WASHINGTON -- At least a dozen groups have looked into the possibility of buying them. Peter Angelos puts their price tag at $200 million. Some economists think they'd be worth even more if they moved to Baltimore.
Obviously, these people have never seen the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play.
They don't know the history that comes attached to the NFL's worst franchise. They aren't aware of the chronic incompetence and laughable ineptitude that has marked pro football's version of Comic Relief.
Paying $200 million for the Bucs is like paying a half-million for a house built on rickety stilts.
Or paying twice the bill for a meal that is guaranteed to wake you up in the middle of the night with a five-star case of indigestion.
It borders on self-loathing. It makes no sense. Unless emptying your bank account in pursuit of disappointment, heartache and frustration is your idea of making sense.
Oh, sure, the fat sale price is all about stadium configurations and club seats and revenue projections, not wins and losses. Football doesn't have anything to do with it.
If football mattered, the Bucs would be worth a lot less than $200 million. Like, say, the price of a box of light orange crayons.
We need to think about this, Baltimore: Are we absolutely, positively sure that we want them? We already have one CFL team in town, don't we? Why do we need another?
OK, OK, so the Bucs are a lot better than CFL-caliber. They're still nonscholarship in the NFL.
See, back when Pete Rozelle told the league to practice parity, the Bucs thought he said "charity." Ever since, they've worked hard to make their opponents feel better.
The NFL's system of unbalanced scheduling all but forces crawling teams to rise and walk, but the Bucs, defying all logic, have steadfastly refused to get up off their knees. It almost seems that they're afflicted with some bizarre institutional gravity that keeps pulling them down.
John Lennon was still alive when they last won a playoff game.
Ronald Reagan was less than two years into his presidency when they last qualified for the postseason.
If they lose to Green Bay in the last game of the regular season next week, they'll have lost 10 or more games in 12 straight seasons.
That's worth $200 million?
True, the Bucs' victory over the Redskins yesterday at RFK Stadium was their fourth win in a row, lending support to the notion that, despite their 6-9 record, they've at least taken the elevator up from pathetic. But a winning streak forged against the Rams, Seahawks and Redskins (combined record 12-33) is hardly the stuff of Super Bowl dreams.
Of course, seeing as this little winning streak happens to be the second-longest in franchise history, the Bucs don't know any better.
"The players are in there chanting 'Super Bowl,' " head coach Sam Wyche said with a smile after the 17-14 win. "Of course, there would have to be a whale of a couple of car wrecks [to contenders] for that to happen."
Indeed, and it will take a lot more than a little success against a few losing teams for the Bucs to prove that they're anything more than the sad sacks their history portrays.
It is a history so abjectly sorry, so full of epic feats of ineptitude, that it is worthy of a Top Ten list:
10. Wyche, who has won 16 of 47 games, has the highest winning percentage of any coach in the franchise's 19-year history.
9. Until they beat the Rams last week, they hadn't beaten a team from California in 14 years.
8. The Cowboys have more Pro Bowl players this year than the Bucs have had in their entire history.
7. Until this year, no Buc had ever returned a punt for a TD.
6. Every year between 1985-91, the Bucs selected somewhere between first and eighth in the first round of the NFL draft. That's seven blue-chippers. None made the Pro Bowl for the Bucs.
5. They have won less than 40 percent of their home games.
4. Their leading career scorer is Donald Igwebuike.
3. The longest winning streak in franchise history is five games.
2. "Our goal is not to lose 10 games this year," running back Errict Rhett said yesterday.
1. They have been outscored in their lifetime by the sum of roughly 292 touchdowns.
If all that is worth $200 million, Bud Selig is the next Woody Allen.
Why would we want them for $20, much less $200 million? Good question. They certainly don't want us.
"Nobody in this room wants to move to Baltimore," Rhett said. "Most definitely not."
Something we said?
"Oh, no," Rhett said with a smile. "It's just that we have families in Tampa. It's home. And the fans there deserve a winning team after all these years of losing."
Paul Tagliabue has said that he wants them to remain in Tampa, which is maybe the best reason to root for Angelos to succeed.
Oh, and sure, having a losing NFL team would be better than having no team. There's always a chance things will improve.
But there isn't much of a chance with the Bucs, however, not if history's lessons are at all accurate. In other words, we can pay $200 million to have our Sundays ruined for years. Isn't life grand?