Yesterday, Joe posted an item (and a number of links to lovely ladies) about how Peter King claimed, in his eyes, that the quarterback derby to win the starting job with the Bucs was finished. Byron Leftwich is the winner.

As he is wont to do, JoeBucsFan.com reader “Dave” had an angry comment and accused Joe of treating one of the most repected football scribes in America as a deity. The accusation is simply not true; Joe has never prayed to King.

In King’s “Monday Morning Quarterback (Tuesday edition)” piece today, King fielded a question from someone who took him to task about his prediction that Leftwich will be the starter. And King explained his decision.

BECAUSE I THINK LEFTWICH IS PRETTY GOOD: From Matt of Shibukawa, Japan: “Why do you always support Byron Leftwich? I admit I loved him out of Marshall and he seems to be a good, intuitive guy, but he has a slow release and is not mobile. That’s a bad combination to have in a league built on speed and pressure.”

[KING:] You make very good points, Matt. I’m just looking at the Tampa Bay quarterback situation, and I look at Leftwich, and I look at the second half he played at Washington last year for the Steelers, and I think: He’s better than anything the Bucs have right now. He’s experienced, he’s smart and he’d be playing behind a good offensive line that would give him time.

Granted, fellow quarterbacks Luke McCown, Josh Johnson and bust-in-waiting Josh Freeman would all be playing behind the same offensive line. But Joe has stated before that, just by reading the tealeaves, Leftwich currently has the upperhand,  however slight. How that will play out between now and the beginning of the regular season, well, that’s a lot of time to screw up or improve one’s play.