“Panthers… Nearly Pull Off Tampa Upset”

November 15th, 2010

Time for some high comedy.

Joe turned to the website of the world-renowned 19th century news model based in Charlotte known as the Charlotte Observer and noticed a hysterical headline screaming at Joe.

Panthers’ young guns nearly pull off Tampa upset

Um, that might be a little bit of a stretch, no?

Now Joe knows first-hand copy editors — those charged with writing headlines — are not the authors of stories. So the lead paragraph of Joseph Person’s story wasn’t nearly as wild (if not inaccurate as is the headline).

In fact, Person’s lead paragraph was downright accurate.

At times Sunday it looked like the Carolina Panthers brought their JV offense to Florida.

Pretty spot on. Joe browsed the story and it was pretty accurate: that the Panthers made the Bucs break a sweat in the first half but the game wasn’t really in doubt.

Joe’s guessing that some non-sports chick wrote the headline and she’s more inclined to write about plunging necklines, open-toe shoes and some two-bit play 45 people may watch, and likely doesn’t know the difference between a goal post and a down marker.

This isn’t much different than — not to pick on her because Joe likes her but it’s a good example — when WTSP anchor Heather Van Nest has to speak sports happy talk in the buffer/transition when intro’ing the sports segments following a commercial break. She physically freezes and forces a smile with nervous laughter when she attempts to talk sports, no matter how vapid.

Don’t worry Heather, you’ve never come close to the world class, horrendous gaffe Bourbon Bob Hite once pulled when he called Mario Lemieux “Mario LEE-mewks.”

Oy!

(Hat tip to WTSP producer Mike Weber for this find.)

12 Responses to ““Panthers… Nearly Pull Off Tampa Upset””

  1. sunrisejeff Says:

    Maybe they meant upset by the Panthers covering the spread 😛

  2. bucfanjeff Says:

    @sunrise – LOL exactly.

    Bucs clearly owned them all game. Our penalties hurt us more than their defense. McCoy, again, showed how well he’s playing lately. I just wish we had somebody next to him that could do something.

  3. Michael Says:

    Thanks for the shoutout, Joe!

    BTW, I don’t care how crappy Carolina is… Raheem gets bonus points from me for sweeping those Kitties.

  4. jdouble Says:

    If the person who wrote the headline was so clueless I’m pretty sure they would look at the score and think it was a blowout. The game was a lot closer than it should’ve been. You say the game was never in doubt but that’s not how I saw it. We played pretty bad the entire third quarter and allowed the panthers to stick around. It was more us beating ourselves, but I don’t think that headline was entirely inaccurate.

  5. Fire Greg Olson! Says:

    @Jdouble

    I agree. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t pull away in the second half. I thought this would be the game to see it happen. We have still yet to play a full four quarters at the level that the Bucs are capable of. But hey, that’s what you get when you start 7 rookies. Can’t really complain about that. I was just hoping that we wouldn’t continue to be the Defense that you MUST START any fantasy running back against. I thought we’d work Clausen over a little more than we did. But again, a win is a win and we are fortunate to have our young guys developing under a winning culture, unlike Detroit who seems to be able to find a different way to lose every other week.

    Chris Ivory and Mike Goodson??? That’s awful, but I’m gonna concede that we will be the worst against the rush until we address that in the offseason.

    Anyone remember this offseason when some of the Florida Tuskers (UFL), I think possibly Michael Pittman, went on 620 and said that they could beat the Bucs?

    WHERE YOU AT NOW, TUSKERS?????

  6. LaughingCat Says:

    We can’t even get respect from the news rags of the worst team in the NFL. That’s OK, Buce perform best when everyone underestimates us.

  7. Gary Says:

    Wow Joe you must really have some pull because the headline has changed. When I clicked on that link, the title now says “Panthers upset bid stuffed…”

  8. Jameson Says:

    What I take from this is that the media are finally starting to see the Bucs as legitimate… at the beginning of the season, the Panthers would have been the favorites, and a Bucs win would have been an “upset.”

  9. BucFan South Tampa Says:

    Check out the whining from Carolina about Clausen’s concussion. Ok, I was at the game and the action was on the far side of the field and the game wasnt televised. So I didnt see it. But there are some pixxing and moaning coming from Charlotte about Talib and his supposed late hit on Clausen.
    Hey Kitties, if you want to talk about dirty, two issues..Peanut Smith’s concussion last year and Cadillac’s horse collar tackle which torn his patellar tendon. They say Fox is even sending the tape to NFL. What a bunch of losers.

  10. Eric S Says:

    The score was 21-16 entering the 4th. I don’t have a problem with the headline at all.

  11. New Era Buc Says:

    True but this game was never in doubt

  12. Joe Says:

    Gary:

    Wow Joe you must really have some pull because the headline has changed. When I clicked on that link, the title now says “Panthers upset bid stuffed…”

    Ha!!! You are right! Joe just clicked on the link and the headline was changed. LOL Joe should have gotten a screenshot of that. Darn.