With today’s Green Bay at Tampa Bay game featuring the Bucs in their orange creamsicle throwback uniforms, there’s no way I wouldn’t throw up a post with the above Vinny Testaverde photo in it. Bucco Bruce lives again!

Actually, what pushed me over the edge was the game unexpectedly being broadcast here. That was an audible — the scheduled Arizona at Chicago game turned into a lopsided affair by halftime, so FOX decided to switch over to Buccaneer Ball. Thankfully so, as far as I’m concerned. Not least because it further extends the odd frequency of Bucs games on New York television this NFL season.

This game is an especially nostalgic mind-blower. The Bucs really went all-out with the throwback imagery: Not only the all-orange for the jerseys and coaches’ polo shirts, but even Raymond James Stadium is decked out with the franchise’s original colors, right down to the giant white Bucco Bruce helmet painting at mid-field, with no sign of the current pewter-and-red color scheme. I guess every NFL team goes to these lengths when they do a throwback game, but it seems even more complete in Tampa, probably because I was living there when those colors were current.

And of course, the sad-sack Yuckaneers are reborn on the field, with the 2009 team coming into this game winless, and looking deservedly so through three quarters of play this afternoon. Only appropriate that the opponent be Green Bay, in a revival of the “Bay of Pigs” matchups from decades past.