STOP THE PRESSES!  Put away whatever bullsh-t story you’re reading about the Iraq war or the auto industry bailout, and pay attention to this front-page A1 above-the-fold news: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers held cheerleading tryouts!

It doesn’t matter if you’re a rookie or a three-year veteran… If you want to be a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cheerleaders, you have to try out.

“They have a little more to lose if when they’ve already been on the team,” Bucs cheerleading coach Sandy Charboneau said. “There’s a lot of competition.”

More than 300 women attended try-outs [this weekend] at the University of South Florida Sun Dome for one of about 30 spots for the 2009-10 squad, Charboneau said. “They’re vying for a small percentage of women that can be in the NFL.”

…and by “NFL” she means “football fans’ twisted erotic fantasies prominently featuring garden vegetables, barbed wire, and motor oil.”  Or is that just me?

(keep clicking through for largest image)

|Full gallery at Tampa Bay Online via Don Chavez|

Buccaneers linebacker Geno Hayes got face-raped by a pair of scissors over the weekend after his girlfriend stabbed him. Hayes suffered wounds to the head, neck, and probably ego as well. Usually when I lose blood, I feel like more of a man. And then the nurse offers me cookies. And then I offer her a cookie…and that’s why I don’t give blood anymore.

A sheriff’s spokesperson said Hayes, 21, was treated and released from a hospital Saturday evening. He suffered superficial wounds.

Hayes’ girlfriend, 19-year-old Shevelle Bagley, was arrested and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Hayes played in nine games in 2008, his rookie season. I’m pretty sure that Shevelle Bagley is of no relation to Ed Begley, Jr, who surely would have endorsed running over Hayes with an electric car. That probably would have made a better Photoshop.

|Sporting News|

Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden was fired last week, and at least one person isn’t too broken up about it.  Former Bucs defensive end Simeon Rice was a little more than candid about his feelings on Sirius NFL Radio.

“You look at what he did when Chris [Simms] damn near died on the field, he wanted to release him right when he got injured. I get hurt, my shoulder’s torn off the bone. This dude releases me. You know what I mean? I’m your guy. The list goes on.

“Keenan McCardell, that situation was a debacle. Keyshawn Johnson, another situation [that] was a debacle. Joey Galloway, which was his man, was in the doghouse all year because he got injured, broke his ankle or whatever. Brad Johnson, that situation was bad. Brings Jeff Garcia in here, oh, he’s going to change things. I helped recruit him [and he] released me, kept Jeff and then put him in the doghouse. Gets rid of Brian Griese, brings him, starts a controversy. It was chaotic…

“I’m just giving you facts. I’m not giving you how I feel personally. How I feel personally?  I could tell you that, too. I think he’s a scumbag. I think he’s a scumbag personally… You know what he told me? ‘Simeon you’ll be here in the next five years.’ I got injured [and] this man’s never said one word to me. I won a Super Bowl for you. I got 13 sacks, 12, 15 every year for you. I balled. I got injured [and] you let me go like it was nothing.”

Rice finished the interview by praising just about every other coach in the Tampa organization.  Then he left to go take a dump on Gruden’s porch.

The highlight of yesterday’s Bucs-Chargers game — aside from the fact that it gives us a Philip Rivers-Jay Cutler battle royale for the AFC West next week — was Jeff Garcia opting not to slide after a scramble, and paying for it by getting Quentin Jammer’s shoulder planted into his helmet (video and more pictures after the jump).

I admit, I saw this and I was like, “Sweet!  There’s blood on his face.”  But the commentators really went crazy for it.  They were so excited it was like a couple tiger sharks were calling the game.  “GRRRR that’s some old-timey football!!!”  Please, it’s just a nosebleed.  I get those all the time when the pressure changes, and you don’t hear anyone calling me gritty.

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A man named Brian Gordon is suing NFL players Michael Bennett and Anthony Davis and the International House of Pancakes after an October incident during which, he claims, the players and a third man assaulted him in an IHOP parking lot.  Both players were on Tampa Bay’s roster at the time; since then, Davis, a tackle, and Bennett, a running back, have signed with other teams.

Gordon claims that as he ate in the IHOP on Oct. 13, Davis, who was drunk, harassed the staff and patrons, calling two fellow diners “sluts” and “whores,” yelling at the waitress and cook to “give me my m-ther f-cking food!” and so on.

He claims Davis threatened him with physical harm, then placed a phone call to Bennett and another man, who arrived in a car.

Gordon says Bennett “brandished a black handgun in a holster,” and that Bennett, Davis and the third man then beat him up in the parking lot. And he claims that no agent of IHOP intervened.

The agents of IHOP, Gordon claims, were in direct violation of the restaurant’s motto, “To protect and serve pancakes.”

[Deadspin]

In yesterday afternoon’s hottest blog news, Buccaneers defensive end Greg White officially changed his name to Stylez G. White, thus relegating Chad Ocho Cinco’s exercise in Spanglish to second place on the year-end list of great NFL name changes.  What was White’s reasoning?

“You can always remember Stylez White,” White said. “Greg White, nobody knows Greg White.”

Even better, the inspiration came from the Teen Wolf character Rupert “Stiles” Stilinski.

“That was his best friend’s name,’’ White said. “I always liked that name. It’s not that I don’t like Greg White.’’

I don’t know how I feel about this.  The decision to name yourself after a character from a Michael J. Fox movie just seems kinda… shaky.  What?  Did I say something wrong?                                    [via The Sporting Blog]
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