Mutiny at Buccaneer Cove

As a Bucs fan that is seven time zones away from Disney World’s Wide World of Sports complex the Buccaneers use for their training camp, I must rely on the Internet for news from training camp.

The official Buccaneer website provides “Quick Hits“ to training camp action, but one must carefully read between the lines and not take too much excitement from a note when all players involved in the action are not named.  Joey Galloway or Gaines Adams blowing by their opposition sounds nice, but if the opposing player will never make the 53-man roster, it’s no big deal.

In the past, you usually got “fluff” reports from the local media and rarely negative reports of practices.  Thanks to Internet sites like MVN, the times are a changing.  Local media that follow the training camp practices now must “tell it like it is” or lose credibility. 

The St. Petersburg Times initially reported the injury to Chris Simms’s left elbow.  Once that story was picked up by virtually every sports website, Bruce Allen called a press conference to deny the report.  Subsequent reports, based on audio tapes from both Gruden and Simms, confirmed that Simm is in fact injured.  Furthermore, Simms has had the injury for months.  Simms rested his arm for nearly a month once OTAs finished, but aggravated the elbow two days into training camp.  Simms took no reps in the second to last OTA practice, while Gruden reported that Simms would have the majority of the reps in the final OTA session.  The final OTA session changed from a practice to a team-building outing. 

For anyone who believes that Jon Gruden woke up and just decided that morning to cancel the last practice to go bowling, I‘ll sell you the pirate ship in Buccaneer Cove! 

OTAs were realistically over the proceeding day and all with inside knowledge were aware of Simms’s physical situation.  Unlike Simeon Rice, Simms passed the initial training camp physical.

Rice’s physical condition just hit the news, once again, through the St. Pete Times.   Simeon went to the premier orthopedist surgeon, Dr. James Andrews, for an evaluation. 

Since Rice is paying Dr. Andrews for his evaluation, I wouldn’t call it an “unbiased” evaluation. 

Keep in mind that the Buccaneers team physician was no less biased in his evaluation considering immediately after the evaluation Allen asked Rice to take a $2.5 million pay cut before using the “failed a physical” justification to release Rice. 

Andrews declared Rice’s shoulder healed after giving Rice a battery of tests.

The Tampa Tribune, unlike the St Petersburg Times, is a “Pewter Partner” and treads a little lighter.  However, I do have to tip my hat a little to them for having at least one reporter not worried about throwing a cute little dig at Gruden or Allen in the training camp report.

The next thing to watch in reports is the fact that Free Agency acquisition Luke Petitgout has sat out the last three practices.  Gruden claims Luke is just “sore”.  After only two practices in pads, the question marks about Petitgout’s documented continual back problems with the Giants are bound to surface. 

It will be fun to see how each media outlet provides reports concerning Petitgout, as well as Simms, as training camp progresses.

Here are the links to the free training camp reports/blogs I use frequently instead of flying 26 hours to watch practices myself. 

There are a few other premium pay sites out there giving training camp updates.   I’m just too cheap to subscribe.

St Pete Times Training Camp Blog

Tampa Tribune Training Camp Blog

The Buccaneers Official ”Fluff” Training Camp Report

Enjoy, 

Pic from across the Big Pond