Time for the weekly podcast with Joe and smooth-voiced Ronnie Lane of the Buccaneers Radio Network and WDAE-AM 620. Joe fishes for positives, pleads for offensive line improvement and much more. Enjoy!

Joe read an interesting stat before last Sunday’s game that claimed Mike Glennon was the second-most blitzed quarterback in the NFL, based on percentage of passing attempts. Teams are coming after Glennon, and they were loading the box to stuff Doug Martin and dare Glennon to beat them.

No surprise there. He’s a rookie QB and Martin was a Pro Bowler.

But that could change Thursday night against Carolina. Martin is shelved with a shoulder injury and Greg Schiano is waiting to see how the Panthers defend his juggernaut offense.

“When you’re talking about loading the box, that’s to stop the run. So with Doug [Martin] gone, you wonder will they not load the box as much? Do they respect our backup two running backs and our run game, or are they going to lay back more in 2-safety-high and make you beat’em with the run?” Schiano said today at One Buc Palace. “I don’t know. You got a rookie tailback and you got a rookie quarterback. So let them pick; we’ll just react to it.”

The lousy thing is Carolina has the No. 3 ranked defense in the NFL. They’re fifth against the pass, fourth against the run and second best in points allowed (13.8 per game). No matter how Carolina approaches the Bucs they have the talent to stuff them.

Joe suspects Carolina will do all kinds of things to confuse Glennon. A big key will be whether the Bucs’ offensive line can shake their demons and pass block. If not, there’s going to be a loud chorus of boos flying through the night sky.

(Here’s Schiano’s full morning news conference today, via 620wdae.com)

A famous motto of the Raheem Morris regime was “stats are for losers.” Raheem insisted all the popular statistical data was for reporters and fans and it wasn’t going to waste space in his “gray matter” or the brains of his players. 

Buccaneers players bought in and repeated the line publicly. It seemed to keep the team focused on winning for a good while.

But the anti-Raheem, Greg Schiano, appears to love quoting stats. Mired in a stretch of 11 losses in 12 games, Schiano is going hard to the stat sheet to justify his team’s alleged progress.

Schiano quoted all kinds of stats yesterday on his radio show on the Buccaneers Radio Network and WDAE-AM 620. Below is one example. A frustrated fan, “Aaron,” called in to vent and about the New Schiano Order’s coaching ability and more. After a rant, Aaron was prompted to ask a question. Schiano responded with all kinds of data.

Fall Caller “Aaron”: … Why is the team looking worse and worse every week? And why aren’t we improving? And why is there so many excuses going on week after week of why the team is doing this and why the team is doing that? So that’s my question.

Greg Schiano: Well, Aaron. I understand your frustration; that’s for sure. I’ll try to address the points. I don’t agree with you that we’re getting worse and worse. We’ve lost some tight ball games, some tough ballgames. And a lot of the reasons we’ve lost them is things that we’ve done ourselves, penalties and, you know, we’ve been even in the turnover margin in every single game, which is almost unheard of.

It’s weird, usually someone wins, someone loses. But when you’re even in the turnover margin, usually you’re kind of even in your record, whether it’s .500 or a game under or a game over. We have shot ourselves in the foot numerous times with, you know, penalties and things like that. I do put the responsibility on me and the coaching staff. As I said to the media and I also said to our squad, it’s a lot of the same guys that last year were 11th [best] in the league in penalties, which is not a bad spot to be. You never want to be top-5; I think you’re not trying hard enough if you do that. You want to be somewhere between five and 10th best, 11 last year was decent. I had no reason to believe that we wouldn’t do the same thing [in 2013]. We have officials every day at practice and we really stress it. But for whatever reason we’re not getting it done. So that’s what I mean when I say we got to get better.

There’s a lot of good things we’re doing. Offensively, I think the emergence of Mike Glennon is really been something to get excited about. I look at him and in his three starters he’s gotten better and better and better. He’s performing at an NFL-quarterback level. He’s only going to get better as he gets more comfortable. Defensively, you know, what we’ve done the last two weeks is giving up really what amounts to five big passes. Earlier in the season we weren’t doing that.

