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Welcome to Bucs' nightmare – and London's only the start

The Associated Press

Tom Brady and the Patriots are only part of ''Nightmare Alley'' for the Bucs over the next few weeks.

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 19, 2009

TAMPA - This was the doomsday scenario.

In so many ways, this was always "Nightmare Alley."

If you're a Buc or a Glazer, this is exactly what you didn't want.

You didn't need to be 0-6, not with what lies directly ahead.

I'm telling you, they're shaking under their blankets.

"Ma, I don't wanna go to London."

It's a nightmare in three parts – and it requires a passport.

Nightmare!

London is calling. The 0-6 Bucs are on international display when they play Tom Brady and all the other fine young cannibals on the Patriots, who just beat the Oilers – I mean Titans – 59-0 in the snow. Wonder how they play in fog.

We hear London called Berlin late Sunday night and said, hey, no hard feelings about the world wars if you take this game.

No go.

Who do you think the crowd favorite will be in this game? Brady might be right up there with Prince William by the end of the week. The Bucs are something out of "The Benny Hill Show."

For the Glazers, oh, boy, this is just what they wanted, right?

Fly across the pond to the land of Manchester United winning soccer and loan servicing, and line up the world's richest soccer club with its ugly NFL sister and all that cap room. No, people won't think about all the money the Glazers spent to get or keep Man U. and wonder whether it took money away from the Bucs.

Oh, and then they play the football game.

Nightmare II!

If the Bucs return home 0-7 – we're just saying – then they have a bye week, which will be filled with things like celebrations and fake tailgate parties, that is, if Bucs fans still have a sense of humor. I think they might.

Worse still, Coach Raheem Morris gets to think another week about changing quarterbacks again, and Bucs players and the Glazers and all of us get an extra week to think about …

Nightmare III!

This might be the granddaddy.

For the eighth game of the season, throwback season meets throwback Sunday.

That's right. On Nov. 8, if it all works out, the winless Bucs will run onto the field at Raymond James Stadium wearing the exact replica Creamsicle uniforms worn by the 1976 0-14 Bucs.

This might be the greatest event of all time.

We thought those bad, old days were gone.

The throwback game is technically being held in honor of Lee Roy Selmon and the 1979 Bucs, who 30 years ago reached the NFC Championship game.

But I was at the news conference on that big day, way before the season, when Bucs like linebacker Barrett Ruud modeled the throwback orange. But that day, Ed Glazer, known as "one of the Glazers," went out of his way to specifically mention that these are 1976 uniforms, and they'd searched high and low and worked with the NFL to come up with an exact replica.

An exact replica of 1976.

It's alive! It's alive!

Just what we needed: "Night of the Living Bucs."

For good measure, the opponent will be the Green Bay Packers, whose fans might descend on Tampa like in the old days and scoop up tickets and fill in all those seats that were going to be decidedly empty.

Back to the Land of the Cheeseheads at a Tampa football stadium.

Yowza.

I know what the Bucs must be thinking.

"Do we really need to come back from London? Can't we just find work over there?"

And off we go down "Nightmare Alley."

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