Big Lead Sports Bar

9/07/2007

Why the Bucs Will Be Better Than the Steelers in 2007


I've thrown out a challenge to the followers of every other NFL team out there: tell us why your team will be better than the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2007. Plenty of eager writers are lined up to tell you exactly why they think they'll be superior to the black and gold.


Today's author goes by the name of Louis Lipps is My Homeboy. He's a longtime reader of the site and a Steeler fan at heart. He's also the official Florida correspondent of Mondesi's House, having given us the awesome Pirates Spring Training Photo Journal earlier this year. If only the Pirates season could have turned out as well. But as yesterday should illustrate, at least the Buccos are in good hands for the future.


The Bucs are an interesting lot. They have roughly 189 quarterbacks on their roster, including one that says he's retired, one that's married to a Playmate, one whose name has surfaced in a gambling ring (who hails from Pittsburgh, no less), and one who has a guy's initials tattooed on his leg. They also have a coach who claims to sleep three hours a night, a wide receiver who's older than Joe Paterno, and a member of the Fantasy Football Hall of Fame. At the very least, they're colorful.


And now, I turn it over to "LLIMH", for his take on the Bucs from the belly of the beast...

Why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be better than the Pittsburgh Steelers


By Louis Lipps is my Homeboy


Why is a diehard Steeler fan doing this article? Well, ok here’s some backstory for ya...

Some of you may have read some of my comments on the site. You know that I am a pretty staunch supporter of pretty much all of the Pittsburgh teams that Raul covers on the site. You may also have picked up that a few years back I moved to Tampa, Florida. Around the time that I relocated to the giant, swampy suburb on Florida’s Gulf Coast, the local football team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, actually were starting to show signs of life for the first time in decades under then-head coach Tony Dungy. Now comes confession time. While I wouldn’t say I was a “fan” of the Buccaneers, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t find their new found competence kind of, I dunno, “nice”. I mean, here were the biggest losers in the NFL for well-over a decade, and they were finally making something of themselves. They actually began to draw crowds to their home games, at the then brand spanking new “Raymond James Stadium”, whereas just a few seasons before you could easily score pretty good seats for free on most Sundays. It was like watching the nerdy kid that nobody liked in high school finally start to come out of his shell and score with the ladies. I almost found it sort of “cute” how some in the Tampa Bay area were warming to their new gridiron heroes. Hell, I watched a lot of their games themselves. Granted this was in the dark ages before I discovered the nationwide phenomenon known as the “local Steelers bar” in late-2001 and I couldn’t afford Sunday Ticket. So it was kind of Bucs or nothin’. But you can’t say I wasn’t watching damnit!

Then the 2002 season happened.

For those of you that don’t remember, 2002 was the year that the previously unthinkable happened: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers rolled through the regular season and plowed their way through the playoffs to win the Super Bowl.

And it was pretty much all downhill between me and the team from America’s “other” bay area from that point on. The fans turned from lovable, yet shameless, (buts still lovable I reiterate!) bandwagon jumpers into a group of people that (briefly thank god) rivaled the New York Yankees for arrogance. Except this was no New York Yankees they were rooting for. This was a team that almost sabotaged their greatest season before it started thing by firing head coach Tony Dungy and hiring the fiery Jon Gruden, a move which initially looked insanely stupid, then after they won the Super Bowl looked genius, then after subsequent seasons went back to looking insanely stupid again. Their numbers swelled in a post-Super Bowl, bandwagon busting boom. If I only had a nickel for every time someone told me “I’m from (enter name of city here, Tampa’s full of transplants), and I used to be a (enter team name here) fan. But now I’m a Bucs fan!!!” in the months between the end of Super Bowl XXXVII and the beginning of the 2003 season. And I heard all of the same things about their team that we heard from the Indianapolis guy yesterday. They’re a great franchise now, the Steelers are going downhill yadda yadda yadda…

So needless to say, I kind of stopped thinking that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their new followers were “nice” and/or “cute”, and I more or less just got annoyed and withdrew any small amount of support I’d ever had for them.

