Joe is throwing back a Caybrew and visiting Topper Town today in honor of a full year and half spent delivering Bucs fans nearly 4,000 posts of news, commentary, analysis, video and everything Bucs-related in that timetable.

No other media outlet comes close to that number since August of 2008. Joe is proud to serve you.

JoeBucsFan.com has enjoyed well over one million visits to the site. And traffic grows every month. Joe is humbled. And Joe can’t wait to witness the growth here when he rolls out a new and exciting wrinkle in March.

Joe tips his cap — and Caybrew – to his sponsors and readers, plus various print, TV, radio, Web and media colleagues — local and national — who have shown him much love. And Joe can’t forget the lovely Amanda Harris, of JoeBoltsFan.com.

All Joe can ask of you is to tell a friend about JoeBucsFan.com and feel free to follow Joe on Twitter and Facebook.

**Also, if you’re a business owner, you can electrify your business with advertising on JoeBucsFan.com. Joe is cheap, easy and effective, much like the women he rolled with in college. E-mail Joe at joe@JoeBucsFan.com today for information.

Hard to believe there was a time when the NFL embraced gamblers on one of its pregame shows

As usual after the Super Bowl, the good folks at bodog.com have posted betting lines to win the 2011 Super Bowl. And Raheem The Dream’s team was installed at 100-1 odds to win the Lombardi Trophy.

The Bucs join the Rams, Raiders, Chiefs, Lions, Bills and Browns at the bottom of the oddsmakers food chain.  The Redskins, Jaguars and Broncos are the next tier up at 50-1.

Don’t these oddsmakers know that the Bucs are on the right track and they could easily be the rags-to-riches team of 2010? Joe is stunned.

Of course, Joe is kidding, and understands the Bucs’ long odds. Interestingly, the University of South Florida football program is sitting at 75-1 to win the national championship next year. Joe would give the Bucs a much better shot at championship glory.

Details later this week.

Seems as though former Bucs great and current (?) NFL Network analyst Warren Sapp wasn’t exactly an angel Friday night in the hours prior to allegedly slapping around his girlfriend of two years and trying to — allegedly– physically throw her out of his hotel room at 5 a.m.

As Joe noted previously, Sapp was spotted and photographed with a model of some repute Friday night on the club scene in South Beach. But the New York Post reports that was just the beginning for Sapp.

Seems Sapp had to stop in on a clothing optional establishment before heading to his hotel and his girlfriend.

An early-morning visit to a Miami strip joint sparked the volatile throw-down between former NFL great Warren Sapp and his girlfriend, leading to the retired player’s arrest, sources said

Sapp, 37, had been at a party until 3 a.m., when he hit the town with buddies, witnesses at the bash said.

His crew descended on a nearby jiggle joint, and he didn’t get back to his hotel until 5 a.m. His angry gal pal was waiting and they got into a fight, the sources said.

Cops charged Sapp with domestic battery and he was locked in a Miami-Dade County cage before being released on $1,500 bond Sunday morning.

Since, Sapp, who was in Miami as part of the NFL Network’s army of reporters and analysts, was taken off the air by network executives.

Some website Joe has never heard of before reportedly has photos of Sapp’s girlfriend of two years. CAUTION: Joe cannot confirm the authenticity of the photos.

[UPDATE: Sapp is scheduled to appear live on the Bubba Clem show heard exclusively on Sirius 101 at 3 p.m. and is reportedly going to discuss his arrest.]

It doesn’t take much to get the great Phil Mushnick, TV/radio critic and national moralist for the New York Post, worked up.

(Mushnick’s recent dissertation on MTV seemingly nearly put him in a hospital.)

Joe would be perpetually irritated if not outraged as well if he had to watch BSPN for his job. If Joe was assigned such a task for his livelihood, Joe believes he would either be an alcoholic, hooked on Ritalin or addicted to narcotics of some form if not locked up in a mental health institute.

So, aside from his splendid writing, Joe is impressed with Muchnick’s fortitude.

