"Trust me Mr. Glazer, I have no idea who this Jason La Confora is."

It seems the national scribes are starting to catch on to what the locals in the Tampa Bay area are bracing themselves for: That the Bucs, only a few short years ago a proud organization, are rapidly approaching an area once reserved by the most putrid of sports franchises: the morbid Devil Rays owned by the despicable despot Vince Naimoli.

BSPN the Magazine, which interviewed Joe Wednesday for a future story, decided to rank all professional sports teams.

The Bucs came in at No. 73.

The magazine wasn’t as kind to the kickball-loving Glazer Boys. They were ranked as the No. 89 ownership group.

Looks like memories of XXXVII still dance in Bucs fans’ heads. Lucky for management, because when you’re charging more booty per butt than any franchise not playing in Foxborough, you need the crew to think they’re on the deck of a champ. Too bad it’s more like the poop deck in Tampa these days. Forget 2003; this team doesn’t even recall 2007 — Chucky is gone, and so are fan faves Derrick Brooks, Joey Galloway and Ike Hilliard. On the bright side, the Bucs have plenty of cap space, and the New Sombrero (a.k.a. Raymond James) continues to wear well. “It’s one of the nicest and coolest venues to catch a game,” says Jerry Scott of Buc ‘Em blog. “From the interactive pirate ship, to being able to catch the action from any seat in the stadium without feeling a change in altitude, to having bucket seats that fit a six-foot-tall beer-chugging spectator.” Playing up its asset, management has installed a monthly payment program for season ticket-mates and iced any seat hikes. But considering tix have already more than doubled since that Super season, fans should abandon any hope of this ever again being a bargain cruise. That ship sailed a long time ago.

Joe is sad to read this, but he really can’t argue given the information that was reported recently by NFL.com’s Jason La Confora about how little the Bucs spent on players salaries the past five years, yet the team charges fans so much for tickets.

Unless something drastic happens that Joe doesn’t see coming, it appears there will be blacked out games at the CITS this season.