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| Associated Press |
| Bill Belichick has 157 career victories (including three Super Bowls wins); Raheem Morris is still looking for his first. |
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are traveling across the Atlantic this week for what they had hoped would be a glorious moment in the international spotlight.
Instead, they're going to be in the shadows while the New England Patriots -- with their three Super Bowl trophies and their genius head coach and their superstar quarterback with the supermodel wife (who is arguably going to be more recognizable than any member of the football traveling party) -- dominate center stage for Sunday's game in London.
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| Amy Sussman / Getty Images |
| The Pats-Bucs game in London on Sunday gives the British tabloids an excuse to run photos of Tom Brady with supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen.
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It's hard to imagine the British press getting too fired up about an 0-6 Buccaneers team with a rookie coach who appears to be in over his head and a struggling young quarterback whose name and face barely register with NFL fans in the U.S., let alone the U.K. There certainly won't be any mistaking these guys for Manchester United, the highly successful professional soccer team that belongs to the Glazer family, which also owns the Bucs and no doubt envisioned a prouder juxtaposition of the two franchises on British soil.
"Right now, we're the 'Ugly Betty' walking in the door," Buccaneers general manager Mark Dominik said. "I understand that. And Manchester, I think, is in first place."
Yes, it is. It also will be facing Liverpool, its biggest rival in Barclays Premier League, at Liverpool a few hours before the Bucs face the Patriots at London's Wembley Stadium.
Man U is expected to have the edge against eighth-place Liverpool. But given the Buccaneers' train wreck of a season and the fact the 4-2 Patriots are fresh off a 59-0 pounding of the winless Tennessee Titans, it's hard to anticipate anything besides another lopsided New England victory against the Glazers' other franchise.
"You could say the timing is convenient in a way because there's so much attention focused on that (soccer) game in terms of British press and British media that it almost kind of detracts a little bit from the NFL game," said Ryan Herman, editor of London-based Sky Sports Magazine. "But you can understand, from the Glazers' point of view, it would have been a crowning moment for them to have (both teams playing well). Of course, the flip side of it, if the Bucs win and United wins, what a great day it would be for them.
"You never know. Stranger things have happened."
Such an outcome would rank among the strangest.
Raheem Morris, the Bucs' first-year coach, is seemingly overmatched against his Patriot counterpart, Bill Belichick. Josh Johnson, Tampa Bay's quarterback, doesn't figure to be able to match passing arms with Tom Brady. The Buccaneers' roster is loaded with young players who are experiencing severe growing pains. The Patriots' roster boasts the likes of Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Vince Wilfork.
As Morris told reporters in Tampa, "Bill Belichick is not going to take it easy on us. He just played a (winless) team and he won, 59-0. Now he's going to play another one, and I'm sure Bill Belichick is licking his chops, and he should be."
During a conference call with British reporters earlier this week, Brady provided this frightening scenario for the Bucs: "There's nothing I would rather do than go out there and have our best game of the year."
Apparently, he wasn't satisfied with what happened against Tennessee.
But there is hope for the Buccaneers. At one time, the Patriots were a laughing stock. At one time, Belichick was a coach who looked like he was in over his head. At one time, Brady was a sixth-round draft pick that nobody knew. As the Miami Dolphins demonstrated in 2008, teams can reverse their fortunes in a hurry in the NFL.
Maybe the Bucs will become another victim of a Patriots blowout. Yet Dominik, who is considered to have a sharp eye for talent, will continue to work at cleaning up the mess that he and Morris inherited and build a program that more closely resembles the one on the other side of the field Sunday.
Dominik and the rest of the Bucs' decision-makers do take some solace in the fact other NFL teams have not fallen over themselves to sign the players they released.
"I certainly don't want to go out there and just brag about that, but we made the right moves that way," Dominik said. "We just haven't had time to get enough of the right guys in here. We've done a little bit here and there by bringing (free agents) like (defensive ends) Michael Bennett and Tim Crowder and (free safety) Corey Lynch. We'll continue to do those kinds of things to try to at least build the back end up so that when you get to free agency and the draft next year, you can have (something to build upon).
"You have to continue to just remind yourself, 'Hey, there's a big picture here, it's a youth movement, we're staying the course.' I've been through it before (as a long-time member of the Buccaneers’ player-personnel department), we're going to do it, and you've got to believe in it. That's all you can do right now in terms of looking at the team."
Johnson is the Bucs' second starting quarterback this season, replacing Byron Leftwich. The team ultimately sees rookie Josh Freeman as its long-term starter. Like the Jets with Mark Sanchez, the Buccaneers traded up in the first round of the 2009 draft to get Freeman. Unlike the Jets with Sanchez, Tampa Bay wants to hold off starting Freeman before he's ready. Of course, that likely means taking more lumps in the short term.
Freeman isn't the only example of how the Buccaneers are approaching their future. Last week, they traded defensive end Gaines Adams, the fourth overall pick of the 2007 draft, to Chicago for a second-round choice in 2010. The Bucs feel they did well in the deal because they unloaded a player whose production has fallen well short of his draft status in exchange a highly valuable pick. With the possibility of a new rookie wage scale being put in place for 2011 and beyond, next year's draft is expected to see a flood of underclassmen looking to take advantage of what could be the last crack at massive rookie contracts, thus enhancing the overall depth of the 2010 draft class.
However, the Buccaneers, who are roughly $23 million under the salary cap, aren't merely looking to accumulate picks to save money.
"We could have purged a lot of guys at (Tuesday's) trade deadline, if you just want to get draft picks," Dominik said. "But the idea wasn't just to trade anybody and everybody away that somebody called us on. Gaines Adams was a value (trade). If it was (for) a third-round pick, I never would have traded Gaines. But it was a second.
 From the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Each week during this season, the NFL's 90th, Profootballhof.com will reflect on one of the weekend's matchups. This week, Profootballhof.com focuses on Patriots-Buccaneers, including greatest games, key players and memories from the Hall archives. More ... |
"I'm not looking to doom-and-gloom this year just for the sake of next year because it all plays into the psyche of the players' minds and how they see the team and how they see this being built. There are guys who need to be here long-term and they've got to understand that we're trying to make the best decisions for long-term also."
The Patriots have that formula down. How did they get to where the Buccaneers want to be?
"I think it always starts with the top," Brady said. "It starts with the ownership, Robert Kraft and Jonathan Kraft. They hired probably the best coach in the history of the NFL, Coach Belichick. He's controlled the personnel, he brings in the players he wants and he brings players that fit in -- not only to the system that wants to play offense and defense -- but also that buy into what the concept of team is.
"You've got to put the individual goals aside. And he finds players like Junior Seau, Kevin Faulk, Randy Moss, that just want to come in here and win games. It's not so much about making the Pro Bowls, becoming an all-star, and being the highest-paid player. What it's about is going out there and buying into the team goals that are greater than any individual goals or successes that you may have. That's what this team's all about. That's where it starts and, pretty much, that's where it ends."
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