Want to write for Buc 'Em? Follow in CallMeTaterNuts footsteps below. Create a FanPost on any Bucs related topic of your choosing and it will be pulled to the front page for all to see and judge. If you write well enough, SB*Nation may bring you aboard. Good Luck!

My last post:

When I went to SB*Nation two and half years ago to see if I could start a Bucs Blog on their platform I had no idea of the responsibility that came with such a request. Early on you had to know HTML code in order to function for SB*Nation and for a person who had no experience in HTML it was a struggle, but a fun struggle. I remember at one point I had stripped the site of all of its color accidentally while working behind the scenes, luckily for me the Tech guys reversed my error. My studies at FSU suffered as I became more and more attuned to the blog, I may have had to repeat a course or two, but it was totally worth it.

Turn the page from then to now and wow has SB*Nation grown. We’ve got twitter feeds, rss feeds, auto-taggers, AP photo privileges, automated schedules and rosters on the sites, a Yahoo partnership; and several bloggers are even credentialed by their respective franchises. Simply amazing. The platform has evolved into a blogger’s haven. That’s why it’s tough to let this thing go. SB*Nation has become and will continue to be the premier Sports Blogging Network for diehard fans across the nation. With that said I can no longer take on the responsibility that comes with blogging for SB*Nation. Over the past two and half years I graduated from college, got a full time job, got married, bought a home, and recently had my first child. Needless to say I don’t have enough hours in my day to commit to this endeavor. It is with great remorse and apprehension that I step away from this site and community, but I must.

Many Thanks:

I would like to thank Tyler and Dave for allowing me to join the SB*Nation family and voice my opinions on everything related to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You guys trusted me with your brand and gave me an outlet to empty my thoughts. For that I will be forever grateful. Dave, Jaxon, and Dave/Sunil I thank you guys for being excellent (rival) colleagues; we spent many a day’s debating the Falcons troubles, Julius Peppers availability, and the Paper Champion Saints (I kid). Ryan, Trei, and the rest of the tech team I greatly appreciate your efforts over the years, you have crafted a fantastic thing here; I can’t even put into words the type of environment you have cultivated for bloggers and fans alike… R.J. and John it was fun being a part of the Tampa Area Blogosphere with you gentlemen! Here’s to continued success for both of you and your sites. Go Devil Rays and Bolts!

I especially want to thank Stephen Holder and Rick Stroud from the St. Pete Times, the fellas from the Pewter Report, Roy Cummings and Anwar Richardson from the Tampa Tribune and Scott from BucStats for providing me with great Buccaneers insight over the years. You guys do a phenomenal job and Bucs Fans are better for having you at their disposal. I have the greatest and utmost respect for what it is that you do. I don’t think fans fully grasp what a grind it is to initially get the information and then to disseminate it to everyone’s satisfaction. You guys do a great job, honestly you do. I’ll continue to lurk your sites, ha!

To the Vendors that provided Merchandise for contests and ticket companies who provided our readers with the cheapest tickets, a big THANK YOU goes out to you. Carroll’s Sports Cove, Wall Daddy, Ticket City, Razorgator, My Ticket Market, and 1st 4 Football Tickets we greatly appreciated your support over the years… Thanks to Flea Flicker for being our Fantasy Football provider.

Finally I want to thank my contributors and the community here. Joel (aka The Bull Gator, Craig (aka Craig T), and Niko (aka Niko521Bucs), you guys did a fantastic job keeping the site fresh with content and providing your own unique insights. It took me a while to make that leap and add voices other than mine to the site, but I feel like I’ve added three brothers to my family. I appreciate all of the time and effort you put into this website! I wish I had more time in my day to keep this thing a float, or had the resources to do this full time as I really enjoyed your company.

And the Community. . . Ghosthippo, Stixx, UNFNole, UltimateBucFan, LinuxTX, and so many more of you made this site worth coming back to day in and day out. I greatly appreciate the discussions you folks conjured up within the comments section of this site… I’ll miss the GameDay Threads we had. You may not realize it, but you are the reason the site is where it is today and why I came back day after day. I started Buc ‘Em because I wanted to provide a place where Bucs fans could come and discuss everything Bucs without censorship. We have that today and I thank you all for it!!!

Buc ‘Em Head Blogger Opportunity:

I can’t make any promises with what I have to say below, but it’s worth a shot for any respective Bucs Fan out there that wants and thinks they can handle running SB*Nation’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers Blog, Buc ‘Em. The powers that be are currently looking for a new head blogger to run Buc ‘Em, do you have what it takes? Several of you responded to my writer request a week ago so I know some of you are ready to contribute. Here’s the challenge: Blog in the FanPost Section. Blog like the site is yours. Introduce yourself to the community and blog like you would if the site was yours. We’ll pull your posts to the front page and make SB*Nation take an honest look at your writing style and abilities. Make it hard for them to pick someone over you. Go! Start! Right now! Let’s see what you got… Maybe they will bring you aboard.

With that, I’m done… It was a fun ride. Go Bucs!!!

The Green Bay Packers and Houston Texans are contemplating attaching a small patch with a corporate logo to their practice jerseys; this is in reaction to a new NFL rule allowing such actions. This probably isn’t the popular sentiment, but who cares? It’s a practice jersey. I realize this could eventually extend to regular season jerseys, but what’s the harm? I know I discuss the lack of Bucs Hats and Practice Jerseys available for the public to purchase and recently advised Coach Morris to wear a new alternate jersey this season, but I can’t get riled up about Corporate sponsors on jerseys:

Don’t get me wrong I don’t like it, but I don’t watch the games to gawk at the uniforms. So long as the patches don’t take away from the action I’m indifferent. This also won’t bother me so long as the jerseys I purchase on NFL Shop EBay don’t have the corporate logos either. Maybe we can come together as a fan base and sponsor a logo on the Saints Practice Jerseys that say, "Paper Champions" or "Go Bucs" either would do…

Let’s hear it, does this scare you?