Now onto part II of this article (which has probably just been an annoying rant up until this point).

We’ve established that I think the Buccaneers ownership are jerks (whom history has proven backed into the Super Bowl title), and the Buc “fans” annoyed me to no end (not all, mainly just the 75% that were just bandwagon jumpers that left within a year anyways), AND that they had douchebag players back in the day (ok I didn’t mention that, but I could write this whole article about how much I dislike Warren Sapp).

So how, you ask, am I doing to actually say they’re better than the Steelers?

Well… I’m not. That’s why it took me so long to write this. I don’t think they’re a better team than we are. In fact, I’m pretty apathetic towards the Bucs these days.

But I struck gold people!

I found a Bucs fan to argue this point with, but not just any Bucs fan! No, this was like my evil Buccaneer fan doppelganger! Not a bandwagon fan the came aboard in 2002, but an old school Bucs fan with a long history with the team!!! IN FACT he even goes by the name of “Steve Deberg is my Homeboy”!!!!!!

What follows is a 10 part, email debate we had about the Bucs and Steelers.

For the sake of brevity, points by El Homeboy de Steve Deberg (as he is known in Florida’s Latin community) and counterpoints from yours truly will be denoted by pictures of the former Buc quarterback and Steeler wide receiver.

Point #1: Jeff Garcia
Yeah that’s right! We finally have a real quarterback! Dude was a Pro Bowler in San Francisco, AND he led the Eagles to the playoffs last year while Big Ben was sitting at home. We’re gonna totally rule this year!


Umm… yeah, good in San Fran, what, five years ago? I’ll give you Philly, but he was playing for a good team. Wonder what happens when he plays for a bad team…. Oh wait, we already know what happens…..






“I hate my life.”


Point #2: Steely McBeam


Hahahaha!!! Did you see that thing? And that name… wow! It’s almost too easy. You guys wanted Bill Cowher to be on the sideline so bad, that you made a giant muppet of him to patrol your sidelines during the game! Looks like the big tough Steelers have lost their edge!!


Ok ok… you might just have me there. But c’mon, it’s not like “Captain Fear” is the epitome of football badassedness! In fact, he kind of resembles 80s pop star Kenny Loggins in a bandana:


“Highway to the Danger Zone!”


Point #3: Logo


Is your team too lazy to ever change that logo or their uniforms? They’re probably too poor to afford to put the logo on both sides of the helmet!!! har har har
Ummm…. I guess I’m sorry that when we designed our logos we got it right the first time. Unlike some other team I know:


Point #4: Cheerleaders



Yeah, we got ‘em, and you don’t!!!
Oh c’mon, we’re the friggin Steelers! You might be able to sneak a “Steely McBeam” in there on us, but cheerleaders just wouldn’t fly. But I have to admit, you guys do have some lookers on the sidelines here in Tampa…



Better hide these gals from the new quarterback!! ::snicker snicker::


Point #5: Cadillac Williams


2005 Rookie of the Year. We gotta get the point for this one!
Good player, at least for the first five games of his career. Then it’s been injuries injuries injuries for him, and sweeeeeeeeeeet success for “Fast” Willie Parker.

Well, in closing, I’d like to thank my debate opponent “Steve Deberg is my Homeboy” and the city of Tampa for not only letting me live here the past half-decade, but for letting me rip mercilessly on their football team on the internet! But if you ask “Le Homeboy du Steve Deberg” (his alias when he vacations in France), the Buccaneers WILL be better than the Steelers this season.

In closing I’d like to tell Adam that Penn State still sucks. Thanks for your time everyone!!!!


Click here for the entire "Why My Team Will Be Better Than the Steelers in 2007" series

1 comment:

The Duke from Dukes Court said...

Was Steve DeBerg giving it his all, he used to be a Steeler afterall?

--

Is that an unopened mint condition Louis Lipps Starting Lineup? One word for you: EBAY.