There are certain things Joe does on Monday mornings without fail:

1) Suck down copious amounts of coffee.

2) Eat his oatmeal.

3) Make sure not to pick up anything typed by John Romano; otherwise barfing up said oatmeal.

4) Read Peter King’s “Monday Morning Quarterback.”

(Normally Joe refrains from surfing morning TV news early on a Monday. Watching Juliet Huddy, Kiran Chetry, Gayle Guyardo, Jen Hill and Robin Meade is just way too distracting to start the work week. Later in the week is a different story. Fortunately, Courtney Friel and Dominica Davis work weekends.)

In this week’s must-read King piece, King is adamant that barring something unforeseen, Byron Leftwich is your 2009 Bucs starting quarterback.

I think I cannot believe — and will refuse to believe until I see him stink it up in training camp, which won’t happen — that Byron Leftwich will not beat out Luke McCown for the Tampa Bay quarterback job. Leftwich is just better.

Joe has posted several times over the past two or three days it appears from the tea leaves that Leftwich is the leader for the gig as we are now a handful of weeks from training camp.