No nobody is leaving the site (as far as i know), from time to time we try and see who is interested in blogging at Buc 'Em full time, part time, whatever the case may be...

If you think you have the passion, TIME, and skills to become a Buc 'Em writer, send us an email to BucEmBlog@gmail.com. Be sure to put "Writer" in the subject block. Give us your age, location, and why you think you would be a good fit for the site. We look forward to the emails...

Bucs' Blogs:

Did you know the Bucs passed on John Taylor? Probably just as well. If he had come to Tampa, I might be referring to him and not Alvin Harper in all my jokes.

Could Aaron Sears' career be over?

Local and National Media:

Replacing Sears at the moment is Jeremy Zuttah.

B.J. Askew just wants to stay healthy.

The banners are returning!

John Clayton weighs in on the quarterback situation.

Amarri Jackson needs to turn his swag on!

Our "Local" Teams:

Get ready for the NBA Finals!

Matt Joyce is going to be a good one.

...UPDATE...

Despite the hatred toward this color combo, the Bucs apparently attempted to use it or produce it back in 2003, to no avail obviously:

So at least I wasn't all alone in thinking this color combo looked pretty good. Considering it never got produced it appears the majority didnt agree with the idea, as is apparent on this site as well, ha!

Original post below:

Can you believe it’s been 12 years since the Bucs unleashed the switch from the Creamsicle jerseys to the Pewter and Red? Honestly the jerseys still feel new to me. I know with the Bucs wearing throwbacks one game this season I shouldn’t get greedy, but if Raheem wants to put his finishing touch on the team, he would do it by revealing a new alternate jersey this season. That would be the final change needed to completely wipe the previous slate clean. Can you point out the new jersey scheme from the image below?

Kind of sticks out like a sore thumb huh? You didn’t think I was going to ask for lame black jerseys did you? No, this new alternate has a Bucs twist to it with the Pewter on Pewter. There’s one other wrinkle in there as well… Do you see it? Notice the orange striping is gone? The Glazers should striken the orange striping from all of the jerseys the Bucs wear immediately, it just clashes with our primary colors and everybody remembers the creamsicle days by now. Also, if you implement a throwback game every other season that’s all you need for nostalgia purposes. A new Head Coach, a new General Manager, a new Quarterback, why not a new look?…

What do you think about the alternate jersey? You got any ideas yourself? Let’s hear it!

Buc Blog Brethren:

Joe Bucs Fan interviews Kelly Campbell's CFL Coach from last season, Mike Kelly, the halfrican.

Scott from BucStats does his best Christian Bale impersonation (think the Terminator Head Case) in response to Peter King of Sports Illustrated

Gaines Adams didnt have the necessary strength the past two seasons, let's hope year three is different

Bucs Central figures it's too early to speculate on who the Bucs starting QB will be.

If you live in the Atlanta Area and are a Bucs Fan, you need to check this website out.

Bucs Beat Writers:

Bucs Center Jeff Faine has a Clothing Store in Orlando that serves complimentary beer, no seriously.

Derrick Brooks was busy handing Diplomas out Monday, what were you doing?

Don't count out the Bucs this season, Mike Alstott hasnt

WR Kelly Campbell considers this opportunity his last chance...

Bucs in the National Media:

1040 ESPN Tampa Interview with QB Josh Freeman

Former Bucs FB Jon Bradley was released by the Detroit Lions

From the Bleacher Report: Don't Expect Much from the Tampa Bay Bucs in 2009-10, hat tip to UNFNOLE for the link.

This fan is contemplating giving up his NFL Sunday Ticket thus giving up on the Bucs

The Bucs have the 6th, 9th, and 10th best QBs in the NFC South?

For those of you expecting that second wave of yesterday, um yeah

Tampa Area Sports Blogs:

Raw Charge has a used Trophy Case to sell you

DRaysBay has a word about Bossman Juniors Batting Average

This morning we released some new features, all of them designed to help you share what you have to say about your favorite sport and team. Here is the rundown:

Share on Twitter

When you publish a FanPost or FanShot let your friends (or followers as they're called) know via Twitter. We've built an easy tool into the FanPost and FanShot editors that automatically creates a short URL back to your post and lets you send that to your Twitter stream along with a quick message. You can set this all up from your account settings screen, or right within the FanPost and FanShot editors. See more detailed instructions below.

Redesigned FanPost Editor

We've made a few changes to the layout and features of the FanPost editor:

1) Bigger textarea - more space to explain why ranking systems can't be objective or your GM should be fired immediately

2) Spellchecker - this isn't a spelling bee, it's a sports blog network

3) Draggable jump bar - we combined the intro and extended entry sections of a post and made it easy to decide where to split them

4) Sidebar inserts palette - tools to insert images, videos and quick, relevant, timely links in your post

5) Easy status + save - we made the auto-save message more obvious, combined it with the post status and made the whole thing a big button you can click to save as often as you want (without reloading the whole page)

6) Autotagger - adding player, team and game tags to your post helps everyone find your opinion on those subjects; we just made it super easy: write your post, click that 'run autotagger' button and we'll tag your post the most relevant players and teams + link them up as well. if you don't feel like clicking that button, we'll run that process for you when you publish.

A help box that explains all of this in more detail will open up the first time you try out the new FanPost editor. Now go fire it up on your favorite blog and try it out!

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