Why are the Bucs tuning out their teachings?

That’s been a great mystery for the last nine weeks, and count Ronde Barber among those flummoxed (or “flummoxicated,” as the late Chris Thomas used to say.) Barber shared his disbelief with eye-RAH! Kaufman of The Tampa Tribune.

Veteran CB Ronde Barber can’t figure out why the Bucs can’t apply the principles they learn on the practice field to game day.

“That was an embarrassing performance, really, in the run game,” Barber said of allowing 270 yards rushing. “It’s frustrating to watch because you know what the problems are.

“It looks like guys want to do their own thing. You’ve got to believe the guy next to you is going to do his job.”

Joe wonders whether Barber will refuse to end his great career with the stain of this 2011 defense as his final chapter. One silver lining to this season could be Barber walking off the field too angry to go out on the bottom and deciding to return for 2012. It doesn’t say much, but he’s still one of the Bucs’ best defensive players.

In this damning analysis of Bucs coach Raheem Morris, Gregg Rosenthal tells the lovely Tiffany Simons that it’s clear that Bucs players don’t want Morris as their coach in this NBCSports.com video.

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

Joe can only imagine the tense vibe that might permeate Bucs practices this week. The team is on a nine-game skid with four straight blowouts, has seemingly quit on its head coach, whose seat his broiling hot, and it’s the holiday season.

Not exactly a recipe for a healthy work environment.

Plus, Raheem Morris can’t even run a nasty, physical week of practice because of the new labor agreement rules.

Regardless, Raheem gave a glimpse into what’s coming at practice this week during his postgame news conference yesterday. Without yet watching the ugly game tape, Raheem knows his team can’t tackle. So he’ll focus more — again — on the fundamentals. (No, not the core beliefs, the other fundamentals.)

“We gotta tackle better. So I got to do more fundamental tackle drills, which we’ve been doing. We’ve gotta find a way to get Cam Newton on the ground and all these other backs,” Raheem said. “When you got people in the hole you expect to make those tackles, you like to make those tackles. We’re not. So I gotta do a better job coaching up how to tackle this week.”

Good luck with the Week 17 teaching sessions, coach.

Last week, Deion Sanders and Marshall Faulk publicly shamed the Bucs with claims that the team quit on national television.

Now it’s longtime Charlotte Observer columnist Tom Sorensen’s turn to call the Bucs quitters, as he did in a medley of postgame nuggets.

Tampa Bay quit.   

Not every player. But too many not to notice. Despite winning only two games, I did not think the Panthers quit on John Fox last season. They couldn’t score, true. Yet Fox retained respect until the end, especially from the defense.

Sadly, how can anyone argue against the Bucs effectively quitting on Raheem Morris and this season? Sure, there are Bucs going hard. Some, like Kregg Lumpkin, even played pretty well. But as a whole the team has mailed it in en route to four consecutive blowout losses.

Considering every sober fan is expecting a pasting by the Falcons next week — and a majority expected yesterday’s result — this is finally rock bottom for the Bucs.

Joe scoffs at the suggestion that the Bucs’ head coaching gig in 2012 and beyond is one that would not be attractive to any coaching candidate.

Actually, Joe thinks just the opposite.

First, the magic of the new labor agreement kicks in for the start of the 2013 season, meaning the Bucs will be forced to spend a large amount of cash annually on player salaries (not fugdy salary cap figures) beginning that year. The Bucs will have to spend money and a potential new coach would reap the benefits.

Second, if it all starts in the trenches, like any football man will tell you, then the Bucs look promising with a pile of legitimate young talent on the offensive and defensive line.

Third, Josh Freeman has all the tools, has won plenty of games under pressure, and any potential new coach could do a lot worse than Freeman as his quarterback. Joe’s quite certain it would be almost impossible to find a savvy football coach that would thumb his nose at Freeman.

Joe has more reasons why the Bucs job is a damn good one, but you get the idea.

Columnist Gary Shelton of the St. Pete Times, however, seems to be in the other camp. He penned a long column after the Bucs’ latest debacle that asserts Tampa Bay’s on-field play and talent level will hurt its ability to recruit a name coach.

Maybe it was at Jeff Fisher’s house, or maybe at Brian Billick’s. Maybe it was at Bill Cowher’s. Wherever, it is probable that the new coach of the Bucs slipped away for a few hours and — risking double vision, retina scarring and corneal ulcers — tried to measure the awfulness.

