Tampa Bay Buccaneers Tidbits

Those who live in the Miami area may - worried that they will be shunned from restaurants and country clubs - claim to be Dolphins fans, growing fins and living underwater in their spare time. But Miami, like any other city in a state with multiple football teams, likely has its fair share of Tampa Bay fans. Perhaps these folks once lived in Tampa Bay and moved to Miami. Perhaps they grew up watching Tampa Bay or know someone who played for them. Perhaps, they (gasp!) would just rather be a Buccaneer than a Dolphin. For you Tampa Bay fans lingering in the city of Miami, this article is one you'll likely want to pirate.





Every NFL team has its fair share of history and trivia. But, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers possess some of the most interesting trivia around. Those who disagree will have to walk the plank.





Kings of the South: Tampa Bay is the only team in the NFC South to prevail as Super Bowl Champions. Though Atlanta and Carolina have reached the Super Bowl, they have yet to be victorious. New Orleans, on the other end of the spectrum, is one of a handful of teams to have never made it to the championship.





The Rich Get Richer: The owner of the Buccaneers, Malcolm Glazer, also owns the Manchester United, an England soccer team. The Manchester United is considered the richest sports organization in the entire world.





Oops: The 1976 Buccaneers are the only team in modern day NFL history to lose every single game in a season. Since the NFL went to a sixteen game season, in 1978, several teams have gone 1-15, but no one has gone 0-16. During the 1982 season, which was shortened by a strike, the Baltimore Colts had no victories, but they had one tie to accompany their eight losses.





He could go all the way…but he won't: The Buccaneers are the only NFL team that has never scored a touchdown on a kickoff return during a regular season game, a feat that has, up till the start of the 2006 season, been done over 1700 times by other teams. The Bucs have, however, scored five touchdowns on kickoff returns during preseason games.





A Pirate's Curse: No team that has lost a regular season game to Tampa Bay has ever won the Super Bowl. This, because of its years in existence, is known as The Tampa Bay Curse and haunts anyone who falls to the Bucs before season's end.





The Warm Weather Factor: Until the final regular season game of 2002, in which Tampa Bay defeated the Chicago Bears in Chicago, the Buccaneers had never won a game where the temperature at kickoff was less than 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Before beating the Bears, the Bucs had lost the twenty previous games played in cold weather.





Keeping it Real: Not only did the Bucs not do well in cold weather, but they also didn't do well playing on artificial grass. They once lost 27 games in a row played on artificial turf in outdoor stadiums. This losing streak spanned 15 years, from the 1980 season to the 1995 season.





Coach Potatoes: Tony Dungy, who recently led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl victory and served previously as head of the Buccaneers, has seen four people from his Tampa Bay coaching staff make it as head coaches. Herman Edwards, an assistant under Dungy, coaches the Kansas City Chiefs; Rod Marinelli, a defensive coach under Dungy, coaches the Detroit Lions; Mike Tomlin, a defensive coach under Dungy, coaches the Pittsburgh Steelers; and Lovie Smith, a linebackers coach under Dungy, coaches the Chicago Bears. The former Buccaneers coaches met most recently in the 2007 Super Bowl.





Tampa Bay might not be a team full of Super Bowl rings or hall of fame names, but it's an interesting team nonetheless, and one that some Miami fans can't help but cheer for…even if done quietly.

Football Lineman Drills

Offensive and defensive linemen are very under appreciated. They rarely get any of the credit they deserve – especially offensive linemen. Yet how well the linemen play usually decides a game. That's why it's so important for each lineman to play well and it's also the reason why football lineman drills are so important.

Different Positions Don't Always Equal Different Football Lineman Drills

Of course there are different drills for an offensive lineman and a defensive lineman. This is because a defensive lineman always wants to explode and move forward on a play while an offensive lineman may want to explode into and block a defender (for running plays), pull and block a defender (for running plays too), or they want to drop back and protect the quarterback (for passing plays).

However, there are some drills that both sides of ball need to practice. These drills involve improving a player's explosiveness off the ball and a player's agility. Two great football lineman drills are the Tennis Ball Drill and the Combine Agility Drill. One of the many great things about these lineman drills is that they can be practiced on a player's own time.

