OT: Buccaneers, Rays & Other Tampa Bay Sports Teams Thread

[Stormbreaker]

Brees could be out for a month+ with busted ribs and a collapsed lung in comes Famous Jameis.

 

[Five Alarm Fire]

City of champions!

You guys will love the Raptors. World class front office that is just always finding good players out of nowhere. Very similar to the Lightning, with a ring to boot.

 

[Five Alarm Fire]

It's official! Tampa Bay Raptors!

 

[Hoek]

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

If this paves the way for an NBA team in Tampa, I'm all for it. With all due respect to our friends here from Orlando...I have zero attachment to any teams over there and I never will.

 

[These Are The Days]

If this paves the way for an NBA team in Tampa, I'm all for it. With all due respect to our friends here from Orlando...I have zero attachment to any teams over there and I never will.

I'd gladly take the Rowdies being an MLS team. I managed attachment to the Magic and still love em

 

[Hoek]

MLS is more about regional rivalries than NBA is so that could still be in the cards. I doubt the Magic would be enthused by a Tampa team carving up their TV territory. Also we probably have too many sports teams as is. Maybe if the Rays leave.

 

[These Are The Days]

MLS is more about regional rivalries than NBA is so that could still be in the cards. I doubt the Magic would be enthused by a Tampa team carving up their TV territory. Also we probably have too many sports teams as is. Maybe if the Rays leave.

Spot on with all of this. Getting a new ballpark for the Rays is way higher up on the pole than just about anything else. And in fairness to the Magic and the greater NBA, they need to figure their own crap out. All but like 5 teams solely exist as a feeder system to the LA and the NY markets as players categorically obsess over them. And there's an argument to be made that from a competitive standpoint, the league would be better off with 24 teams instead of 30 because of how diluted it is. Since that's not gonna happen, the only other thing I can say is these players need to play 2 years of college so there is more time for added physical maturation.

 

[Hoek]

Yeah I actually enjoy basketball a fair bit but ever since the NBA became superteam-centric it's gotten really undramatic and boring. Loved watching those Spurs teams in the past though, you know, actual teams that play a great system and had role players, not just a set of all stars playing Globetrotters vs. Generals every night. I'll watch a few Raptors games out of curiosity though, they seem to be a good team that isn't absurdly stacked.

 

[These Are The Days]

Yeah I actually enjoy basketball a fair bit but ever since the NBA became superteam-centric it's gotten really undramatic and boring. Loved watching those Spurs teams in the past though, you know, actual teams that play a great system and had role players, not just a set of all stars playing Globetrotters vs. Generals every night. I'll watch a few Raptors games out of curiosity though, they seem to be a good team that isn't absurdly stacked.

The Warrior years were special for me in that it was a team built from the ground up and I remember watching them even before they turned into the overnight dynasty when Mark Jackson was coaching them. Wasn't there for the Jordan years but that must be what it was like and why it was so special. Makes sense to me in that regard. My fingers are crossed we can just get some good March Madness this year and that Cole Anthony is the fix at PG the Magic have been needing since Jameer Nelson. These days if I catch about 10 games a year I'm having a good year. When the most recent champ was made because LeBron James went to LA (which makes perfect sense because he lived there) but then Anthony Davis forcing a trade there. The whole thing just reeks and has me feeling disillusioned.

 

[LightningStrikes]

Title updated accordingly

 

[bov]

Thanks Toronto!

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

MLS is more about regional rivalries than NBA is so that could still be in the cards. I doubt the Magic would be enthused by a Tampa team carving up their TV territory. Also we probably have too many sports teams as is. Maybe if the Rays leave.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not convinced the Rays can't work here. It's entirely a problematic stadium situation. Put a 35,000-40,000 seat stadium in Tampa with a competitive team like the Rays have been for most of the last 13 seasons and I'm sure that would work fine. If hockey can work in Tampa, I don't see why baseball can't. The NBA has always been the one with the biggest question marks because there's no real great basketball history of any kind in this area, in contrast to the long history of baseball. And I'll hope we can do the best we can under the circumstances, but this won't be like a Hornets in OKC sort of deal where they could sell out the arena every night for 35 games a season (Hornets played six in New Orleans during those years). We can't exactly sell 20,000 tickets at Amalie for the Raptors during a pandemic.

 

[berlin]

No thanks to basketball ever coming here permanently.

 

[Major4Boarding]

 

[Hoek]

Absolute garbage playcalling. Brady clearly can't throw the deep ball to save his life lately so why in god's name would you dial up a play with all deep routes when we had PLENTY of time left?

 

[LightningStrikes]

Tons of flags right now

 

[These Are The Days]

Our coaching staff is failing this team. Badly. I was ready to kill Jason Licht at or about 2 years ago and the dude has basically put an all star team on the pitch and we can't get anything done. Bowles needs to stop being so f***ing cute and go back to the basics of blitzing the shit out of everyone with Shaq and utilizing more man coverage schemes. As for Leftwich I can never tell if it's him, Brady or Arians calling the plays.