Most likely, this was his conclusion:

Um, exactly how many years was that contract offer?

It would be hard to blame a job candidate for looking away from Saturday’s game. After all, the size of the mushroom cloud is new to him. The rest of us are used to the sight. We have watched, week by week, as the Bucs have sunk deeper into the quicksand.

Feel free to click through above and read Shelton’s entire piece. But Joe’s not buying the premise Shelton’s selling.

However, one thing that’s sure to scare any potential Raheem Morris replacement is the balance of power in the NFC South. The Bucs’ rivals aren’t likely to weaken anytime soon.

Joe hopes you are celebrating today in whatever way you wish to celebrate it, even if celebrating with a domestic lager and day-old pizza while sitting in your boxers and watching a tape of the Bucs winning the Super Bowl.

The success of this site couldn’t have happened without loyal readers such as yourself. So enjoy the day in the way you want.

Well, on second thought, maybe it’s not healthy to want to celebrate with Rachel Watson. No, Rachel didn’t come down Joe’s chimney last night (if she did Joe sure as hell wouldn’t be writing this post).

We all have to have a grasp of reality, don’t we? Sigh.

"Oh, Joe, you're on the naughty list again."

The football gods are determined to torture Bucs fans for as long as possible.

Joe has received word from One Buc Palace that the Bucs’ season ending game at Atlanta on Sunday, Jan. 1, has been changed from 1 o’clock to 4:15 p.m.

First the NFL denies the Bucs crucial, season-making OTAs and now this. This whole year has been nothing but a conspiracy against the Bucs and their fans.

It’s pretty much common knowledge that the TSA is getting out of hand. Groping women in airports and shaking down nuns is bad enough. But it appears that the TSA has gone too far now. Suspecting Santa Claus for trafficking, the TSA has detained Santa Claus from making his appointed rounds tonight and enlisted the services of none other than the notorious Jack Bauer and his thoughtful superior Bill Buchanan at CTU to work over Santa Claus, treating him like a common terrorist in the still of the night.

On the Bucs’ first snap of today’s game in Carolina, Jeff Faine got blown up at the line of scrimmage and driven into LeGarrette Blount in the backfield.

Blount fumbled. The Bucs lost the ball. And Raheem Morris benched Blount immediately, before he returned for a only few snaps in the second half.

Obviously, Raheem wanted to send Blount a zero-tolerance message for fumbles. But Joe’s wondering what message soaked in to Blount?

All through the blowout loss, Blount’s fellow Buccaneers were missing tackles, committing foolish penalties and shabbily turning over the ball. Did any of these guys have their ass land on the bench?

Again, Joe gets the message Raheem sent Blount, but Joe’s wondering whether Blount is mature enough to learn a lesson when so many around him are making similar mistakes and not facing the same consequences.

Joe hopes Blount emerges with a chip on his shoulders. The guy’s an incredible weapon that the Bucs haven’t figured out how to maximize.

Some members of the Bucs, seemingly every week, name turnovers as the reason the Bucs lose.

Da’Quan Bowers, speaking on the Bucs radio network after the game, dismissed that as nothing more than an excuse. Rather, Bowers stated his fellow defensive teammates are simply not getting the job done.

“We have to come out with some momentum for next year. We have to try get it fixed before it is over, give us some momentum to carry over until next year.

“When [Cam Newton] gets the ball, it is all eyes on him. You can’t let him gash you like he did. We didn’t react to the counter fast enough and we didn’t tackle very well. We were in position, we just didn’t react to the counter fast enough.

“I don’t care how many times we turned the ball over, as a defense, it is our job to get the ball back and until we do that, we are playing below standard. I don’t care what mistakes the offense makes, it’s our job to fix it.”

Bucs center Jeff Faine was blunt when discussing yet another ugly blowout, chain-whipping by the Bucs as he spoke on the Bucs radio network.

“What has been holding us back is the turnovers and the inopportune penalties. They held us back the entire year. In the NFL you cannot turn the ball over four times and expect to be competitive. We got beat in every phase. We didn’t come out and execute.

“[Bucs coach Raheem Morris said] the effort was not there and we didn’t come to play today and that is the truth. We have to look in the mirror and come out with some pride for the last game. Unfortunately, we let each other down, let the fans down and the organization down.

