Raiderdamus' Friday Foretelling: Raiders vs. Buccaneers

Greetings, Raider fans! It is I, Raiderdamus, who nearly fought the Dragon of Angnor, who nearly stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol, and who personally wet myself at the battle of Badon Hill. I come before you today triumphant, as the Great Beyond has once again correctly predicted a victory on the road in Jacksonville. Truly, his wisdom and prescience are without limit.

The Raiders have stayed in Florida for the week in the lap of luxury and next head to Tampa to take on the Buccaneers. These two teams' most memorable meeting was in the 2002 Super Bowl, which the Buccaneers won because Bill Callahan is a simpering cuckold, may he rot in hell.

The less said about that miserable game, the better, even though I have little doubt that the citizens of Tampa lucky enough to have dial-up internet in their trap houses will be along shortly to remind us about it. The Great Beyond has much and more to say about these pewter and red dorks we're about to play, so prostrate your bodies and count yourselves lucky to listen to his message:

"How about them Raiders, huh? They won again on the road, just like I said they would. Not that anyone actually doubted me, because the Jaguars are ass, and after that Thursday Night game everyone got to see it up close. That game smelled like the Jaguar uniforms looked. Whew!

Prior to the early 2000s, Tampa Bay was the worst franchise in all of football. They were worse than the Seahawks, worse than the Cardinals, Patriots, Jets, Falcons or Saints. They were the epitome of awful. Imagine the 2016 Atlanta Braves had a football team. That was the Bucs from 1976 through about 1999.

The Bucs' first draft choice was their best one or would be for the next decade. The Bucs selected Oklahoma DE Lee Roy Selmon, who is an NFL Hall of Famer and one of the best defensive ends who ever lived. However, he didn't have a  whole lot of professional success because these expansion Bucs were so very, very bad. Their first head coach was John McKay, who luckily knew how to keep his sense of humor about him, because that's all he had left. When asked after yet another crushing defeat what he thought of his team's execution, McKay famously remarked, "I'm in favor of it." That should tell you all you need to know about the early Buccaneers.

The Buccaneers would be thoroughly awful for the first 25 years or so of their existence, and they deserved it because they wore these uniforms:

Those are the second-worst uniforms in the history of professional sport behind only the 1976 Chicago White Sox, who wore collared jerseys and John Stockton shorts:

What the fuck is this? Baseball is played on DIRT. Are you trying to bleed all over second base? This is an abomination. This shit right here makes the 1995 Devil Rays look like the 1969 Raiders. Blecch.

But let's not stray too far from the 1976 Bucs, because I want to point out that their quarterback was this man:

If you don't know who this is, you can get the fuck out of here right now because you don't know enough about football to read my words.

After the 1976 0-14 unwinfeated debacle, a feat which would not be outdone until the 2007 Lions, the Bucs spent many more years languishing in obscurity until the 1984 Supplemental Draft, in which they would draft this man:

This is the first and only time Tampa Bay drafted a Hall of Fame quarterback. Joseph Smith's personal lawyer went on to have a fantastic career and win a Super Bowl, so good job Tampa Bay on selecting him.

But the ultimate Buccaneers Draft Experience was, without question, 1986. The greatest athlete who has ever lived, Vincent "Bo" Jackson, was going to be eligible to be drafted and Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse knew that he wanted to draft Bo, but he was concerned that Bo would choose to play professional baseball. You see folks, even though Bo Jackson was without question the finest football player of his generation, he didn't like football nearly as much as he liked baseball.

So Culverhouse, being the sneaky little shit-covered rat that he was, devised a dastardly plan. He would force Bo to focus on football by taking baseball away from him. Culverhouse paid for a flight and a visit for Jackson to meet with the Bucs. This was against the rules, and Jackson was ruled ineligible for University of Auburn baseball. Culverhouse, as we know, was an Alabama Crimson Tide fan and, thus, a bad person.

Bo Jackson told Tampa Bay that he would under no circumstances sign with them after that, and not to bother drafting him first overall. The Bucs did not listen, and drafted Bo anyway. He didn't sign, and the next year Bo was drafted in the seventh round by Al Davis and the Los Angeles Raiders. Bo had a career truncated by injury, which is a tragedy considering how great he really was, but he is remembered today as the greatest video game character of all time.

in 1987, the Buccaneers would draft the losingest quarterback of all time, Vinny Testaverde. We remember Testaverde doing a lot of winning with the Browns, Ravens, Jets and Patriots, so he must have done a TON of losing with the Bucs to get the record for most losses all-time by a quarterback.

It wasn't until 1995 when the Bucs would begin to piece together the parts of their Super Bowl team. Thanks to the complete ineptness of the Jets, notorious shitsack Warren Sapp fell to them in the first round of the 1995 Draft. Derrick Brooks also went to Tampa in the first round of that draft. While Brooks is a great man and one of the finest linebackers in NFL history, Sapp is best known for things like this:

Warren Sapp was fired by NFL Network for his criminal behavior. When you work at the same job as Michael Irvin and you get fired for criminal behavior before he does, you have done fucked up.

And so the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl, blah blah blah, but they did so because of the efforts of the greatest player in franchise history, this man:

I happen to know that as a young lad, Raiderdamus owned a Mike Alstott jersey and he wore it until it fell apart.

Much like the Raiders, after the Super Bowl the Bucs franchise started on a severe downward trend. There were some lean times, some bad luck, some unwise draft picks. You won't win much with the Josh Freemans of the world. You will, however, win plenty of games with a man who will stand tall in front of all your fans and fuck your opponents right in the pussy. Even if they're passed out.

Yes, Virginia, the Buccaneers drafted Heisman Trophy winner, shoplifter extraordinaire, and rapist Jameis Winston over choirboy and Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota. Why, one might ask, was Jameis Winston not convicted of rape? Well, the Great Beyond has heretofore undiscovered footage of the Tallahassee Police Department's investigation into the allegations against the former Florida State quarterback.

Winston has stolen the hearts of Buccaneers fans, much like he stole those Publix crab legs a few years ago.

Raiders WR Michael Crabtree had better watch out, or he may wake up on Monday as nothing but a torso.

But we can't complain too much about Jameis Winston, because he has given the world one great gift, besides all the theft and rape. He gave us all the single greatest college football GIF of all time.

It never gets old. Like, ever.

Of course, none of this is any surprise, as the Buccaneers have a forty-year history of tripping over their own dicks in spectacular and hilarious fashion. We don't know how they will screw up the Raiders game on Sunday, but we know for a certainty that they will. While the Jaguars are the Florida Man that blows himself up by using fireworks in a makeshift meth lab, the Bucs are more like the Florida Man who dies by falling asleep in a room with no ventilation and farting himself to death. It's more sad than funny, just like the Buccaneers themselves.

Raiders win, 30-26."