Times Continues to Beat Dead Horse

Never mind that both the Tribune and Pewter Report have reported that Chris Simms' velocity and accuracy have returned, the St Pete Times continues to stick to its claim that Simms is suffering from proprioception.

Chris Simms' arm isn't reacting as quickly to his mind and he indicated his struggles are related to surgery to remove his spleen last September. Simms has been struggling with symptoms of irregular proprioception, a sixth sense that allows a person to know the relationship of their arms and legs to their body.

Despite repeated assurances to the contrary by Bruce Allen, Gruden and Simms the Times has stuck to their proprioception story. There are numerous others reasons why Simms has struggled; confidence, conditioning, and time spent away from the field. The Times has conveniently ignored all these simple explanations to instead follow the best tactics of yellow journalism, create an absurdly believable story and then attack those who question your credibility. BucStats touched on just this with Shelton's unprovoked attack on Gruden.

I've always believed that sports reporters are just journalist who weren't smart enough to cover real news and this just confirms my belief. Let's keep things in perspective, we're talking about the health of a backup quarterback of a sports team not a White House coverup.

In other news, Cadillac Williams appears to be having a great camp and could be in line for a outstanding season. Having Jeff Garcia under center should help a good deal since opponents weren't exactly losing sleep thinking about the Bucs passing attack last season. This should sound familiar but Cadillac's success will come down to two things: health and the offensive line. Which leads me to the next bit of news.....

Luke Petitgout was supposed to be the answer at left tackle for the Bucs but his health has raised some troubling question marks. Petitgout has missed most of training camp so far, which is troubling because Petitgout's back problems were the reason the Giants were so quick to get rid of the left tackle. The left side of the line, Garcia's blind side, appears to unstable at the moment. All we know for sure is that Anthony Davis will start some where on the left side, either at guard or tackle.

For all the criticism recently of Gruden and company they should be congratulated for their midseason signing last year of Phillip Buchanon, who has been one of the stars of camp. A former first round draft pick Buchanon has played for three teams in five years, and was released in the middle of last season by the Texans. Since then Buchanon has secured a spot as the team's nickelback and could become the team's punt returner. It appears that Buchanon, who is still an outstanding athlete, just needed the right coaches.