“It’s time to stop using youth as an excuse. It’s easy for things to snowball and mount up and hard to dig out of a hole.”

Kellen Winslow displays heinous ball security in this photo. The image was taken a second before Winslow was hit and fumbled.

There was another Kellen Winslow pass interference call today, a typical Winslow pushoff that stalled a Bucs drive in Panthers’ territory and might have cost the Bucs four first-half points — when the game was still competitive.

The same penalty has plagued Winslow all year.

Then in the second half, Winslow all but handed the ball away to the Panthers (see photo above) in a stunning display of lousy ball security.

Sure, Winslow has great talent, but as precious and precise as veterans need to be on a young Buccaneers team, Winslow is sloppy and has appeared whiny at times. Plus his blocking won’t be confused with Jimmy Giles’ anytime soon.

One could easily make the case that Winslow is the worst tight end in the NFC South.

Joe’s just not feeling how Winslow and his chronic knee issues are part of the future of this team. The Bucs have to get better at tight end, especially if they’re not going to upgrade the receiving corps in the offseason.

When embattled Bucs coach Raheem Morris spoke on the Bucs radio network after the game, the first sentence out of his mouth sums up the Raheem Morris era of Bucs history.

“The team didn’t come out ready to play.”

Now Joe thoroughly appreciates Morris’ candor, but if Morris is jettisoned after next week’s loss game, that sentence right there will be on Morris’ gravestone.

For the past two years, the Bucs have come out as if they just got in from an all-nighter, not starting a game after warm-ups. Time after time last year the Bucs had to rally late, Josh Freeman’s heroics saving the Bucs bacon.

Well this year the Bucs not only have come out for the most part just not ready to play, they haven’t shown up at all.

For Morris and his staff, clearly with the knowledge that their jobs are in dire jeopardy, to not have the team ready to play after getting curb-stomped (again) by the Cowboys last week is simply inexcusable.

But really, should Bucs fans be surprised? This has been going on for two full seasons now; week after bloody week. For a team not ready to play, that falls directly on the coaching staff and the terrible lack of preparation.

If Morris does not return in 2012, Joe already has his epitaph ready.

Garbage time was kind to the Bucs today, when the Panthers ran a pile of conservative running plays to lower their average rush per carry. It fell below 11 yards per carry late in the game to finish at 8.7 yards per rush.

All Joe can do his hang his head in shame.

Three Decembers ago the Bucs couldn’t stop the run. Three years later things are worse.

Same story. Different blowout.

Thanks for the lump of coal in the ol’ stocking, Bucs.

Today’s ugly show in Carolina featured another slow start by the Bucs, co-starring laughable defense, stupid and harmful penalties, shameful turnovers (FOUR!), and another round of debate on whether the Bucs have quit on Raheem Morris.

(Let’s have a moment of silence for the Bucs employees that have to sell tickets next week.)

Joe commends his readers that watched this entire debacle. What’s the point spread going to be in Atlanta next week? Bucs +39? Joe wouldn’t touch it.

Joe almost hopes the Bucs have quit on Raheem, because if they’re breaking their butts but getting blown out in four consecutive weeks, then all of Bucs nation is in a heap of trouble for 2012.

Remember, the Panthers are not a great team.

Joe suspects there will be no vote of confidence for Raheem coming from One Buc Palace this week. One might think Team Glazer’s decision on Raheem’s future would be easy and clear, but nothing would surprise Joe.

Yeah, yeah, Joe knows the Bucs missed those precious OTAs this offseason. Joe swears,  the next time he hears that weak excuse/explanation for the Bucs’ nine-game losing streak he’s going to vomit.

Week 16
Bucs at Panthers
Kickoff: 1 p.m.
TV: WTVT-TV in Tampa, DirecTV 711.
Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network (in Tampa WFUS-FM, 103.5 and WDAE-AM, 620); Sirius Channel 136.
Weather: Despite it being Christmas weekend, the weather up north isn’t bad whatsoever. Per AccuWeather.com, temperatures will be somewhat moderate. Kickoff conditions will be 54 degrees and will only drop slightly through the game with a temperature of 51 expected by the final whistle.
Odds: Per Sportsbook.com, Bucs +7.5.
Outlook: Does anyone expect anything but a blowout by the stinking Panthers? The Bucs are in one of the worst tailspins Joe has ever seen from any NFL team. And look who pops up next on the schedule but rookie Cam Newton looking to break Peyton Manning’s rookie passing record of 3,739 yards. Yeah, the asinine lockout really hurt a rookie coming out of a spread-option offense, huh? Chalk the lockout as yet another weak excuse to enable the Bucs’ inabilities to fix problems. Add to the fact that Steve Smith will likely be going up against struggling E.J. Biggers, this very well could be a beatdown by the Panthers.

