Michael Clayton The 2004 season will be a season all Bucs fans will want to forget, it was the first time in nine years that we had the dreaded double digit number of losses. This was something us Bucs fans were so used to in the 1980s and early 1990s but since the Glazers have arrived the double digit number has been in the wins column. There was one shining light in this season and that was the arrival of one of the most exciting players in Bucs history and that is Michael Clayton. Some Bucs fans didn’t think he was worthy of a 1st round pick but he showed that not only was he worthy of being a 1st round pick that he might become one of the greats of the NFL. While in Tampa recently I tried to buy a Clayton Game shirt but just about every shop had sold out. It seems that most Bucs have changed their minds about Clayton being a bad 1st round draft choice! The Bucs have had some good wide receivers in the last few years in the shape of Keyshawn Johnson and Keenan McCardell, but both of them especially, Keyshawn, were total jerks off the field who couldn’t wait to jump ship as soon as things go wrong. Now the Bucs have found a wide receiver that has a fantastic attitude and wants to get even better. Clayton has already said that he wants to get bulkier during the off-season and wants to have a physique like Terrell Owens. He has also been kept firmly in his place by senior Bucs players. During the season a player had been cut whose locker was next to Clayton’s, Clayton thought it would be a good idea to move some of his stuff into the now vacant locker. Derrick Brooks saw this and threw Clayton’s stuff out of the new locker to make the point that he was still a rookie no matter how good he was. Having seen the last two Bucs' home games live, which were painful to watch, the one thing worth watching was Michael Clayton. He has to be one of the fastest NFL players I have ever seen and seemed to be able to catch just about anything thrown to him. Some of the catches he took were breathtaking and very few other receivers in the NFL could have caught them. Although he has only played one NFL season I would put him right up there with Terrell Owens and Randy Moss as the best wide receivers in the NFL. The last game of the season against Arizona which I managed to catch on TV while in the States must have been one of the worst ever Bucs performances, save for Clayton’s amazing 75-yard touchdown run. He actually caught a five-yard pass and ran the other 70 yards, no Arizona defender could come close to catch him. In any other year he would have won rookie of the year but was beaten out by the vastly overrated Ben Roethlisberger who really got shown up in the AFC Championship game. With the Bucs now struggling with the salary cap and losing a few players to free agency, the next couple of seasons do not look good for the Bucs, but we do have the consolation of being able to watch the most exciting wide receiver to emerge in years in the NFL. The Bucs do now have a franchise player in Michael Clayton to build the team around. The long term future of the Bucs looks bright. Paul Greenfield 22 March 2005