The Great Unwashed are Coming to Town I hate Carolina. It’s a hate so intense it hurts With their stupid fans Stupid mascot And stupid team of jerks A few things I think 1. I think Simeon Rice is a selfish self-centred b*****d whose principal interest is his own agenda. His no-show last week gave Gruden and Bruce Allen no choice but to take the action they did. Simeon, if you can’t tow the line please take your act somewhere else. 2. Earth to Chris Simms – the NFL does not award any points for the quarterback who can hang on to the ball the longest. If you are under pressure, throw the bloody thing away and we will start again next down, but stop taking coverage sacks. 3. I think I hope Jake Delhomme continues throwing interception return touchdowns this week. Mr Barber and Mr Kelly will be on alert, and as we haven’t had a defensive TD this season, the timing would also be good. 4. If you have NFL Field Pass and you want an insight into the IQ of the average Panthers fan, take five minutes and have a listen to their radio announcers – it’s truly an experience. In between the adverts for weekly cross-burnings and big, bad ass pick-up trucks, you can marvel at their intellect and balanced opinion. Not. 5. I wonder how fit Cadillac Williams and Michael Clayton truly are at present. Am I a conspiracy theorist or do they seem to be carrying injuries that are a lot more serious than are being disclosed? 6. I think I hope somebody lays a shot at Twits cornerback Chris Gamble’s knees and snaps his ACL sometime soon. His hit on Daunte Culpepper last week was a blatant cut at his knees, and cost Culpepper his season – Mr Gamble the gods up there owe you one, and I hope we are the team that administers it. Lets hope Joey Galloway is flexing his muscles in your face come Sunday afternoon. 7. I think we all now realise what a loss Brian Griese may prove to be in the final 10 weeks of this season. That fateful second quarter play against The Dolphins could be a moment we look back on as pivotal in the final analysis. 8. I think that despite my FFL team being regularly slagged off elsewhere on this site, we have won the last 2 and are on what you might call a streak. I now have job security for the rest of the season and haven’t had to give myself the dreaded vote of confidence. At least the Clap do not lower themselves by fielding any players from the twits. 9. Dear Mr Gruden – if you can galvanise our Bucs to win just one more game this year, then please make this week the one. Thanks, Lee – Manchester. I hate Carolina Their players are overrated, Buckner’s fat Delhomme is crap And Fox is antiquated I hate Carolina their radio announcers are thick Their kit is white Their stadiums shite, And their owner is a p***k Glad I got that off my chest. Well it’s divisional game time now and my favourite rivals, The Twits, are coming into Tampa. It’s a match-up which will go a long way to determining how the rest of our season pans out as we have reached a crossroads in our season, and you cannot imagine how much I personally want to see us stuff this lot. Looking back last week let's briefly focus on the positives……. Joey Galloway – was that brief enough as that’s all there was! To steal a valid assessment from the movie Good Morning Vietnam, we collectively sucked the sweat from a dead man’s balls in San Francisco, and the only other positive I can gather is that we surely cannot play that badly on offense two weeks in a row. Simms looked like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of the oncoming car, our running game went backwards, we lost more yardage in penalties than we gained going forwards and on defense we didn’t manage to force a single turnover against a team who finished with the stadium beer vendor at Quarterback. Against the Twits we need to up the tempo about 300%, get our minds away from planet Simeon and back into reality. A win on Sunday puts us back in the box seat and gives us a divisional edge going into the back side of our schedule, which gets noticeably tougher from here on out. The opportunity is right there for us and we are the underdogs in this game, which I think we will relish. The key for me will be how our offense moves the ball on the ground. The running game’s collapse last week was the true root of our woes, forcing Chris Simms to try to win the game through the air when he clearly was not ready or able to do so. We need to spring Cadillac and Pittman early, force the twits safeties to the line putting eight men in the box, and hence freeing up the space behind for messrs Galloway, Clayton and Smith to exploit. I’ve no real fears about Monte Kiffin’s ability to design a defense to cope with whatever the Twits throw at us, but our offensive unit will hold the key to the whole thing. If we can protect Chris Simms, and generate some running room early, then we are in business – I think we’ll know by the middle of the second quarter how things are going to pan out. I just hope we are ready to play this week, I’m banking on the fact we will be. Normally I’m the biggest pessimist in the world but bizarrely I fancy us strongly in this one. I think it’s a gut check time which Gruden will have pointed out after last week’s non-showing, and time for The Bucs to find themselves again and restore some pride with a long overdue win against the most classless team and organisation in the league. Bucs to restore their pride 23-17, and me to go on a two-day bender in celebration as a result. Nod of Acknowledgement to………. Jon Gruden and Bruce Allen. On the eve of a big game one of our star players literally took the pi$$ out of our team structure and failed to show for a team meeting. It was a difficult situation but you made the right call. My hats off to you for having the balls and the decency to suspend our flaky defensive end. Get in the Real World Award…….Simeon Rice. Great player but unfortunately not a great teammate, or employee. Surely an off-season move to the Raiders is but weeks away.