I mean.... the season isn't over but damn man. We have no rhythm anymore

 

[CupsOverCash]

Coaching staff making themselves look worse every week. They improved in the second half and did some things they should have been doing weeks ago but im sure they will go right back to doing what doesn't work in the first half next week again. Maybe something different will happen this time.

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

This Bucs team is all hype and zero substance. Probably a playoff team, but not a threat to do anything once they get there.

 

[CupsOverCash]

This Bucs team is all hype and zero substance. Probably a playoff team, but not a threat to do anything once they get there.

Sad thing is that is a major step up from what we've seen.

 

[berlin]

Bucs coaching staff is hot garbage. Cannot wait for hockey to begin.

 

[Hoek]

Sad thing is that is a major step up from what we've seen.

Yeah I wont be really upset as long as we get in and hopefully get to beat up an NFC Least team for a playoff win. Next year get our shit together for real.

Just let Brady run the offense and take your egos out of it, Arians/Leftwich.

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

Yeah I wont be really upset as long as we get in and hopefully get to beat up an NFC Least team for a playoff win. Next year get our shit together for real.

Just let Brady run the offense and take your egos out of it, Arians/Leftwich.

I mean, I have a hard time agreeing with that. Tom Brady is already 43 years old. How much time do you think he has left as an effective NFL QB? And, I understand, maybe you could argue that the "normal laws of aging" don't necessarily apply to (arguably) the best QB in the history of the league, but, on the flip side to that, I would say just take one look at Peyton Manning. He was the league MVP in 2013 and had pretty much picked up where he left off through about eleven games of 2014 (was on pace for ~5175 yards at that point). And then, beginning with the very next week, his numbers cratered. From that point forward through the rest of his career, he only had three games over 300 yards passing. 17 touchdowns, 23 interceptions. If I remember, he was dealing with some kind of quad injury in 2014 at that point, but there was no bounceback when he was, ostensibly, healthy the following year. A different arguable GOAT, and he went from being at the top of his game to being finished, almost literally overnight.

It was one thing in 2010 with a young Josh Freeman or in 2016 with a young Jameis Winston to be an "up-and-coming" team that, hopefully, would be more of a threat to make noise in the playoffs in the future but at the same time would've been just happy to make the playoffs at all in the current year. With a 43-year-old Tom Brady, I can't think that way. You don't sign someone at that age and think long term. The two things completely contradict each other. Personally, I think this team is super overrated and people just want to believe because of who the QB is and because this defense was able to force Aaron Rodgers into one of the worst games of his entire career on one random Sunday (and, guess what? If there's a re-match in the playoffs, it's gonna be at Lambeau, not Raymond James, and in cold weather, not warm Tampa), but what I think of them doesn't matter. This team was assembled to make a run at the Super Bowl beginning this season, and maybe that's why I speak with such a harsh tongue for them. Because, whether you want to criticize Brady, the defense, the O-line, Mike Evans, or the coaching staff, I don't have any reason to think they can get the job done. Aside from that Packers game, they've failed every big test they've gotten this year. And if calling yesterday a "failure" is harsh because of the final score, let me just say that yesterday was a 27-24 final score that was one Mecole Hardman-dropped 89 yard touchdown pass away from being a 3rd quarter blowout and Patrick Mahomes having a very real chance at setting a single-game passing yards record (he finished with 462, the record is 554, and the Chiefs pretty much went nowhere the rest of that drive. 462 + 89 = 551, so, either way, he was right in the neighborhood with that play). 27-24 flattered the Bucs, big time. I wasn't impressed.

Now, sure, stranger things have happened, but the Bucs won't get a top challenge the rest of the way in terms of their opponent, so there's nothing they can do that's going to change my mind. How they deal with the Falcons (x2), Vikings, and Lions isn't going to say anything about how they might deal with the Saints, Packers, Seahawks, Rams, or Cardinals in January. So, at this point, my mind is pretty much set on them.

At this point, just about the best thing BA and Byron could do is, on gameday, get the f*** out of Tom's way and just let him call the game as he sees fit. And, for the love of g-d, it won't kill you to allow a little more pre-snap motion, motion at the snap, and play action to come into the equation, either. It's 2020; quit trying to force an offensive schematic principle that's 5-10 years out-of-date by now. There's no bonus points for playing static with your receivers and backs.

 

[Hoek]

I'm just saying I've seen so much absolute garbage shit football out of this team for 12 years I will take any crumbs of goodness I can get. Obviously it's a failure as an "all-in" move. At least this team is mostly very watchable and interesting this year and not a complete dumpster fire.