But, you know, there’s so many areas that I look at that we’re improved. Our third-down defense, we’re tenth in the league in third down defense, we’re 10th in the league in third-down defense, getting better, better, better than last year. You know, we’re fourth in rush defense, which keeps us in the top-5 in rush defense. We’re in the red zone, we’re playing really good red-zone defense. I think we’re fourth or fifth in red-zone defense. So there’s a lot of things that I look at as a coach that I have to evaluate.  Ultimately, there’s only one thing that matters and that’s wins and losses. But as a coach I have to look at the process. How are we doing? We’re not doing well in the penalties. We’re getting better on offense. Defensively, we’ve given up four or five balls over our head, which we weren’t doing early in the year. And that’s really how we’ve lost the game, between penalties and giving up some big plays the last two games is what cost us. But, you know what, I don’t see a team that’s not making improvement in certain areas but it’s not consistent in all areas.

Notice how Schiano is inconsistent about when he chooses to compare things to last season, like saying the offense “getting better,” but Bucs fans know it’s nowhere near last year’s 9th-ranked unit.

Regardless, this is a window into what helps keep the head coach positive in the face of losing stretch worse than that of his predecessor.

Schiano admits his discipline program has yet to fully take hold

The head coach who last month said, “you can’t load the entire roster in a two-year period,” has now made it clear he needs more than two years to craft a disciplined team.

Joe can’t believe what comes out of Greg Schiano’s mouth these days. Hey, Coach. Just how long does the Schiano regime need to produce consistently solid football? Let us all know. Please.

Schiano responded on his radio show last night on WDAE-AM 620 to a Bucs fan who expressed a lot of frustration. One thing troubling the fan was team discipline, and Schiano quickly to the blame-Raheem card.

“Make no doubt. Make no mistake. There was issues on discipline on so many different levels in this organization when we took over. Have we made huge strides? No doubt. Are there still huge strides to be made? Absolutely. And we’ll continue to do that,” Schiano said.

How long did it take Jim Harbaugh to have a disciplined team? What about John Fox when he arrived at the quarterback-challenged mess in Denver? Things aren’t exactly falling apart in Buffalo or Miami? Raheem’s Bucs were pretty darned disciplined to win 10 games in 2010 with 10 rookies seeing significant playing time.

Joe’s not sure Schiano understands the modern-day timetables of the NFL. That’s awfully odd for a coach who insisted he has the “components” in place to win now.

Tiquan Underwood says players like playing under the lights — and before the NFL Network cameras — of Thursday Night Football.

If you listen to some NFL types like Pat Kirwan, he of CBS Sports and SiriusXM NFL Radio, he loathes Thursday night games and wants them banished for good, to never come back.

Yet, he has a comrade in Ross Tucker, also of SiriusXM NFL Radio, who works with NBC Sports, who often says players love Thursday night games.

Love them? Yes, Tucker has said the quick turnaround between games creates an unofficial second bye week for teams who get a well-deserved weekend off. Joe asked a couple of players in the Bucs locker room Monday what their feelers were about playing Thursday night games, and they seemed to lean more toward Tucker’s point of view than Kirwan’s.

“There is some truth to that,” Bucs offensive lineman Gabe Carimi said of Tucker’s view. “You don’t get much time between [games] but you are not having that one hard practice in the week. You definitely aren’t going to be as prepared, but neither is the other team. There is a point to it.”

Bucs wide receiver Tiquan Underwood agreed somewhat. But he admitted the body is still recovering from the Sunday beating when Thursday rolls around.

“Physically, it is pretty tough because you are coming off a quick turnaround from the Sunday game, to get your body back to feeling well,” Underwood said. “It takes a tough toll to get ready for that game with such a quick turnaround but at the same time, it is good because whether you win or lose on Sunday, you have to get ready for the game on Thursday.”

In other words, the loss to the Dixie Chicks is ancient history.

Generally, especially in college, home teams on Thursday nights have a significant advantage. But that didn’t come into play for the Bucs last year. They went up to Minnesota and thrashed the Vikings. Underwood believes playing Thursdays on the road is overstated.