Gut the team but save the coach. That's the refrain from THE OPTIMIST in his latest plea to save Raheem Morris.

You’ve all read THE PESSIMIST, who spews his Bucs-related anger like no other. But Joe also brings you THE OPTIMIST. 

THE OPTIMIST is Nick Houllis, a Bucs fan and an accomplished writer whose steadfast allegiance to the Buccaneers goes back to the 1970s. Houllis is the founder, creator and guru ofBucStop.com, a place Joe goes to get lost in time via Houllis’ stunning video collection.

THE OPTIMIST will shine that positive light in your eyes. Some will love it. Some won’t. … Of course, THE OPTIMIST’s opinions are his alone and are not influenced by Joe.

Seemingly everyone is hot after Raheem Morris’ job, people were even refreshing their Twitter and Facebook pages this week thinking the Glazers are going to fire Raheem.

I have news for you…the Glazers are the most consistent people on this planet. If they fire Morris — and that’s becoming a bigger “if” each week — they will do on a Friday at 5 p.m. in January. The Glazers won’t be emotion with this decision like the rest of us.

For all we know, the Glazers could be looking at this season with an emotionless outlook, looking at simply the cold hard facts. Changes need to be made, and I’m sure there will be many. I doubt seriously many assistant coaches keep their jobs.

Greg Olson is probably gone, along with the WR coach and RB coach, too, and probably Raheem will lose his D.C. title, and that will be good. But head coach too? Wasn’t it just 8 weeks ago no one was calling for his job? Wasn’t it a year ago we ALL wanted him COACH OF THE YEAR?

Some players have quit on Raheem Morris, and Morris has done one thing honorable, he does not throw players under the bus.

We also know for a fact the lockout affects first- and second-year players the most. It seems like the whole Bucs team falls in this category. You cannot go back on any internet browser using any computer prior to week 6 and find anyone demanding Raheem Morris’ job or Mark Dominik’s. That means you are just using the emotions of this losing streak, and that is quite pathetic to vent on someone, anyone, and the head coach is the easiest target.

I’ll give you a perfect example of how emotions can ruin your objectivity. Take Mark Dominik. All of a sudden, Mark Dominik MUST GO TOO, he is a horrible GM. Really? He was a rock star 8 weeks ago! Everyone wants to bring up Derrick Ward, but you forget about Connor Barth. You bring up Michael Clayton, but Michael Koenen is practically neck and neck with Barth for MVP! Dominik is just following orders, and the Glazers are the ones who need to change the most. How does a rock star GM turn into the worst GM in the world? Losing.

What can a new coach do? You can’t make the players work harder; Morris already has them doing gassers and such, probably the reason the weak-minded players started tuning Morris out. Those players will be gone next year, or not starting. They will then have to PLAY for their jobs, the one mistake this organization really made: giving young kids jobs without earning them.

The BUCS as a whole are guilty of these transgressions:

Gutting the veteran presence that helps young players
Removing experienced leadership from the locker room.
Going way too young with kids that are too ill-tempered
Allowing poor accountability – some players don’t talk to media after a bad day.
Offense gives up the running game too easily
ZERO depth at running back with a feature back that is a one-trick pony.

These are the Glazers problems that THEY created, not just Raheem Morris’ or Mark Dominik’s. Morris is responsible for the lack of accountability, hopefully he sees that and adjusts it accordingly.

LeGarrette Blount should not be the feature back. He doesn’t block or catch the ball. He should be the fourth-quarter closer when the Bucs get a lead, and someone to soften a defense up at the start of a game. Veterans are needed all over the team to provide leadership.

I don’t care about firing Raheem Morris, I’m waiting to see if the Glazers are going to finally spend some money on salaries, because if not, 2012 will bew a campaign against Bucs ownership.

If the Glazers don’t bring in some veterans, if they don’t spend some money and capture some excitement by bringing in one or two TOP-OF-THE-LINE exciting free agents like they did with Keyshawn Johnson, they will have succeeded at becoming the next Hugh Culverhouse, and no one in the Bay area can allow that to happen. But we will wait until next year to see if that happens.

