Rice...A Day After

Well, just after I heard that all the draft picks had signed, news came out that Simeon Rice got whacked after failing a physical. Others were stating it was because he wouldn't take a pay cut. Quite frankly, it's a combination of issues. Rice was on something of a short leash to begin with. He had been suspended twice in the past 3 seasons for actions detrimental to the team. He also repeatedly refused to take any kind of pay cut to help the team out when they were starved for cap space. That seriously hurt the Bucs' chances at bringing in some better FA's over the prior 3 seasons, and you can bet that it did not go over well with the Front Office.

Then Simeon shows up to camp and states he's still not ready to go, which the Doctors confirm. The Bucs bring him in for a meeting and then he gets whacked. It appears that the Bucs wanted him to take a pay cut after missing half of 2006, and apparently looking to miss some playing time this season. Rice apparently balked (these are the reports coming from various sources in the media) and the Bucs decided to cut him right then.

Quite frankly, I was hoping Rice would be available this season, but it's been clear for a while that he would not be back in 2008. That means that he was, at best, a one year safety net. The Bucs decided that safety net was too much, and would keep Adams and Chukwurah off the field. They also may have felt that he could have had a negative influence on Adams if he became disgruntled. In the end I agree with the decision, even if the timing wasn't spectacular. It's time to move on. Rice's mouth and ego helped contribute to this situation, along with his long rehabilitation.

So, with that, it's time to concentrate on the future. Pewter Report has details of the first day of camp, and I think it continues to look like Garcia's presence will make a huge impact in the effectiveness of the offense. I can't wait to see how that ends up.

Signings Continue Amidst Culpepper Visit

Kenneth Darby just signed, leaving only the first day picks to go. That's Adams, Sears, Piscitelli, and Black. The Bucs have until Friday to get these guys signed and not miss any camp. Expect Allen to do the full court press as the next few days come and go. It will be interesting to see how they do with Adams contract. He's going to cost them a chunk of change. Let's hope there aren't any hold-outs.

To put even more fun into this last week, Daunte Culpepper, who was released from the Dolphins a couple of days ago, came in for a visit. Whether or not the Bucs would actually consider bringing him in is a far cry from getting the scoop on his current condition. The Bucs need mobility in their Quarterbacks, and Daunte's knees need to be good to go for him to have the ability to move around. And, although he was more mobile before the injury, one could argue that Simms had more mobility in the pocket. Daunte tended to be the type of guy that stood there and then broke tackles and took off. His size allowed that. I just don't see him being a fit here. I wouldn't be totally shocked if they brought him in due to the issues Simms has been having, but I personally doubt it will happen.

Refrigerator Schedule Now Up!

OK, the downloadable schedule is now up, hosted at my old RR site. Click the link above to get it direct, or go to here to go to the old front page and load it from the links at the top. As usual, I have included both a PNG and a CorelDraw 8 version. The CorelDraw 8 version can be loaded in any version from 8 onward and will give the best results when printing out. The PNG is the safe, everyone can get it, type, but it will alias the fonts some when it prints.

If you are using a printer that is not capable of borderless printing, you may want to size it accordingly and use Print Preview to make sure it doesn't get cut off. Have fun.

NOTE: If you get a "Forbidden" page direct from the link, just hit refresh (or the enter key) and it will be available to you.

Signings And Stuff...

Well, yesterday two more draft picks signed, Peterson and Hayward. That leaves 6 more picks to go. With just over a week to go, Bruce will have to start working overtime to get the remaining deals done.

In other news, I have the refrigerator schedule done. Now I need to get it hosted, and I will likely use my old Road Runner page to do it, much like last year's version. I'm planning to do that tomorrow, as it requires some hand coding to add the link to this site, and I have to do some things to load it onto the old site. Look for it tomorrow, or Saturday at the latest.

I'm also looking at trying to find some time this weekend to futz with the site layout. I would like to get this site converted to the new templates, but I don't want to nuke the basic look and feel of the current site, so I need to be careful. I'll post on the progress, or you'll see crap splattered all over your screen when you try to view this site. One way or another, it must go forth. Till then...

Training Camp...Al..most...here...UGH!

OK, this really sucks. I HATE July, with the exception of the 4th, when we celebrate the creation of this fine country we live in (sorry to those from other countries!). Thankfully, our football-less misery is almost over. Just two weeks to go until camp starts up.

Leading up to camp I plan to do a couple of things on the site. The first is to get the yearly refrigerator schedule up so we can all mark down all those wins (loses? what loses?). The second is a change to the appearance of the website. I have yet to take advantage of Blogger's new templates and other features, and plan to, at the very least, change the width restriction which comes from the template that I modified when this site first went up. I think the site is a little too vertical, especially since most people are running at 1024x768 or higher resolutions, and many are switching to widescreen 16:9 format monitors. The changes will be obvious. I'm also considering something to compile all the stats into a season long stat tracker for the team stats, similar to the Excel-to-web page sheet that I used to do. However, I don't have the time to do all the manual work I needed to do in the past. This would have to be a cut and paste from the game books and simply posted up for all to view. In other words, it would have to be pretty much 100% automatic, and only require a minute of my time.

The big difference would be in a couple of the stats that I used to track differently then the NFL because I thought they were more indicative of the team's accomplishments, or lack thereof. Last season, of course, I had no such stats page. So I'll ponder it. The change in appearance comes first, however, even though it shouldn't, cosmetically, be anything major.

Oh, and Torrie Cox got a 4 game suspension...whoop dee freaking do! Torrie will be lucky to even make the team, suspensions or not.