Your mom goes to the Playoffs...

Does Napoleon Dynamite ever get old? I didn't think so.

This time tommorrow, I’ll be gearing up for the Buccaneers’ first playoff appearance since they brought home the Super Bowl trophy three years ago. Actually, this time tomorrow I’ll probably still be sleeping. Between the inevitable Saturday morning hangover, and the cold weather (Today’s high: 58, Tonight’s low: 40) that we’re currently experiencing, it’s pretty much an impossibility that I’ll be dragging my ass out of bed at any point before 11 am. I’m sure that the temperatures listed above don’t seem very cold to a lot of people, but when you live a block from the beach in Central Florida, those might as well be single digits. I actually used the heated seats in my car this morning for the first time since last January. Which should give you an idea of how tolerant I am of the cold, but I digress. The issue at hand is the upcoming playoff game between the Bucs and Skins. When these two met in the regular season, they provided NFL fans with an exciting and emotion filled ballgame, and even a little controversy to boot. More importantly, the Skins game was the point in the season where I finally began to turn on the issue of Chris Simms. For so long I had held steadfastly to my belief that Simms lacked the necessary mental aptitude to effectively quarterback anything other than a poor NFL team, that is until he led the Bucs to a come from behind victory against one of the NFL’s better and more disciplined defenses. Simms still has a long way to go before he’s ready to be the kind of QB who inspires confidence in the playoffs or on the road, but the point is that he’s progressing and doing so at a far quicker pace than I (or just about anyone) had anticipated this year.

Do I think that the Bucs can win tomorrow? Absolutely. Do I think they will win tomorrow? I’m not so sure. The Skins are the hottest team in the NFL right now, and they certainly had no trouble lighting up a very tough Tampa defense the first time these two squared off, as the Bucs had absolutely no answer for Clinton Portis. I could say something cliche’ about the game hinging on turnovers or the respective rushing attacks of these two teams, but I’ll leave that to the guys on the Fox pre-game show. Instead, I propose that this game will be determined by the ability of these two defenses to stop (or at least slow down) the opposing offenses’ big play wide receiver. Both Joey Galloway (83 rec, 1287 yds, 10 TDs) and Santana Moss ( 84 rec, 1483 yds, 9 TDs) have revived their careers far beyond anybody’s preseason expectations of them and, consequently, have managed to help elevate the respective fortunes of their franchises. In fact, you could make a very good case that these two should be their respective teams’ MVPs. Actually, I think that I just did.

Regardless of tomorrow’s outcome, I believe that any Bucs fans should consider the season a success. Think about it this way: If somebody had told you that Tampa Bay would lose Brian Griese for the season five games in, while also being without Cadillac Williams for 4-5 games during the middle of the season, and that they would get little to nothing in the way of production from last year’s Offensive Rookie of the Year, Michael Clayton, but would still manage to get 11 wins while playing in the NFC South. Well, I’m pretty sure that you, me and everything other person with half a brain would’ve run straight to Vegas with that bet. Of course, you can make much the same statement about this Redskins team. Essentially, both of these teams are playing with house money at this point. I’m hoping for another exciting game full of momentum swings and drama, and not the 12-10 snoozer that everybody expected the first time around. Honestly though, I’d take a 2-0 score as long as the Bucs end up on top when the final gun sounds. Though I’m not quite sure this is the kind of karma that you want to build the week before a playoff game.

One last thing: Is there a cooler TD celebration then Joey Galloway’s? I mean cool in that “act like you’ve been there before” way that my father and other men of his generation like to use when referring to today’s athletes. It’s so simple, yet so effective. Step on the ball like Capt. Morgan and then turn to the crowd and flex. Awesome. Plus, how can you not like a guy who wears a crew neck shirt underneath his jersey?

Besides the NFL Playoffs, there is actually a good deal of other sports that I’ll be interested in this weekend. The Magic are riding a three game home winning streak into tomorrow’s game with Charlotte that also happens to coincide with them breaking out their old unis from the Shaq era. In fact, the Magic are enjoying winning in these unis so much (they’ve worn them for each game of the winning streak) that they are going to continue to wear them for as long as this home winning streak lasts, NBA fines be damned. It’s just too bad that they can’t wear them on the road too, since they went up to Toronto and were absolutely humiliated by the effin’ Raptors (121-97) on wednesday. Pathetic.

What’s not pathetic is the current state of the University of Florida Men’s Basketball team, who currently sit undefeated and #5 in the country. After a fairly easy out-of-conference schedule, the Gators open their SEC slate of games in Athens against the University of Georgia. While they definitely will not go undefeated throughout the rest of the season, this Florida team has already exceeded even the most optimistic expectations for their play while also managing to be the most entertaining Gator team in at least 5 years. Unselfish, deep, and athletic, this Gator team seems to be ideally built for March, with a roster that boasts 4 legitimately dangerous post players as well as some very skilled perimeter players. We’ll find out more about this team as the SEC schedule moves into late January and early February, but don’t be surprised to see this team going into the NCAA Tourney with a #2 or #3 seed.

In other Gator related news, the US Army All-American Game (high school football’s answer to the McDonald’s All-American game) will be on NBC tomorrow afternoon. Besides having at least 5 committed players participating in the game, the Gators are also in the running for a couple of players who are slated to commit during the game’s telecast. There’s a bunch of uncommitted guys who could possibly end up in Gainesville playing in this game, none of which excite me more than this guy.

Lastly, there’s really no way to lead into and article like this, other than to say this: Mouthwash…Vin Baker, you are a genius.