Game 24: Jagwires 31, Buccaneers 19

Oh, God, if I can make it through a preseason game with these two teams alive, it will be an accomplishment. We're looking at a 7-6 game here, aren't we?

Awesome kickoff by Josh Scobey into the deep corner of the end zone. That may be the highlight of this game.

Jagwire LB Pat Thomas stops Cadillac for -3. Cadillac gets only 2 back on 2nd down. Third down. Screen. To Cadillac. OF COURSE IT'S SHORT! Tampa brings the pain early to viewers of its preseason games.

Reggie Nelson watches the ball roll down to the 1 like an idiot. Being a rookie's no excuse for that stupidity. It's not like he never returned a punt in a college game or practice.

1 yard run by Fred Taylor. Dropped pass by Fred Taylor. THROW TAYLOR A SCREEN! THROW TAYLOR A SCREEN! Naw, Byron Leftwich fires a wild pitch over Dennis Northcutt's head at the sideline.

Back-to-back 3-and-outs. My head is already starting to throb. We're just 3:00 into the game!

Jeff Garcia barely escapes a sack by Bobby McCray for a 6-yard scramble. Reggie Nelson stops a sideline pass for no gain. Then - what's this? A FIRST DOWN! Garcia hits Michael Pittman for 7. Perhaps from the excitement, Tampa calls a time out. Christ. That was the first 1st down allowed by the Jax starters here in preseason. Nice throw nets 9 to Galloway. With the game in danger of actually moving at a decent pace, something goes wrong with the stadium clock. Pittman stuffed on 2nd-and-1. Clock seems OK. Maybe it just got bored. Terry Cousin commits pass interference against Galloway at the goal line that was called defensive holding, giving the Bucs a first down at the Jax 19.

EVEN THOUGH THE CLOCK IS STOPPED THE BUCS USE THEIR SECOND TIMEOUT. LORD TAKE ME NOW.

The Jagwire cheerleaders gyrate to the strains of The Police's "Roxanne", a classic rock-and-roll
ode to a prostitute. Real nice musical choice. Of course, how many years did the Rams cheerleaders
come out to "Girls Girls Girls" by Motley Crue before somebody figured out it was a tribute to
strippers?

Garcia gets in trouble, rolls right and throws against his body for a pass that David Boston ?!?!
moves in and scoops up for a 19-yard TD. Buccaneers 7, Jagwires 0.

Jax's 2nd straight 3-and-out ends on a pass broken up by Ronde Barber.

Tampa starts with the exciting play-action dumpoff to Pittman for no gain. Garcia and Pittman then
blow the exchange on a draw play for a 14-yard loss to the 20. LET ME GUESS. SHORT PASS. Close,
handoff to Pittman for 6. VIVA PRESEASON!

Jax takes over at own 35. Taylor cuts back for 7. On 3rd-and-3, Ernest Wilford appears to gain
less than 3, but they give the Jagwires a first. Kevin Carter (!) then ENGULFS Leftwich for a 7-yard sack. 3rd-and-14, guess what they do? THROW SHORT! 9 to Maurice Jones-Drew and it's time to punt. Beautiful, high punt by Adam Podlesh is downed at the 5.

Garcia's out after going 6-6 for 43. Luke McCown at QB, Earnest Graham at RB. Making sure to prolong my agony as much as possible, the Jax defense uses a TO with :20 left in the quarter. Delay of game (AFTER A TIMEOUT?) and a false start by TB, followed by guess what? A SHORT PASS! On 3rd-and-11 to Ike Hilliard.

Bucs fever... CATCH IT!

Jax starts from the Bucs 40 after a poor punt. Leftwich gets in trouble, Jones-Drew breaks upfield a
little, Leftwich hits him, three Bucs tackle each other instead of MoJo, he gallops off for 38 down
to the two. Then - get this - Fred Taylor vultures a TD from MoJo with a 2-yard run. We're tied at 7.

Hey, the Bucs are on the move. McCown hits TE Alex Smith near midfield for a 1st. Then he scrambles 10 for a 1st down. 90 flip to Graham gets 15. Reggie Nelson disturbingly crumples without being touched. He was the only Jax starter left on the field at the time. Maurice Stovall then ruins
things by brutally coughing up the ball after a catch. It bounces right to Jamal Fudge, who stripes
all the way down to the 5 yard line.

From there, Marcedes Lewis drops a TD pass, and Greg Jones can't get in with two tries. Del Rio
disobeys the home crowd and orders up a FG. 10-7, Jagwires.

Chad Owens return is only to the Tampa 15. 3-and-out for the Bucs as McCown throws the team's first two incompletions of the night on 2nd and 3rd down, both poor throws.

