No, I highly doubt he will. I would, however, point to the fact that our defense was middle of the pack through the first 6 games of the season. We really started to go downhill due to injuries and a lack of depth. Of course it can also be attributed to poor coaching. Do I think we have a good defense? Not by any means. However, neither does Atlanta, NO, or Carolina. I just don’t believe one rookie CB is going to make much of a difference one way or another. We’ve drafted offense in the first 2 rounds the last 2 years. It’s time those picks start paying off. At some point you have to address the offense early too. This is a make or break year for Freeman. Otherwise, we are going to be like Cleveland, Washington, Miami, etc. next year and have to draft a QB. I don’t want to do that. Richardson can add to our offense in far greater ways than Claiborne(in my opinion of course). Besides obviously making our running game better, he will make our pass game considerably better. He can catch, pass-protect, and perhaps most importantly, keep guys in the box (opening up the WR’s and K2). That’s an element we desperately need.

The fantasy football and Madden decision is taking Richardson. I would love to say I have faith enough in our front office to make the correct football decision, but I don’t. If both are available Im sure we’ll select Richardson to please fan boys that won’t show up to the stadium anyways.

Schiano will improve our defense just with his coaching. Richardson improves our offense to a potentially unbelievable level. And as the Saints have proved in recent years, defense doesn’t really matter when you’re putting bunches of points on the board.

However, I do think all of this is moot anyways. Cleveland will take TR. And the Bucs will yet again be burned by the team before them taking a big time player.

You missed my point. I was pointing to the fact that Denver’s running game was the difference maker in their success after their 1-4 start and not totally their defense. I was trying to make a point that an exceptional running game will benefit the defense by keeping them off of the field and giving them much needed rest. Not to mention that the clock doesn’t stop.

If the Bucs have the league’s best rushing attack (a 1 – 2 punch of T Rich and LGB) that would help the defense, having a QB that can complete 60% of his passes and that offense would be awfully hard to defend.

You just had to throw Tebow into this already over-analyzed argument. I have nothing against Tebow, and was impressed with what he accomplished last year.

I just don’t think his success can be maintained over his career (unless he puts his pride aside and is willing to take a role as TE/FB, or a TE/FB hybrid). The main reason I feel this way is that coaches now have an entire offense to figure him out and his role in gimmick plays.

But with that being said, I do hope he finds his niche in the NFL, because he elavates his teammates and is a full blooded baller. (Just not at QB)

“If you remember, we ran a 3-3-5 defense as our base defense all year. On three WR sets, we ran a 3-2-6.
Raheem did this to protect our weak secondary! I noted it, and talked about it all that season. Actually it was rather brilliant of Raheem”

You’ve just about lost any credibility with that last statement. Raheem and brilliant should never and I mean never be uttered together! Come on man!

sensible and hawaiian,

I agree 100% on Trent Richardson and having a franchise RB would be great. Most people say that Tebow is not a good QB saying the offense he ran the wildcat, but look at what he was able to accomplish with a very good running game. Most people say that the defense is the reason Denver won with Tebow the same defense that couldn’t win with Orton at QB. The difference was Tebow, under Orton in his 4.5 games Denver averaged 93 yards a game rushing. With Tebow Denver averaged 192 yards a game and made it to the playoffs averaging 137.5 yards in the playoffs with a wildcat QB according to all the armchair QB’s. My point is a good running game will help a young defense. It will keep them fresh if they’re not on the field all of the time.

I know Trent is a little bigger but he reminds me a lot of Emmitt Smith in his style of running and his deceptive speed. Emmitt ran somewhere around 4.68 to 4.8 in the 40 but he was able to break long TD runs in Dallas.

Google T Rich vs LSU if you want to see a couple of good runs against arguably the 2nd best defense in the NCAA last year. One was a 35 to 40 yard TD run in the NCG against LSU where you see Tim’s hero Claiborne take a bad angle and get cut off in the play and then T Rich run away from him.

To me Claiborne is more of a product of the sytem (best or 2nd best front seven in college football last year) just like the greatest Bucs CB’s of all time Brian Kelly (2nd round pick), Donnie Abraham (3rd round pick) and Ronde Barber (3rd round pick). A good to great pass rush will make an average DB look all world. Not saying Claiborne is average but it helped that opposing QB’s were running for their lives.

I don’t agree with anybody in regards to Janzen Jackson, the same Janzen Jackson that was kicked out of the University of Tennessee. No thank you we don’t need clone of Talib on our team, 1 is too much. Just google Janzen Jackson and off field issues and you’ll see what I mean.