, a running back for the Tuskers who used to play for the Bucs, said something about how some of his teammates probably thought they could beat the Bucs. Bell immediately said he was one of them. When given a hypothetical score of 24-14 (Tuskers over Bucs), Bell went a bit too far.

It was only a matter of time, really. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going nowhere this season. They are 0-7 and have been outscored 203-96 in the process. They drafted Josh Freeman in the first round (17th overall pick) of the draft this past April to be their quarterback of the future. You aren't going anywhere in 2009, so it's time to start playing for the future. Thus, it makes sense to hand him the keys at this point.

The Bucs are going to do exactly that when they head to Green Bay for Week 9's game (after a bye this week). Head coach Raheem Morris announced Wednesday that Freeman will be the team's starting quarterback moving forward.

It's often said that a team with two quarterbacks really doesn't have any. With that spirit in mind, FanHouse will keep you updated weekly on NFL teams facing potential quarterback controversies.

Some teams are entirely too stubborn. Not only will they leave bad quarterbacks in to take mental and physical beatings, but they'll insist on running offensive plays that don't seem to take the team's strengths into account, oftentimes leaning way too much on a struggling quarterback to make plays. As the Carolina Panthers and Cleveland Browns (among others) have now learned, this is a recipe for disaster.

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LONDON -- A bunch of Patriots went to dinner Friday night and were mistaken for a boy band. Had they been anywhere else, that embarrassing mix up might have caused an international incident. But since England gave us the ultimate boy band, the Beatles, the Patriots graciously ate their meal.

Then they routinely devoured Tampa Bay on Sunday.

Now they head back to the States after proving what we already knew: as Tom Brady rolls, so rolls the rest of New England's band. And, ready or not, America, Brady is back in rhythm.

"I'm feeling great," he said after New England's win. "I keep rolling."

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LONDON -- Mike Alstott's 1-yard touchdown run sparked Tampa Bay to an 84-0 win over New England Saturday.

No joke. Alstott really did score one of the red team's 14 touchdowns. The guys wearing blue jerseys had zero.

"Nil!" Paul Stewart said.

He broke out a bottle of champagne and passed it around. If ever a team deserved to savor a little success, it's the Bucs' UK fan club -- it beat the Patriots' fan club on Saturday in a flag football game. The other Bucs team was presumably watching film or sacrificing goats or whatever you do when you face that other New England team.

That'll happen Sunday at Wembley. Saturday at Richmond Park in Southwest London was the preamble. The oldest NFL fan club in Britain (the Bucs) met the fan club of England's most popular team (the Patriots).

Zebra Report is FanHouse's analysis of actual NFL rules and how they are to be applied ... because most fans think they could do a better job than the NFL officials, yet definitely could not. Click here for an introduction as to how we do things.

I'll agree with the defenders of Dante Wesley on one front, but just one: he hasn't made a career out of being a dirty player. Sunday, though, he was. What Wesley did, whether intentional or not, was one of the most egregious things I've ever seen done on a football field. Honestly, I didn't even think I'd have to cover it for Zebra Report, but I've seen so many absolutely appalling arguments in defense of Wesley on comment boards across the internet, that I feel I have to. It's simply mind-boggling (and, as a football fan, a bit embarrassing) that some people seriously think his hit was, or should have been, legal.

Carolina Panthers defensive back Dante Wesley has been suspended one game for a cheap shot on Buccaneers return man Clifton Smith, the NFL announced on Monday.