Where is Geno Hayes? He’s right where he’s supposed to be.

Trouble with a lopsided loss is the fanatic in us wants, correct that, NEEDS to find someone to blame. We need to take someone, usually someone in a spotlight of some kind, and pin everything on him. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that way. There is seldom ever ONE reason for something to go wrong; or right for that matter either. Lately the culprit has been Barrett Ruud; Sports talk radio shows have him pinned to most pinatas around the bay area, and can’t say that I blame them. 620 Morning jock Dan Sileo has fallaciously created a mock statue of Ladell Betts for his running over Ruud after last weeks embarrassing loss to the Saints. Some have gone as far as to call first round draft pick Gerald McCoy a ‘Bust’ after week 5. That is just ridiculous and holds no worthwhile merits whatsoever. New to the drawing board of criticism however is Linebacker Geno Hayes. Number 54 they say has been absent of late on the big plays, but the truth is, as is usually the case when your just trying to find a scapegoat for a group of problems, the information is wrong. Geno’s numbers are right on par with the rest of the season, usually around 5 or 6 tackles per game, and Mr. Hayes has recorded a tackle for loss once in each of the Bucs games this year. The Bar is just set higher for Geno than most, which is what happens when you replace a legend. The right outside linebacker on the Tampa Bay defense belonged to non other than double nickle himself, Derrick Brooks. Now Hayes has not had to replace Brooks on just the Bucs, he had the dubious distiction of wearing Mr. Brooks #10 jersey when he was at Florida State too. Both guys were considered undersized linebackers in school, and thus the transition to the Mike linebacker in the Bucs Tampa Two (.1) was an obvious one. Going back to 1996, Derrick Brooks’ 2nd year starting, he too had about 5 tackles per game at the same point in his career as Geno Hayes, although one game Brooks had a monster performance with 18 solo tackles, but hey…thats Derrick Brooks right? So for the meantime, I would not look to hard at 54 on the field, he is doing just what he is supposed to be doing; instead concentrate on the defensive line. Gerald McCoy is also doing exactly what he is scheduled to do at this point in his rookie career, 6 games in. Learn. Grow. The media can find another scapegoat, there will be plenty of new candidates after the next loss, which is also on a young Bucs team’s schedule.