Firing Raheem Morris would bring change, and must be honest, it would be refreshing to see change and to see a positive upswing in everyone’s attitude towards the Bucs.

But I’ve been a Bucs fan through all the losing seasons, when no one liked the Bucs, and I followed them through all of that. Even if next year is a total flop, at least we will know we made the right decision, we’ll have ANOTHER premium draft pick, and a lot of our players will have another year of experience to show what they’ve got.

If you can’t stomach two losing seasons, you can’t call yourself a Bucs fan, because being a Bucs fan has ALWAYS been about following a losing football team. That’s our history. That’s our legacy. It’s called patience.

NFL analyst Pat Kirwan explains to Jason Horowitz in blunt detail what a “mess” the Bucs are right now. And Kirwan also exposes the crock that is the excuse many Bucs defenders use about no offseason thanks to the asinine lockout by highlighting the development of rookie quarterback Cam Newton in this CBSSports.com video.

Yes, it’s the holidays, good will toward men.

Sadly for Bucs fans, that good will does not so much extend to embattled coach Raheem Morris, unless he is to clean out his office at One Buc Palace.

Joe cannot remember the last time a local coach/manager of one of the three professional sports teams was so reviled as Morris. But such is life when you are the leader of a team that is in the middle of an ugly eight-game losing tailspin, that gets curb-stomped on a weekly basis and as the defensive coordinator, and your defense has sunk to among the worst in the NFL.

Daily, Joe hears Bucs season ticket holders call local sports radio shows and write on this very site that they will cancel their tickets if Morris is stalking the sidelines next season as Bucs coach.

Yet another Bucs season ticket holder participated in an NFC South chat on ESPN.com and flatly stated if changes are not made in the coming weeks, he too will give up his tickets.

To which ESPN’s Pat Yasinskas replied, Team Glazer has “got to make a move.”

Big Bucs Fan (Tampa)

I am currently a season ticket holder for 4 club level seats and am tuely frustrated with the Entire team. If they don’t get this train back on the tracks I will never buy a ticket from that organization or watch them again! What can they do?

Pat Yasinskas

Only the Glazers can decide. But my personal opinion is, they’ve got to make a move. If they don’t, there will be a lot of other people like you that dump their season tickets and it’s not like they have much of a season-ticket base to start with. We’ll find out what they’re going to do soon enough.

Oh, there will be changes next season, Joe is confident. What those changes may be, is anyone’s guess.

Joe would be a bit surprised if Bucs offensive coordinator Greg Olson returns, but that is hardly a sure thing. If Morris returns, it’s pretty much a certainty he will have a defensive coordinator. There likely will be massive changes to the roster.

But as Joe has written many times, if Morris stays, with just one year left on his contract, the chances of getting any decent coordinators are slim unless Morris has his contract extended.

Veteran sportscaster Dave Wirth, of the award-winning WTSP-TV, Ch. 10 news, checks in to look at the Bucs-Panthers game via this exclusive video for JoeBucsFan.com readers.

Watch and find out what Wirth is referring to when he says, ” I don’t know if I can watch that carnage.”

Back for his weekly trip to the end zone of the NFL universe, popular sports radio personality Adam Schein travels through football space and time outs. Check out what Schein says about the Bucs this week. He sums up the sorry state of the Bucs in one damning sentence. Consider yourself sucked in to the latest episode of Cosmic Schein!

A new column on NFL.com has revved up the discussion

The familiar take that a big-name dude like Bill Cowher or Jeff Fisher coaching the Bucs next season would not only generate a rush of optimisim but also sell gobs of new tickets has hit a new pitch today.

Writing on NFL.com, Albert Breer has a new column sharing his view that Team Glazer will hire a big-name coach in the offseason, in part, because they have seats to fill and crave exposure.

One prediction

Miami won’t be the only team from Florida trying to make a splash coaching hire this offseason.

The Buccaneers have spent considerable time over the last five years trying to expand their market, even going to the home country of their sister franchise, Manchester United, to try to pull it off. New Jaguars owner Shahid Khan already has discussed similar maneuvering.

One way to quick-fix small-market problems is to bring in a big-city type of coach.

