The Stand
Penn: Bucs fate like ‘flying stand-by’
NEW ORLEANS — The Buccaneers’ charter is going to depart New Orleans in the next few minutes, and the team will be in the air, while its playoff fate is being decided by the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants in the 4 o’clock games.
Even though the Buccaneers beat the New Orleans Saints 23-13 on Sunday to complete a 10-6 season, all they have to show for their season is 10 victories, that in the end, might not have been enough to secure a NFC playoff spot.
The Packers and Giants both have to lose for Tampa Bay to get the No.2 wildcard spot and the No.6 seed in the NFC.
Tackle Donald Penn compared the Buccaneers’ situation to that of a traveler stranded in an airport trying to get on a flight.
”Too bad we left it in other people’s hands,” Penn said. “We got a couple standbys. You know you’re (wanting to be) on that plane, you gotta fly stand-by, then you’re hoping you get on? It’s like that. We’re hoping. We’re flying stand-by. We hope we get that last seat. It might be a middle seat.”
”You win 10 games, you’re supposed to get an opportunity at ‘The Show,’ ” said wide receiver Micheal Spurlock. “Ten games will be, yeah, we made strides, but I don’t think anybody will be satisfied.”
Head coach Raheem Morris said he was going to take a nap on the flight home, and then wake up to see where the Buccaneers are going, if anywhere.
Either way, Morris’ bold prediction in training camp that the Buccaneers were on a “Race to Ten,” became reality, in the end, because his team won 10 games, like he set out for it to do.
“Seventeen weeks later, he’s looking pretty prophetic,” said cornerback Ronde Barber.
”We did our part,” Morris said in his post-game press conference. “If they (Packers and Giants) let us in, shame on them.”
“Next year, it’s probably a ‘Race to 11,’ ” said rookie wide receiver Mike Williams. “We got to ten, so Race to 11 and see what happens next year.”
The 11-5 Saints were the first team with a winning record that the Buccaneers have beaten this season.
”You guys can’t write that we hadn’t beat a winning team anymore,” Barber said.
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson claims he had to stand up against Wayne Rooney and player power
Sir Alex Ferguson has claimed that Wayne Rooney’s contract stand-off with Manchester United proved that the club would be “finished” if they ever allowed players to become more important than the manager.
Ferguson also railed against the “unbelievable” audacity of agents, confessed to a reluctance for ruthlessness with long-serving players and admitted that Sven-Goran Eriksson had been approached by Manchester United to replace him as manager in 2002.
But having celebrated his 69th birthday last Friday, Ferguson insists his position at the club must remain all powerful after overcoming Rooney’s desire to leave Old Trafford in October.
“The most important thing you have to have managing at our club, and I’m sure it is now embedded in the constitution of the club, is that the most important person at Manchester United is the manager.” Ferguson told Irish broadcaster RTE.
“The minute a player becomes more powerful than the manager of Manchester United, our club is finished. It will never be the same.
“There is a way of dealing with things. You have to be strong and have the support of the board and I have always had that. The important thing is to have your control because that is vital.
“In the case of Wayne, there is no doubt that he took bad advice. We are having to deal with agents all the time nowadays and it’s a hard job to deal with these people.
"They come in with an imagination that’s beyond belief. I remember one agent wanted a striker to be paid for all of the goals that he scored. I told [former chairman] Martin Edwards to remind the agent that was the reason why we wanted to buy the player!
“Another wanted us to buy blocks of flats for him! This is what you’re dealing with today – it’s unbelievable.”
After aborting plans to retire in 2002, Ferguson insists all thoughts of standing down are now firmly off the agenda.
He said: “I’m 69 now, but you say to yourself, what happens when you retire? What do you do? I said to my wife some time ago that we could always travel, but at our age, you can’t just jump on a plane.
“That’s why I have no plans. There are no plans for me to retire. I hope my health stays as it is so I can carry on.
“I made a mistake some years ago because I thought my 60th birthday was a good time to retire.
“I changed my mind, but they [United] had already approached Sven-Goran Eriksson to take the job. I said my family are going off their head and Maurice Watkins [club solicitor] just laughed and said, ‘OK’.”
With Ferguson facing decisions on the futures of veteran players such as Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, he admits his natural ruthlessness will be tested by their loyalty.
He said: “It’s black-and-white really in the sense that the evidence is always on the football field. If it’s about football, it’s clear-cut. Sometimes, when a player grows old, you have to recognise it and they have to move on.
“But the spirit of Manchester United was created by the 1992 youth team. The two Nevilles, Giggs, David Beckham, Scholes and Nicky Butt – those players created the spirit of Manchester United.
“So when it came down to [selling] Phil Neville and Nicky Butt, I was actually trying to dodge talking to them. It got to the point where I was saying to myself, ‘I can’t handle this, I need to do something about it’.
“Their whole families had been fantastically loyal to me and the club, so that becomes a stronger issue. You tell yourself you can let the lads go, but where do you get that loyalty from again?”
Source : http://bucshots.blogs.heraldtribune.com/18893/penn-bucs-fate-like-flying-stand-by/
Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/8236448/Manchester-United-manager-Sir-Alex-Ferguson-claims-he-had-to-stand-up-against-Wayne-Rooney-and-player-power.html
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