Tampa

As we approach Sunday’s Week 3 NFL action, we certainly have a fair share of teams that we never would have imagined would be 2-0 at this point in the season. Jay Cutler is currently the league’s best passer for the 2-0 Chicago Bears, the defense has been strangely great for the 2-0 Miami Dolphins, the Pittsburgh Steelers are rapey-free for two more games and are still 2-0, and 2-0 Kansas City is making the best of being the best of the AFC West worst. Houston’s strong start is arguable and everyone expected New Orleans and Green Bay to be sitting pretty. And then there’s Tampa Bay.

The Buccaneers are tied with the Saints at 2-0 in the NFC South after opening with wins over Cleveland and Carolina. And while those are two pretty awful teams, you’d think that people in Tampa would be able to get behind their Bucs after a very surprising start. Especially when the 2-0 Steelers are being led into town by Chaz Batch. But nope, the Bucs-Steelers game will be Braylon-Edwardsed blacked out in Florida (Ed. – Hooray!) because Tampa fans simply aren’t buying the hype. Somewhere Josh Freeman and… um… I don’t know, someone else who plays for the Bucs are crying.

Paint loser Bucs fans in a shade of orange and cream, USA Today:


The team announced on Thursday that it had failed to sell out their stadium by Sunday’s 1 p.m. ET deadline. So the game vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers will not air locally, as NFL rules demand for games that fail to sell out 72 hours before kickoff.

It’s the second straight blackout for the Bucs, who have warned that they could fail to sell out many games this season.

The Bucs also refused to accept the ticket buy-back rule, which allows a team to purchase leftover tickets at 1/3 of the face value and save the team from the blackout. Now I’m no TV NFL market analyst expert person, but this is a city with a Super Bowl victory in the past 10 years and a fan base that has been terribly bandwagon-driven but still very loyal in winning seasons. I think they deserve worse than a black out. People in Tampa should have their cable blocked during the entire game with the only available programming being reruns of old Bucs games.