An open letter to the 2011 Buccaneer players This is not meant for all of you, but it’s meant for some of you. IF you feel this is aimed right at you, your probably correct. Read on. You’re the worst football players to ever wear the uniform of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. There are some players that wore Orange their whole careers in Tampa Bay, and your performance this last month has embarrassed even them. You have no pride, you have no heart. Worst of all, you have no honor, to go out and play like you have the last month for the Bucs of Tampa Bay. You’ve spent your whole life with people telling you how great you are, in high school, in college. No one has questioned anything about you, but your greatness is an institution that exists in your mind only. Yet despite the fact you earned a free education because of the natural god given talent you earned from genetics, you were not able to find it within yourself to summon strength of the heart, the biggest muscle. Instead your hat size, ever so swollen due to winning 10 games last year and the offseason of back patting comments, housed a mind that could not wake you up when the ‘alarm clock’ of a humiliating losing streak was going off. You had a choice, several in fact. You could have fought, or laid down. You chose the latter. You could have persevered, or caved in; Listened, or closed up. You made all the wrong choices. No, we never wore your shoes, so we don’t know what it takes, or what it’s like. But we have a role you will never understand; we believe. We believed in you, believed in your coaches, something you proved over the last month that you were incapable of. Even if you make league minimum, we the fan will not make as much money as you do for 15 or 20 straight years. Yet we spend that money so we can see you, wear your uniform, adore your number, and put the logo of your team all over our property. And we do that, only to find out that all of that stuff we hold dear doesn’t mean a damn thing to you. Understand that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a semi proud franchise, and I say SEMI because it’s been about 10 total years that the name of the Franchise has stood for something. Before that, for 20 to 30 or so seasons, the name Bucs was synonymous with losing, with terrible, a joke. Hopeless, inadequate, that’s what the Tampa Bay franchise stood for. Yet you are now part of a team that was worse than any of those before you. Not only did your performance as a team not measure up to the worst of a horrible history, but as a player and as an organization, you and your teammates didn’t even care enough to try not to be the worst ever. Fans who have watched over 600 Bucs games, tuned your team out because they could care less what you did. But don’t worry, everything will be alright. You will still get paid in spite of your efforts, and we as fans will always have hope, because no matter how bad it gets, we know life goes on. And your job is already being replaced. Enjoy the offseason. Derrick Brooks will interview you next at the Arena level, although you may want to look for a different team; Brooks standards are even higher than ours.