You know, these Buccaneers of Coach Raheem Morris out at One Buc Place aren’t bad. 

For one thing, these Bucs are fourth overall in offense—yes, these Bucs made famous for defense by Lee Roy Selmons and those other toughs of the early Buc days — their highest standing since 1984 and 2003, the day after the Buc Super Bowl year.

  Defense has long been the richest Buccaneer heritage but, by golly, all of sudden these Bucs are fourth overall offensively, this team of which Carnell “Cadillac” Williams and bullish Derrick Ward - swiped by the Bucs from the Giants - are the ball-carriers on this fine offensive unit that Coach Raheem Morris and associates turned over to quarterback Brian Leftwich to direct.

I mean, it is so early in this season, but, shoot, let them have their heads. The truth is these young Buckos, while 0-2 in the regular season with losses to Dallas and at Buffalo—should surely have won at Buffalo with the Tampa Bay weather and the lead, and at the very least these Morris Bucs should be 1-1 now not 0-2, such a difference, eh?

Think about it. For the Bucs to be 0-2 instead of 1-1 with the New York Giants coming to Tampa on Sunday before dangerous trips to Washington and Philadelphia the next two weekends. Well, frankly there lies there the danger, the distinct danger of a rotten 0-5 start for me and you, Raheem, Cadillac and that new, promising Tampa quarterback.

Think of the bummer starts of other years, like that worst of all in NFL history, 0-26.

Now, I know the football basics. Coach John McKay taught us early and proved that it if the other team does not score, you are unlikely to lose, and he stuck to it, stopping the other guys, bringing out bigger, stronger and tireless fullback-or-bigger guys to trod on you to the end. Asked once how he could give the ball to the same big man so often and he asked back, why not? It is not heavy.

Later McKay would assign his backs the substitute job of passing the football a few yards, here and there. It all worked. He had the best players.

The Bucs took pride this weekend in announcing that their offense was cranking on all cylinders. Good. By golly, if the offense is successfully at work with Cadillac Williams overcoming repeated injuries to take a lead, along with Ward and a neat cadre of backs of size, well, that is a long suit of the Bucs. And something we have not seen in recent years.

Looks to some of us who have been watching these Bucs for awhile, that this team of Raheem has emerged on a very early bubble. They were sound in the opening regular season loss to Dallas in Tampa. It was a coulda, shoulda game. Dallas will always be a favorite against Tampa. Just will. Tampa will win again, maybe probably.

Anyway, I’ve been around a while. This latest result, the Dallas win, makes it a little tougher, but, these Bucs early on showed the offense not lately seen, showed a weakness in defense against long gainers, nothing to brag about.

That hasn’t been so in a long while around here, and, the new coach says the big guy throwing to big tight ends may once more be a staple at Raymond James.