Leftwich catching a little fire at the end of the half. 13 and 12 to Wilford gets them into Tampa
territory, and Greg Jones takes a middle run outside for 17 down to the 8. LaBrandon Toefield
then vultures a TD from him! 17-7 Jagwires after the 8-yard TD run.

After two more incompletions, the Bucs... THROW. SHORT. ON. THIRD. DOWN. I don't know why these fuckers don't just punt on first down. WORST. OFFENSE. EVER.

Clearly worn out by his worthless offense, Josh Bidwell hasn't hit a decent punt in his last 3 tries. David Garrard takes over as Jax QB at the 2:00 warning. He scrambles across the 50 for a 1st. Pretty sideline throw and catch by Charles Sharon at the 15. Draw to Toefield gets them to the 3 but uses up their last timeout with 0:15 to go. Garrard scrambles in from the 3 to make it a 24-7 game as the first half runs out.

The Jagwires get a first down to open the third quarter, but Garrard is nearly picked off a couple
of different times to force a punt.

McCown dashes off for 27 to get Tampa in scoring range. Kenneth Darby was having a good drive
until fumbling a pass away at the 5-yard line on first-and-goal. The fumble is once again
covered with, er, by, Fudge.

Alvin Pearman the new Jagwire feature back. They launch an epic drive from their own 5. Garrard
hits Broussard 3 times to convert 3rd- or 2nd-and-longs. Pearman has an 11 yard run down to the
TB 20 as the third quarter runs out. He takes a pass down to the 1, and after failing to get
in the old-fashioned way on 1st-and-goal, takes a 90-flip in on 2nd-and-goal. Jacksonville's
ahead 31-7 on a 14-play, 95-yard, 8:30 drive.

I'll take this point to mention that Chris Simms hasn't seen a down of preseason so far. Honestly, I don't know if he's medically cleared to play or not. I hope not, because Gruden is screwing him over otherwise. I can't believe he'd go from starter to guy-who-gets-cut-without-ever-appearing-in-a-preseason-game.

So, here's Bruce Gradkowski, with Lionel Gates at RB. He and Mark Jones do to the Bucs what
Culpepper and Curry did/will do to the Rams. The Jags blitz big; Gradkowski finds Jones in the middle of the field; Jones breaks a poor tackle and sprints off for the TD, because anybody who would have been around was on the blitz. 31-13 when TB misses the 2, and how big an asshole is Gruden for trying to fight for a tie, in preseason?

Why, by the way, has Tim (no relation) Couch not attained an even greater all-time bust status
than Ryan Leaf? Couch, who's been cut in preseason by the Jagwires, was a #1 pick; Leaf a #2, and
Couch was every bit as useless in Cleveland as Leaf was in San Diego. Couch can't even land a #3
spot for the Jagwires 8 years later and HAS to rank as one of the all-time busts, but for most people, it's still Leaf, Tony Mandarich, and maybe Ki-Jana Carter atop that list.

Looks like Garrard is still in for Jacksonville. He spends the drive handing off to anonymous RBs. DD Terry turns the left corner for a 16 yard run. Roosevelt Kiser loses the ball on a gang tackle; he had it in the wrong hand anyway. Ryan Nece forced it; Quincy Black recovered it, and the Bucs have the ball back near midfield.

Gradkowski's clearly better than your average QB who's playing at this point of a preseason game;
he has the Buc scrubs moving with aplomb. He hits a variety of receivers to get them down to the
7, where Darby takes over, eventually scoring from the 1. Chucky orders up a two again, nothing
doing: 31-19 Jags.

Jacksonville takes the ball back with 6:00 left and never gives it up. When Lester Ricard hits a 21-yard pass on 3rd-and-4 to DeJuan Woods, that was all she wrote. DD Terry collects a bunch of yards and carries to burn out the clock.

Like I've said before, some preseason games you learn nothing from. Not surprisingly, I said that of the last Tampa Bay game. The Buc offense appears worthless, though you could argue that Jeff Garcia was at least efficient, 6-6-43 and a TD. The early action wasn't a defensive showcase as much as it was a display of ineptitude in offense and offensive strategy, especially by the throw-short-on-3rd-and-long Buccaneers. This game also gives me no feel for Jack Del Rio's decision later in preseason to CUT Leftwich after the 4th game and make Gerrard the starter. Leftwich looked all right when he wasn't getting killed; he drove them to 2 TDs. Other than Jones-Drew, though, there is little sign of explosion from either offense. Implosion, yes; explosion, no.

24 down, 41 to go. Up next: Saints vs. Bengals.