Tennis Ball Drill

For the Tennis Ball Drill a lineman will need a tennis ball and a person to help out with the drill. The person helping out will hold the tennis ball straight out in from of him/her. The lineman will get into a three or four point stance. At the beginning the player and the helper should be about five yards apart.

The helper should say "hike" or something similar to let the lineman know he has to fire off the ball. Then the helper drops the tennis ball. The lineman has to fire forward and catch the ball before it bounces twice.

Once the drill becomes easy the helper should stand back another couple yards. This process should be repeated several times. The purpose of the drill is to help improve a lineman's explosiveness off the ball.

Combine Agility Drill

Every year college football linemen hoping to go the NFL are asked to do this drill. The drill begins on the fifty yard line with the player facing the sideline. The lineman first opens his hips to the right and runs to the forty-five yard line. He then touches the line with his right hand. Then he opens his hips to the left and sprints to the other forty-five yard line. He touches that line with his left hand and then sprints back past the fifty.

The lineman should then take a thirty second break and then repeat the drill. Drills can be done in bunches of five or more. The purpose of this drill is to improve a player's agility and stamina.

Drills Improve Explosiveness, Agility, and Stamina

There are many different techniques that offensive and defensive linemen have to learn. However, there are some skills that are the same. That's why some football lineman drills can be used for both offensive lineman and defensive lineman. Two football drills that both sides of the ball can practice are the Tennis Ball Drill and the Combine Agility Drill. These drills work on a lineman's explosiveness off the ball, a lineman's agility, and a lineman's stamina.

Going No-Huddle Like the Pros With Your Youth Football Team

The key is using "wrist coaches" for your players.

Wrist Coaches are must for any team that is running a no- huddle offense. It's too hard and takes too much time away from your football practice to try and memorize a sequence of football plays or hand signals.

The wrist coach is an elastic band that has a clear plastic window in it and a slit to insert a piece of paper. On the piece of paper arrange your football plays by name and number using an 8 font. Laminate the piece of paper because if you don't the ink runs and the paper breaks up, it's a real mess. Do not let the players take the wrist coaches home, they get lost that way, they stay in the equipment bag. Have a wrist band for every player and the coaching staff, they run about $8 each at most sporting goods stores.

We code our football plays from 0 to 9 in columns on the wrist band, One column is in red ink the other in black, so we have room for a total of 20 plays, some football plays can be on the card more than once. We use a voice method to signal the football plays in that correspond to a number and color in the grid. So if we call out "Red 3" it is play #3 in the red column. A simple code would be to give a three number sequence with one "live" number. If you called "red 139" and the second number was "live" the play would be "red 3" which for us would correspond to 16 Power written in the Red column under #3.

It sounds a lot harder than it is, it's actualy quite simple to pull off even for kids as young as 6-8. Every one of my last 6 teams went no-huddle using this method and we had no problems making it work. My youth football teams consistently average in the 40 point per game range.

For more free youth football tips and a free subscribtion to Dave's Youth Football Coaching Newsletter please stop by here: Youth Football Playbooks

Copyright 2007 Cisar Management. This article may be republished with the resource box and links are kept intact.

Blue Green Algae (Cyanobacteria) in Aquariums

Question: What can be done about Blue- green algae blooms in aquariums?

Answer: We have a lot of Blue Green algae problems in the lakes here in Oregon (it is not even a true algae, rather modified bacteria; Cyanobacteria). I understand that the out breaks have differences from aquariums, but there are similarities too. I did research on this subject (including reading the local newspapers about treatment and control in our local lakes). Two points that were made several times are:

[1] Heat, high summer temperatures, and poor in flow and out flow of water seem to induce an outbreak. This also relates to the Redox Potential.
Fresh water and good Redox potential (-300 mV) seems to play a large role (from my own research and other research articles I have read). In lakes this bloom will usually conside with poor inflow and outflow of water. This also causes a change in trace element content as well as Redox.
This can then be applied to aquariums in that maintaining regular water changes, a GH over 100 ppm (for calcium and trace elements) as well as the correct Redox (UV Sterilization helps here too), will all work towards prevention and eradication of this problem.

[2] Nutrients, the amount of nitrogen based and phosphate nutrients need to be reduced.

As this relates to aquariums, I would increase circulation, clean and vacuum the bottom every other day, cover the aquarium from light for three days, reduce the temperature, consider UV Sterilization to kill free floating spores, and reduce the nutrient level.