Mushnick is no fan of Warren Sapp. So given Sapp’s recent developments with his girlfriend and police in Miami over the weekend, it wasn’t much of a gamble to predict that Mushnick would be gloating over Sapp’s recent late-night hassle.

So, the NFL Network shelved slick-talking Warren Sapp pending an investigation into allegations of domestic assault. But long before that, after Sapp retired as one of the most penalized and fined players in NFL history — sanctions for on-field misconduct, including precipitating a pre-game brawl — both NFL Network and Showtime chose to have him star on their NFL studio shows.

Why?

Because both networks, including the one owned and operated by the NFL, chose to try to look hip instead of being smart.

Joe has read Mushnick lodge such a charge against Sapp before: that he was one of the most penalized men in the NFL when he played. Joe would like to see some numbers on that claim. Off the top of his head, Joe would bet that Kenyatta Walker, a virtual walking, breathing holding penalty, had as many flags thrown his way as Sapp.

Still, the day that Mushnick retires, will be a very, very dark day in American journalism.

He’s talented, sure to come cheap, and he’s got a checkered past.

Manslaughterer wide receiver Donte Stallworth sure sounds a lot like a guy who will be signed to catch balls for the Bucs. 

Antonio Bryant was once a malcontent, Jerramy Stevens allegedly committed horrific, heinous acts upon a college girl, among other run-ins with the law, and Kellen Winslow Jr. was a guy in need of a fresh start (although he sure didn’t come cheap).

Stallworth, 29, who is property of the Browns (which also probably puts him on the Bucs’ radar), served 24 days after striking and killing a pedestrian with his car while under the influence last year. The NFL suspended him last season and warden Roger Goodell said last week he will be re-instated soon.

The Browns are expected to cut him, per various reports out of Cleveland.

Bucs fans should remember that Raheem The Dream had great interest in Plaxico Burress before he was sentenced, and Mark Dominik learned much of his craft under Bruce Allen, who surely sought low-cost, high-potential players. Stallworth fits that mold and, frankly, smells like a fresh daisy next to Jerramy Stevens.

Unless Stallworth has some sort of ugly personal history with Winslow dating back to their days on the Browns, Joe expects the Bucs to be interested. The price will be right for Team Glazer, and they need serious help at wide receiver, even if Antonio Bryant is re-signed.

Former Bucs great and current (?) NFL Network analyst Warren Sapp is in hot water after getting arrested this weekend in Miami for allegedly slapping around his girlfriend of two years.

The result was that Sapp, who was in Miami as part of the NFL Network’s team covering the Super Bowl, was pulled from the network’s programming for the weekend. It may not be temporary.

The news provoked SI.com’s Peter King to suggest Sapp’s hiring was a mistake in the first place. In his must-read Monday Morning Quarterback column, King believes the NFL Network would have been better off hiring another former Bucs great, John Lynch, rather than Sapp.

I bet NFL Network folks wish they’d hired squeaky-clean John Lynch last year. Not a good weekend for Michael Irvin or Warren Sapp — and not a good weekend for the NFL shield when two of their own network analysts, on consecutive days, are in the news on rape and domestic-abuse allegations.

Joe knows that the major cable outlet in the Tampa Bay area, Out House Networks, pisses in the collective faces of sports fans daily by depriving football fans in a football crazed area like the Tampa Bay region the outstanding NFL Network. It instead forces schlock and insepid feces upon subscribers like every friggin’ shopping channel known to the free world along with Bay Sludge 9 (“First, weather on the nines — it’s the same as it was 10 minutes ago! — and when we return, a live report on the new swing set in the Brandon city park!”) so nutless football fans (read: women) in the area without the NFL Network may not know just how good Sapp really is on the air.

Sapp brings a unique and, in fact, intelligent voice to the NFL Network, something different than the standard ex-quarterback speak. Part of the reason the NFL Network is a daily must-watch for Joe and all real football fans (read: men) is thoughtful, colorful insight from people such as Sapp.

