TAMPA - I don’t want to burst everyone’s bubble, but doesn’t it bother you just a bit that the Bucs best players, at least on offense, are 37-year-old Jeff Garcia, 34-year-old Joey Galloway and 31-year-old Ike Hilliard.

Don’t get me wrong; ‘‘The Dinosaurs’’ are a great story, and you can bet the national media will be picking up on it if they continue to play the way they’ve been playing. But what does that say about the future?

If you’ll remember, this season started off with Coach Jon Gruden on the hot seat. That seat has cooled somewhat thanks to the 4-2 start the Bucs are off to, but how much cooler is it, really?

There’s little to indicate that the Bucs are on the verge of once again becoming a perennial playoff contender. They’re a contender this year, but it’s the likes of Garcia, Galloway and Hilliard that have made them such.

This is almost like 2004 gone right. Surely you remember 2004. That’s when the Bucs brought in Todd Steussie, Charlie Garner and a host of other aging veterans in an attempt to resurrect a dying Super Bowl champion.

The results were nothing short of disastrous. After going 7-9 in 2003, the Bucs went 5-11 in 2004. And truth be known, they still haven’t recovered from some of the mistakes they made that year.

They’re still looking for their quarterback of the future, their best young receiver is third on the depth chart and their star running back is recovering from season-ending, career-threatening knee surgery.

Some of those problems are not of the Bucs own doing, of course. Fate has played a role in a lot of this. But that doesn’t change the fact that the future of this franchise is no more certain now than it was last summer.

In fact, there are several teams that seem to be on a much faster track to long-term sustained success than the Bucs. I’d list Arizona as one of them, San Francisco as another and Tennessee as yet another.

Right now I see the Bucs in the same situation as the Green Bay Packers. They’re looking pretty good right now and giving their fans plenty to cheer about. But what lies ahead doesn’t seem so promising.

Two guys in the Bucs front office that don’t get as much credit for some of the good work they do are pro personnel director Mark Dominik and personnel executive Doug Williams. It’s their job to keep track of all the players that are out on the street and it was through their due diligence that the Bucs wound up getting left tackle Donald Penn last year.

Penn was on the Vikings practice squad when Dominik and Williams talked the Bucs into signing him to their active roster last year. That move went relatively unnoticed at the time, but Penn started drawing raves during training camp this year and his signing now looks like one of the better moves the Bucs have made the last few years.

There are some who believe Penn is already the best pass protector on the Bucs offensive line, and he’s not a finished product yet. He still has to build up some strength, particularly in his upper body, and he needs experience. He’s got good feet, though, and good mobility and he’s got a mean streak. And to think were it not for Dominik and Williams, he probably wouldn’t be here.

BENNETT FILLS NEED FOR SPEED: It’s hard not to like the trade for Michael Bennett. He may not be a starting caliber back, but he does give the Bucs a speed element that was lost when Williams went down. He’ll serve as a good complement to Earnest Graham and B.J. Askew and could prove to be extremely effective on screen passes (assuming the Bucs ever run one) and dump-offs. He’s got great speed and quickness through the hole, but like Williams he needs the line to open that hole for him. He’s not going to do it on his own, but that’s fine. If he gets through the line he’s a threat to break off a long one. That’s something the Bucs need. He’s young, too, just 29 years old, and he doesn’t have a lot of mileage on him. That means he could easily be around for several more years. We won’t know what the Bucs had to give up for him until he’s done producing this season, but if the picks remain second-day picks it seems like a good deal for the Bucs.

A SACK, SO TO SPEAK: If I’m Gaines Adams I’m giving back that sack I was given against the Titans last Sunday. There’s no way in the world I want my first sack to come as a result of me touching down a player who fell down and didn’t try to get up after he ran into his own running back. That’s like having your first NHL goal come as a result of some defenseman knocking the puck into his own net after you coughed it up to him in the slot. If I’m Gaines Adams I’m thinking, ‘‘I’ll have a lot of sacks in my career. I want the first one to be legitimate. I want it to be something I earned, not something I was given because I happened to be in the neighborhood at the time some quarterback fell down.’‘

WHITE DELIVERS THE HITS: While we’re on the pass rushers, let’s give a shout out to Greg White. You’re not hearing his name over the public address system very much but it’s not like this guy has disappeared since recording his first sack during the Week 2 game against New Orleans. Though he has yet to record his second sack, White has recorded four quarterback hits in the last three games, and two of them have been doozies. He laid a really hard hit on Peyton Manning two weeks ago and really laid out Vince Young with a hit this past Sunday. It won’t be long now before teams start double-teaming White. It’s either that or run the risk of losing your quarterback.

RUUD’S NAGGING KNEE: I’ve got a feeling Barrett Ruud is going to be bothered by that sore left knee of his all year. Ruud first hurt his knee during training camp when he strained a muscle behind the joint. He’s still being bothered by it, especially after games that are played on turf. He’ll probably come away from the game in Detroit this week feeling pretty sore, but two weeks of home games against Jacksonville and Arizona should allow him to regain near full strength. The problem is one that probably won’t require surgery to correct, but Ruud will need extensive rest to truly get over this nagging problem.

QUICK MONEY (SPENT): Bucs Executive Vice President Ed Glazer said this week that it took his family all of about five minutes to decide to donate $5 million to help build the Glazer Children’s Museum in downtown Tampa. Glazer said it might have been the fastest his family has ever decided to spend $5 million. If it was, it only ties the amount of time it took them to spend $5 million on quarterback Jeff Garcia back in March.