That Giant Sucking Sound? The Bucs

TAMPA -- You can call it a plague. You can call it a disaster, but there's one description Raheem Morris doesn't want anyone to call out.

"We don't use words like 'embarrassed' around here," he said.

Maybe they'd better start. Three games into the season the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are making a strong case for being the league's worst team.

That's not easy since the Rams and Browns are still technically considered NFL teams, but consider the stink bomb Tampa Bay exploded Sunday against the Giants.

---

---

The Bucs had zero first downs in the first half. They had 35 yards of total offense until a garbage-time drive. They lost 24-0 that might as well have been 2,400-0.

"It was a complete disaster," Morris said.

Well, that's one way to look at it. Another is that the Bucs are simply following their upside-down Darwinian path.

The franchise put the "em" in "embarrassed" when it started 0-26. On the day when Detroit snapped its 19-game losing streak, it's as if Tampa Bay decided to reclaim its place at the bottom of the NFL's evolutionary chain.

"I don't think I've ever been part of a game where nothing went right," Byron Leftwich said. "Never, never in my life."

The Giants are good, which had something to do with it. But they aren't THAT good. The home team deserves a lot of discredit, only where do you start handing it out?

"It was spread throughout the team like a plague," Morris said.

Bubonic? Locusts? Black?

What do you call it when a team gives up 397 yards of offense? Though to be fair, that did represent a season low for the Bucs defense.

This was supposed to be a transition year. But Monte Kiffin's famed Tampa 2 defense has apparently been replaced by the Tampa Zero. Players are either ill-suited to run Jim Bates' new scheme, or they're simply ill-suited to play NFL-caliber defense.

As for the offense, it was supposed to mirror the Giants' ball-control machine. It was easy to see the difference on Sunday.

"We were beat by a grown-man team," Morris said. "A team we want to be like one day."

Derrick Ward actually gained 1,000 yards for the grown-man team last year. He signed a $17 million free-agent deal with Tampa Bay, figuring it would get him out of Brandon Jacobs' titanic shadow.

How's that working out?

"I'm not talking today," Ward said.

Judging by his stats, he also was barely breathing. Ward had two yards on five carries. That's a tidy 0.4 yard average.

The Bucs have gone from 174 yards rushing in their opener to 57 against Buffalo to 28 on Sunday. At this rate, punter Dirk Johnson will need a leg transplant by Week 8.

The rallying cry has become "Remember 1996!" The Bucs started 0-5 but laid the foundation for a franchise revival.

The difference is that team had a young Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp and John Lynch. It had a proven NFL mind in Tony Dungy, who was finally getting a head coaching job after years of pre-Rooney Rule snubbing.

Morris had to wait approximately 49 seconds to get his first NFL gig. The Glazer family fell in love last year with the 32-year-old secondary coach.

When Jon Gruden was fired, owners saw Morris as the next Mike Tomlin. So far, fans are seeing the return of Ray Perkins or Leeman Bennett or others in the long line of Tampa Bay coaching catastrophes.

Maybe Morris will be like the original. John McKay built a playoff team, though he went 0-26 before doing it. Last year's Lions kicked the 1976 Bucs off the all-time single-season toilet, though nobody could ever truly replace that 0-14 squad in the hearts of local fans.

After years of holding out, the Bucs are planning to wear throwback '76 Creamsicle uniforms in their eighth game. If they maintain their lack of focus and do not get past the Redskins next week, there's a decent chance they could finish the first half of the season 0-8.

Halfway to another Creamsicle dream season.

Could it happen?

It's early, but games like Sunday give you hope.

"It was a little bit embarrassing," Michael Clayton said.

Even if Morris doesn't say so himself.