Granted, Sapp is not the most pleasant of people and even Joe had a little run-in with Sapp in the past — though it was more Sapp testing Joe and playing a joke on Joe. To be fair to Sapp, this weekend’s incident is something out of the blue. Unlike Irvin, Sapp had no track record on a police blotter, sans a couple of minor incidents with pot.

What the future holds for Sapp on the NFL Network is dicey. The NFL is all about image. The NFL Network took a chance on Irvin, hardly a man with a clean background. Irvin’s recent news item is a civil suit, not a criminal suit. Thus, he remained on the air this weekend.

How long the NFL Network sticks with Sapp will be interesting provided the charges stick. Having a guy on the air who, indirectly, represents the league, who has a rap for throwing around a woman in a hotel room, isn’t exactly something the NFL covets.

Mike Florio

Surely, the dean of Tampa Bay sports radio, “The Big Dog,” Steve Duemig, will be talking all things Super Bowl today on 620 WDAE-AM. 

Joining “The Big Dog” today will be the great Mike Florio, the creator, curator and overall guru of ProFootballTalk.com. Florio is scheduled for 5 p.m. Florio, like Duemig, spent the week down in South Florida and is sure to have some colorful insight, and, if we’re lucky, some insider buzz about the Bucs.

Savvy sports radio listeners know ”The Big Dog” will have additional choice words when he takes to the airwaves of WDAE-AM 620 this afternoon.

Tune in to hear “The Big Dog,” broadcast weekdays from 3-7 p.m.

More than a month ago, Joe named Chad Pennington as a stellar candidate to backup Josh Freeman next year.

So what if Pennington has shoulder issues. He’s had them most of his career. He’s also been a strong leader, a smart player, a winner, a work-ethic guy during his time with the Jets and Dolphins, and he sports the highest completion percentage in NFL history.

Josh Freeman certainly could learn a lot from him.

Pennington will become a free agent in March. This weekend he told the New York Daily News, when asked about becoming Mark Sanchez’ backup in New York, that he could embrace a backup role.

“There’s always flexibility, and I think there’s always a need for good quarterback play in this league,” Pennington told the Daily News. “There’s always a need for leadership, and you don’t necessarily have to lead from a starter’s role.”

New York needs a reliable backup quarterback since Sanchez will undergo left knee surgery in the next few weeks.

Pennington, who turns 34 in June, has injury concerns as well, but the two-time NFL AP Comeback Player of the Year is making progress.

“I’m not totally where I want to be, but I can see the progress,” Pennington told the Daily News.

Joe thinks Mark Domink should make a run at him.

The Bucs don’t need Pennington to win a Super Bowl in 2011; they need him to mentor Josh Freeman and push him to his limits. Whether Pennington can perform to his past abilities is almost irrelevant. The Bucs would still have Josh Johnson to turn to in a pinch. 

Of course, Pennington would have to be willing to lift weights at 6 a.m, if one is to believe The Mad Twitterer, aka Rick Stroud of the St. Pete Times, who made some suspect claims about Byron Leftwich last week.

Joe is recovering from Super Bowl festivities, which included mass quantities of all sorts of food and drink.

A bit surprised by the Saints win, Joe can’t help but remember and think about the Bucs shutting out the Saints in New Orleans en route to their thrilling December win, the victory that likely ensured Raheem The Dream’s return in 2010.

Joe never got a straight answer about those Bucs when he asked Drew Brees the other day. But that really doesn’t matter.

The Bucs were a confident bunch ending the 2009 season, despite their dreadful record. Now they’ve surely grabbed a little more confidence from knowing they shut down the world champs just a handful of weeks ago.

Joe suspects Raheem The Dream will remind them of that when the team next gathers this spring.

So the Aints are no more. They are the Saints, Super Bowl champs.

As a result of the Saints come-from-behind win over the Colts, the Saints broke the Tampa Bay curse.

Prior to last night, no team had won the Super Bowl in the same year that it lost to the Bucs.

If Bucs fans can take any solace into the win last night, it is that the Bucs beat the Super Bowl champs. On the road. In their house.

As Derrick Brooks Twittered last night after the game, this is something for the Bucs to build on.