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Bucs Preseason: The Lows

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 15, 2008

The Brett Favre Saga

It ended precisely the way General Manager Bruce Allen thought it would - with the Packers trading QB Brett Favre to an AFC team. Even so, the Bucs spent the better part of camp flirting with Favre. Why? Well, he's Brett Favre. The worst part was that the Bucs carried on with little regard to the effect the Favre talk might have on QB Jeff Garcia. And it did have an effect. At one point, the speculation had Garcia so shaken he referred to himself as a "dead man walking." It's hard to blame him. After all, when the head coach refused to end the speculation because he felt it "wouldn't be fair to Brett Favre," it's not like he had Garcia's best interest in mind.

The Jeff Garcia Saga

He skipped the first two days of camp to attend the reunion of the junior-college football team his father coached to a national title. Then, after only a few days back on the job, Garcia went down with a strained right calf. When camp ended, Garcia still wasn't taking the majority of the reps at quarterback and pointed to the Aug.23 game against Jacksonville as his exhibition debut. At 38, Garcia doesn't need a lot of work to get ready for the start of a season, but he probably needs more than he got in this camp. As for his future with the Bucs, well, he hasn't come right out and said it, but it seems Garcia is no longer as interested in signing a contract extension with Tampa Bay as he was before the Favre saga.

The Joey Galloway Saga

Coach Jon Gruden has a new nickname for his go-to receiver. He calls him the white tiger, because seeing Joey Galloway practice has become about as rare as spotting a white tiger in the wild. Gruden was clearly joking when he first tagged Galloway with that moniker, but as camp dragged on, the laughter morphed into legitimate concern about Galloway's availability. Though he did work out daily on his own, Galloway never participated in a camp drill or practice, and the sore groin that kept him on the sideline grew into a major worry. Teammates, meanwhile, became a little disgusted with the special treatment Galloway seemed to receive.

The Luke Petitgout Saga

Like Galloway and RB Cadillac Williams, LT Luke Petitgout never made it off the sideline during camp. That left Anthony Davis as the only real competitor for the starting left tackle spot that figures to go to incumbent fill-in starter Donald Penn. Davis is a solid pro, a one-time starter, but he was never going to give Penn the push that Petitgout would have. So, the Bucs still aren't sure if their starting left tackle is their best left tackle.

White Wash

DE Greg White, the Arena League product who led the Bucs in sacks as a right end last year, was one of the biggest surprises of the 2007 season. He followed up by being one of the biggest disappointments of the 2008 training camp. The Bucs believe everything will change once the games become more meaningful, but White has yet to show the form that made him one of the more dominant pass rushers in the league last year. He is learning a new position, shifting to left end, but remains a backup behind Kevin Carter. If White doesn't improve quickly, that's how things will stay.

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