Season Ending Redemption for Our Former Coach Well he finally did it at last and I don’t think there’s a person in the world who would deny a classy guy like Tony Dungy his NFL title, comprehensively earned in the Miami rain last Sunday night. The game never was as close as the scoreline might suggest – throw out the opening kick-off and that gives a clearer picture of the balance of play - and whilst the Colts offense lived up to the hype, the vaunted Bears D, admittedly minus two pivotal starters, played bend but don’t break and the Colts simply took what was handed to them and marched down the field methodically and repeatedly all night long (cue Editor’s reference to Lionel Ritchie and the 80’s). Both Dungy and Mr Manning now have the proverbial 20 stone gorilla off their backs so the NFL media can move on to obsessing about other things, such as why the Bears decided to effectively play without a professional quarterback for the latter half of the season. How bad was Rex Grossman? Makes Bruce Gradkowski look like Dan Marino in my book. T-Rex (T standing for Totallyshite) gave his team no leadership or impetus, continually turned the ball over and displayed an arm strength my four year old daughter would keep quiet about. There’s loyalty to your players, and just plain stupidity, and for me Lovie Smith went way over the line in sticking with Grossman. However at the end of the day it’s the Bears problem and as I don’t really give a monkey’s for them I’m not going to dwell on it. A few things I think 1) Good to see Derrick Brooks in the Pro Bowl again, purely as a biased Bucs fan alone. The fact that he now has 10 on his resume will look even better on his Bio in Canton, where he is surely headed once he calls it a career. 2) Nice stat line from Cedric Benson last Sunday – two carries, zilch yards, one fumble, one knee injury and a trip to the locker room never to return. Has anybody else had a less effective Superbowl than that? Put your hand down please Mr Grossman. 3) Did Brain Urlacher play last Sunday? Seemed to be an invisible game to me for a so called marquee player. I counted his impact plays on a cocktail stick. 4) Don’t think I’ll bother with the flag football game in Hawaii this weekend. If anybody hasn’t seen the pro bowl before, watch the game and you’ll suss out why. You effectively can’t play defense under the rules designed to “protect” the players, and the majority of the players themselves haven’t suited up in over a month. The game itself, in the words of Paul Calf, is a bag o’ $hite. 5) I see the NFL are confirming 500,000 ticket requests have already been received already for the Giants vs Dolphins game at Wembley in October. Wonder how many of these will end up on Ebay as touting rules on that site cover English football (“soccer” if you are over the pond) only? Probably around 30% I would reckon and that’s being conservative. If you don’t get a ticket through the proper channels this will be your likely next stop in the process. 6) I think it’s time I knocked this column on the head for a while, and gave everybody a break from my ramblings. Unlike Mel Kiper I see no need to keep harping on when little is happening in the NFL world, so you are safe in the knowledge I won’t be presenting my own set of mock drafts. It’s over to Wayne on that issue as he’s far more the expert on College ball than I am. To all those who voted for me as writer of the year, thanks. I’m not deserving when compared against real quality pen men like Martin Fennelly, Roy Cummings or the man I voted for Dennis Crawford, but the award is appreciated. Once again the UK Super Bowl coverage surpassed itself in some of its ineptitude; Don Johnson was either pi$$ed, stoned or really is thicker than a whale omelette. Why on earth was he there anyway? Kevin Cadle looked hesitant and unassured at time trying to deal with the worst set of analysts anywhere in Mr Melanie Griffith and Cecil Martin, a man who waffles for 5 minutes on a subject but actually says very little in the process. For a laugh I also listened to a few plays from the famed “UK Commentary” with Nick Halling doing play by play; hmm anyone seen the movie Major League with Bob Uecker’s sidekick in the booth who describes things in the basic terms only no matter whats happening on the field? That’s who Mr Halling reminded me of - he acts like he’s got some great insight into the game but when you break it down properly there’s nothing he points out that the average novice wouldn’t notice anyway. Throw in the mandatory dolly bird at UK Superbash feature, why is that there at all, and we had the full set last week. Talk Sport even had the Miami Dolphin cheerleaders in the studio as well with the predictable “how do you become a cheerleader?” and “can you date the players” questions having the dust blown off them and rolled out once again. So there we have it. The 2006/7 season is in the books and already things are moving towards the draft and the new year ahead. What can the Bucs take from this season though? Well we learned we’ve got one touch cookie at quarterback in Chris Simms, and we also found out that Bruce Gradkowski is never going to be an NFL calibre player unless he grows a new right arm this spring. Unfortunately 2006 highlighted the aging process our much vaunted defense has inevitably suffered and it’s this area that principally is in need of some urgent help via free agency and the draft. Thankfully and for the first time in years we have a healthy salary cap situation to exploit so its time for Bruce Allen and John Gruden to start coming up with answers to these problems in order to extend their stays in the Bay area. Gentlemen, it's over to you – come training camp we expect the Bucs to be a whole lot different, and crucially a whole let better on both sides of the ball. Nod of Acknowledgement to - Paul Stewart. Another year goes by and the website continually grows from strength to strength with video clips the latest addition to the best historical Bucs database anywhere. Good work Paul, how about some FFL Draft footage on the site as well. Now that is THE NFL event of the year. Get in the Real World Award - Mike Tyson. Earth shattering news coming out of the states this week confirmed Iron Mike had checked into rehab for what was artistically described as “various addictions.” Where on earth would you even start with this guy who effectively left the normal world the moment Don King walked into his life. US Sports Story that Bores Me Senseless – Dallas Cowboy coaching search. Ten candidates interviewed so far with the media continually warbling on about the replacement – who gives a Katerina Witt? I reckon Jerry Jones is trying to cover every minority group in the process, and who’s to say a transsexual coach couldn’t do the job for the Cowboys and finally shut Terrell Owens mouth for a while in the process? He/She would certainly be a better hire than Norv Turner.