Gloves controversy.
Watching from the upper reaches in the corner of the hermetically sealed press box at SoFi Stadium last Sunday, Joe would have bet quite a bit of cash that, when Cade Otton was stripped of the ball by Rams corner Cobie Durant, who returned the ball 50 yards for a Rams touchdown, the ballgame was over at that point.
How many times do you see a bad team (and right now the Bucs are a bad team) rally from such a ghastly play on the road?
Joe could have saved himself a lot of trouble and started banging on his keyboard then (Joe did throw in the towel and start typing stories just before the second half started).
It was a play worthy of throwing up over. It was so bad that Joe couldn’t help but think of the time O.J. Howard tried a Magic Johnson-like behind-the-back dribble on the 20-yard line and fumbled against the slimy Saints.
(Joe doesn’t know what was worse, that stunt by Howard or the ketchup bottle uniforms the Bucs wore that day — worse than the alarm clocks!)
Otton is a streaky tight end as far as catching the ball. He sometimes goes through bad cases of the dropsies. That play Sunday was his worst and sadly, not his first this year. Strip, that is.
And it came on national television in primetime (just like his first). Joe fears that Durant play will be the play most football fans will remember Otton for.
Apparently last year, former Bucs quarterback Tom Brady said on a FOX broadcast that he got mad at Otton his last year with the Bucs, which was also Otton’s rookie season, because Otton didn’t like wearing gloves.
Guess Brady got his way with the rookie. Joe has photos in his archive of Otton wearing gloves and there is video floating around the interwebs of Otton wearing gloves as a rookie.
Once Brady left, Otton went commando and got rid of the gloves.
So with Otton unable to secure that pass last Sunday which led to one of the most gruesome plays against the Bucs you will ever see, Bucs offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard was asked yesterday if he has had a sitdown with Otton about wearing gloves.
In so many words, Grizzard said he’s not Otton’s mom.
“I would never tell someone really how to dress or how they should prepare for game day,” Grizzard said. “I think part of it is just catching it and being quick to the tuck – that way you’re not worrying about that side of it.
“But at the end of the day, he hasn’t worn gloves for a while – I know it’s been a few years.”
Grizzard seemed to politely suggest GlovesGate is blown out of proportion and Otton is a fine tight end, with or without gloves.
“I’ve got all the confidence in the world with him in getting him the ball and continuing that moving forward,” Grizzard said. “So however he wants to dress on game day, really, in my opinion, is up to him.”
And there you have it. Otton will wear gloves if he wants to wear gloves and not a second before.
Joe can’t help but get nostalgic about dudes who want to go old school like Otton. Mike Ditka didn’t need no damn gloves!
And when Ditka played, dudes were allowed to clothesline receivers, not play Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker’s man like defenders must now do in Roger Goodell’s don’t-hit-too-hard league.