CYANOBACTERIA BASICS;

Knowing more about this "algae" is important for eradication:

Cyanobacteria are from the phylum Cyanophyta of Bacteria that obtain their energy through photosynthesis. They are often still generally referred to as blue-green algae, although they are actually prokaryotes (organisms without a cell nucleus) like bacteria.
Prokaryotes usually unicellular, although some are capable of forming cell groups called colonies. Individual Blue-Green Algae that make up these colonies will usually act independent of one another. Colonies are formed by organisms that remain attached following cell division, often through the help of a secreted slimy layer that we often see as slimy green mat in our aquariums.
Cyanobacteria are the only known group of organisms that are able to reduce nitrogen and carbon in aerobic conditions. The water-oxidizing photosynthesis is accomplished by coupling the activity of photosystem (protein complexes involved in photosynthesis) PS II and I (Z-scheme; the light-dependent reaction, which converts solar energy into chemical energy). In anaerobic conditions, they are also able to use only PS I — cyclic photophosphorylation — with electron donors other than water (hydrogen sulfide, thiosulphate, or even molecular hydrogen) just like purple photosynthetic bacteria. Cyanobacteria also have the ability to reduce elemental sulfur by anaerobic respiration in the dark. A unique aspect of these organisms is that their photosynthetic electron transport shares the same compartment as the components of respiratory electron transport. It is the thylakoid membrane (the site of the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis) hosts both respiratory and photosynthetic electron transport, while the plasma membrane contains only components of the respiratory chain.

TREATMENT (eradication)

With some of the above information in hand, one can now make more informed choices about how to eradicate Cyanobacteria.

*30% water change (or more) using a Gravel Vacuum (especially to remove nitrogenous waste producing mulm than often accumulates under rocks or UGF plates). This cuts off one source of nutrition. Removing hydrogen sulfate producing anaerobic bacteria in freshwater is important as well, so make sure and vacuum all the dead spots. Along this line of thought, removing sand and replacing with gravel has helped in aquariums I have monitored with BG algae

*Electrolytes and minor elements such as magnesium and calcium, Wonder Shells are useful here. VERY IMPORTANT.

*Add a UV Sterilizer (Very effective but not always cost effective for small aquariums, but is worth mentioning, not just for sterilization, but for Redox which plays a role in controlling bacterial BG algae.)

*Improve the Redox Potential, this is often missed, however this is an important part of the equation. For more, please read this article:
THE REDOX POTENTIAL IN AQUARIUMS (& PONDS); and how it relates to proper aquatic health

*Cut back on feeding and improve food quality (No TetraMin). Better choices: Ocean Nutrition, HBH, Spirulina 20 just to name a few. This again will cut back on nutrients.

*Increase circulation and dissolved oxygen. These Prokaryote Bacteria do not do as well in a well oxygenated/ circulated environment (remember my points about the lakes).

*Medication; Copper at a level of 15 to 20 ppm is effective in inhibiting effective photosynthesis. Erythromycin has shown to be effective here as well.

*Lighting; although this is often recommended for the eradication of Cynabacteria, this is often not effective and the BG algae bounces right back. The reason is as stated above that Cyanobacteria have the ability to reduce elemental sulfur by anaerobic respiration in the dark.

For my full and expanding article, please follow this link:
Blue Green Algae (Cyanobacteria) in Aquariums; what it is and how to control it.

Los Angeles expansion talks on hold

David Kluth, Bloomington, Minn.: Thanks for choosing to write Mike! What’s the, now annual, vibe on having a team in L.A.? Would the cash that would be paid to the collective NFL teams, probably a Billion dollars, point to them adding a team versus the move of an established team?

MIKE VANDERMAUSE: Adding a team in Los Angeles was not on the agenda of the now completed NFL owners meeting. However, Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked if that meant the league was no longer interested in putting a team there. Quite the contrary, Goodell said the NFL still is interested, and so is the mayor of Los Angeles. You can anticipate this issue will come up again. You are correct that adding a team in L.A. would generate a lot of money. But the 32-team setup is so perfect in terms of scheduling, and expansion would dilute talent. Thus, I think it's more likely a current NFL team will wind up in Los Angeles. I always hear that the Vikings would be a likely team to move. That would be unfortunate if the Packers lost their border rivalry with Minnesota.