It worked wonders for the Glazers with Jon Gruden — at first, anyway. It could work for both these teams now, too, in getting fans to the gate.

Click on through above to read more of Breer’s take.

So what would Team Glazer say about the concept that a big-name coach would resonate at the box office?

Joe doesn’t have to speculate. Bryan Glazer himself offered his opinion back in September during an interview with Steve Duemig on WDAE-AM 620. Here’s the exchange:

Steve Duemig: You knew you would go through some growing pains. When people were calling for their jobs in Year 1 with the 3-13 record and tyring to win a game, was there every any thoughts of making a change? Or were you just going to go through and let this thing play out?

Bryan Glazer: No, we were very confident in what we had done. It would have been very easy to hire a big-name coach and sell a couple more tickets, but that wouldn’t have got us to where we’re headed today. It would not be coming off a 10-6 season with a franchise quarterback and heading in the right direction.

What Glazer meant by “a couple more tickets” is anyone’s guess.

Conservatively, if hiring a big name coach saved 1,000 season-ticket holders from cancelling and generated 1,000 more new tickets, then combined that means a new big-name coach would generate an additional $1.4 million in first-year ticket revenue, assuming an average ticket of $70 and no home game in London.

Maybe the projected cash is a lot more significant, maybe it’s under $1 million. But all that’s for the bean counters at One Buc Palace.

Joe’s still holding to Team Glazer’s statement that “money will never be an issue” when building the Bucs, so this is meaningless yet interesting chatter to Joe.

OK, so let Joe indulge a bit; ramble if you will. Hey, it’s the holidays and no, Joe has not sampled any holiday cheer (yet).

In the past, Joe has made mention of the utter respect he has for Joe Henderson, recently promoted to news columnist for The Tampa Tribune. The impact and help Henderson gave Joe through the years has been profound, both professionally and personally, and Joe will never be able to thank him enough.

Long before Joe ever heard of Henderson, Joe met and got to know Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Joe was a naive, wet-behind-the-ears scribe in college covering his first NFL training camp and Miklasz was the beat writer then, covering the old St. Louis Cardinals.

Miklasz, now a columnist who is also a radio and somewhat lesser TV icon in St. Louis, sort of a Gary Shelton, Steve Duemig and Roy Cummings all rolled into one. He’s a tireless worker.

What Joe learned that summer just by observing one of the better writers in the country and and how he dealt with Gene Stallings and sometimes cranky NFL players and listening to Miklasz offer advice over tequila shots in the wee hours of the morning were profound. Joe will never, ever forget Miklasz telling Joe, “You are aggressive; that’s good. Always be aggressive.”

The reason Joe brings up Miklasz is that he penned a powerful column recently about the Rams and Steve Spagnuolo. Granted, this is a Bucs site, but there are many similarities between the Bucs and the Rams. Both are woeful this year. Both have franchise quarterbacks who have been hurt this season. Both have high draft picks that haven’t yet panned out. Both have embattled coaches. Both have fallen far short of lofty goals this year.

Miklasz is not wont to write shock columns. His columns are thoughtful, yet strong, well-researched, well-reasoned. His writings are much like Howard Troxler, the former St. Petersburg Times news columnist who would build up an opposing view only to show how the premise didn’t hold weight.

Miklasz, in so many words, suggested defending Spagnuolo is nothing more than enabling a coach who has not met the team’s or his own standards.

Here’s the odd thing: The more the Rams lose, the more we seem inclined to make excuses on their behalf or attempt to rationalize their failures. We’ve become enablers. And I’m not bashing the fans; the media is at fault as much as anyone. …

This isn’t high school football. Spagnuolo was hired to win football games. If a coach can’t win games, he’s fired. He could be a saint or a sinner, but he needs to be a winner.

Besides, Spagnuolo has fired trainers, an equipment manager and other employees at Rams Park. A big part of his job is terminating players. It’s nothing personal. So why are we so sensitive about Spagnuolo’s future?

Miklasz goes point-by-point to break down all the rationalizations for the Rams’ poor play and explains how none hold water. If you read Miklasz’s piece — and Joe strongly encourages you to do so — and substitute Spagnuolo/Rams with Morris/Bucs, you’d swear Miklasz is writing about the Bucs.

So in short, in grasping at reasons to find out why the Bucs are in an eight-game tailspin and getting blown out by garbage teams, is that not in some way also enabling Morris and bad play from the Bucs?