Briefly yesterday, the sports world was aflitter and atwitter, abuzz and agog at the word coming from Tampa that the Buccaneers’ owners, still reeling from the Bernie Madoff scheme, were going to have to sell the team before next season. The rumor seems to have originated from former Buc Dan Sileo on WDAE 620 AM, though according to JOE BUCS FAN, it quickly spread to other relevant media organizations.

(Uh oh, Jasper’s here. And he’s got his paddle. Guys, that’s not a good sign.)

Slight problem: Sileo apparently didn’t check that rumor with the actual team; they’d have quickly shot the rumor down. We know they’d have done that because that’s precisely what co-chairman Joel Glazer did with ESPN’s Adam Schefter later that day, calling the rumors “100 percent false” and “baseless, irresponsible and slanderous.” Whoops. Well, that’s one way to earn a quick vacation.

Read more…

The ASSOCIATED PRESS reports the NFL has suspended Carolina Panther Dante Wesley for his cheap shot on Tampa Bay Buccaneer Clifton Smith yesterday.

(Video after the jump)

NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson in a letter to Wesley: “The prohibited contact in this case went well beyond simply interfering with the receiver. Instead, by striking your defenseless opponent in the head and neck area, you committed an unnecessary and unnecessarily dangerous act that is specifically prohibited by the rules.” Read more…

• Reggie Bush & Kim Kardashian are gonna give love another chance.

It’s gotta be the new hair!

• Those 38 wins by the Memphis Tigers two years ago? The NCAA declares that it never happened.

• That seems a bit harsh. Next thing you’ll tell me, giving cream cheese to athletes would be considered an NCAA violation.

• Plaxico Burress pleads guilty to gun possession charge, will spend the next two seasons playing for the penal pigskin league.

• First Patrick Kane, and now Aqib Talib. Why do pro athletes hate cabbies so much?

Read more…

When news broke of Patrick Kane punching out that cabbie in Buffalo last weekend, we thought it was just an isolated incident, one young pup too chemically invested in the night to know enough right from wrong to refrain from raining fists down on an unsuspecting cab driver.

 
(Enraged by the color yellow?)

How wrong we were. Comes now that in sunny Tampa, where nothing ever goes wrong, the next salvo has been fired, and we can look at this as less of a feud and more of a burgeoning conflict, one that threatens to envelop our nation in perpetual conflict and violence. Goodbye, Crips and Bloods - hello, Cabs and Ballers.

Read more…

Throwbacks, despite having their flare of popularity earlier in the decade, are still an overall underused aspect of sports. Yes, trotting out new uniforms every so often makes sense in terms of keeping the brand fresh and all, but you can’t tell me the Nets’ bland threads are at all more palatable than their 1980s getups. And the Chargers, well, they know powder blue was the right way to go all along.

(The horror… the horror…)

But one team that should be running in terror from their pastel ’80s days is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Perpetually the worst team of the late ’70s and ’80s, the Bucs tossed out the orange-pink uniforms 12 years ago and won a Super Bowl within a handful of years. This is no accident. But, as you can surmise from the picture above, they’re back. God help us all.

Read more…

• Kim Kardashian tosses the pigskin while showing some skin of her own:

• Hilary Rhoda, the marvelous model in Mark Sanchez’s GQ photoshoot, is apparently dating the Jets QB.

• A lawyer who’s previously represented many Denver Broncos players is now defending those responsible in Darrent Williams’ shooting death.

• Eric Naposki: From NFL linebacker to murderer of a millionaire.

• NASCAR suspends Carl Long for 12 races & fines his crew chief $200,000 for using an engine that was too big.

Read more…

Hey, football players get into fights. It happens. It’s a physical game and tempers run high. But it would be easier to excuse Bucs cornerback Aqib Talib if he hadn’t swung his helmet like a weapon. And it would be even easier to excuse him if he hadn’t smashed the wrong player in the face.

Talib got into a scuffle with tackle Donald Penn during Tampa Bay’s voluntary workouts yesterday. Veteran Torrie Cox made the mistake of trying to break up their fight, and was rewarded with a helmet to the face for his troubles.

Did I mention this isn’t the first time this has happened to Talib?

Read more…

Wide receiver Anthony Mix had been out of the NFL for a year, until he signed with the Buccaneers in January. So he did what any one of us would do: He allegedly had sex with a 15-year-old girl.

The 26-year-old Mix has been indicted in Alabama after reenacting a cross between “Romeo & Juliet”, “Rapunzel”, and “Barely Legal Teens 22″. He allegedly came to the girls house, waiting outside while she snuck out, and had sex in his car parked outside. When it happened a second time, the girl’s mother called police. You can’t be doing that.

Read more…

Let’s be clear right now - nobody would watch the NFL draft if every team drafted wisely. Just like car racing is only good for the crashes, which is unimpeachable fact, people really watch the draft for the lousy picks, the ones that leave the fans at Radio City agape in disbelief.

(Yes, howl in anger. Howl for my amusement.)

In that sense, then, our hats are off to Oakland, who just selected Darrius Heyward-Bey, a Maryland speedster who nobody figured was a top 10 talent. While he was still projected as a first-round pick, he was in no way the top WR on the board - that’d have been Michael Crabtree, who’ll be able to thumb his nose from San Francisco across the bay at the Raiders for years to come. Heyward-Bey, while supremely athletic, possesses all the qualities that add up to “epic WR bust,” mainly a lack of production in college, an inability to run a crisp route, and hands of stone. So he can’t run a decent square in, nor would he be able to catch it anyway. Sign that man!

Al Davis, who is a total cancer on his own team, wasn’t done wrecking the franchise once again. Read more…

Evidently, former NFL quarterback Jeff Komlo was a pretty seedy character. After rounding out his professional career by playing for the Lions and Buccaneers in the early ’80s, Komlo went on to a highly successful career in arson and drug dealing. He was convicted of cocaine possession and assault, and accused of trying to burn down a pair of his houses in West Palm Beach, FL, and Chester Springs, PA. In fact, he was so disreputable that, when he passed away in a tragic car accident while fleeing prosecution in Greece, the Chester County, PA, district attorney refused to simply accept that he was dead.

At least that’s the story coming from THE SPORTING BLOG, via THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, which got in touch with Chester County D.A. Joseph Carroll, who was happy to give them his own unique take on the death of one Jeff Komlo.

Read more…