“To be honest, it is not that big of a disadvantage if your team is mature,” Underwood said. “You can use that time to [watch film] and guys can take advantage of resting up.”

Carimi said playing at home on a Thursday night is no less of an advantage than a standard Sunday home game. “You have the same advantage. You have the same home crowd, the same noise,” Carimi said.

At the end of the day (or night), players down deep love Thursday night football games.

“Nationally televised game? You can’t argue with that,” Underwood said. “Your family and friends get to see you play, so that is pretty cool.”

It was ugly. It was so ugly good ol’ Chucky called from the Monday Night Football broadcast booth for Freeman to take a seat on the Vikings bench.

The folks at NFL.com, in a move that rarely happens, compiled a Freeman lowlights video found here.

Freeman finished his Viking debut 20-for-53 for 190 yards and an interception deep in Giants territory. It also looks like Freeman has a rough bunch around him, with guys dropping passes and seemingly giving up on routes.

It’s safe to say nobody is missing No. 5, now No. 12, in Tampa this morning.

There is not a lot of good things you can say about the Bucs this season other than the fact they are not boring. Mired in a 1-11 skid, including all six games played this season, one would understand if some Bucs just threw in the towel.

If Bucs commander Greg Schiano is really as distrusted in the Bucs locker room as some would have you believe, then it would be easy to understand if the Bucs started tanking on him in part to get Schiano run. Not only is that not the case, but Bucs middle linebacker Mason Foster spoke up for Schiano. It seems the Bucs have too much pride to give up on Schiano, much less themselves.

“Nobody has ever given up. Nobody has quit. No matter what happens on Sunday, guys are coming in Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday ready to work,” Foster said. “We always feel we are right there. We know that we have to just correct little things and it will turn around for us.

“I think that’s what keeps guys going. We are all brothers on this team. We are not going to let each other down. I’m not quitting on Lavonte [David]. Lavonte is not quitting on me. That’s the way we approach it.

“It is tough. But at the same time this is what you love to do. You have been playing this game since you were a little kid. You have to remember that. It’s a game. It’s not like we are getting blown out. As crazy as it is, we are right there. We just have to work a little harder and focus a little more and we will be all right.”

This was evidenced in the loss to the Dixie Chicks Sunday. The Bucs easily could have thrown in the towel down two scores at halftime. Rather, the Bucs rallied and made the game interesting in the second half and made the Dixie Chicks sweat.

The Bucs have yet to quit on Schiano.

Yes, there were a few Bucs available to talk less than 24 hours after losing their sixth time in as many games for the 2013 season. Besides, Carolina was on their mind, coming Thursday evening.

Among those available were linebacker Mason Foster, defensive lineman Akeem Spence, offensive lineman Gabe Carimi, running back Mike James, wide receiver Tiquan Underwood and quarterback Mike Glennon.

Additionally, Bucs commander Greg Schiano held his daily press briefing.

As always, the audio is courtesy of Joe’s good friends at WDAE-AM 620.

“Tirico, man, this guy Freeman was on the open market, just sitting there for the Vikings to snatch up cheap. Are you *&^%’n kidding me? Who gives up on a talent like this freak of nature. That kid ran my playbook to 10 wins and 25 TDs and six picks in 2010. I had wet dreams about a freakin’ weapon like that. Fans are going to like what they see tonight. I sat down with Freeman for an hour on Saturday. This kid’s got his head screwed on so right, you’d need 3-in-1 oil to get him off track. He luvvs football.”

Joe’s got quality sliced meats and a six-pack of Shock Top chilling for the start of the Josh Freeman era with the Vikings tonight on Monday Night Football.

Like Freeman or not, his performance must intrigue you if you’re a Buccaneers fan. The man started 59 games for Tampa Bay and was the team’s anointed franchise quarterback during five seasons.

A few thoughts:

1) Look for Chucky to gush over all things Freeman. It’s the perfect backhanded way to take shots at the organization that fired him and got him to launch the Fired Football Coach Association, or whatever he calls the club he created.

2) Freeman will run. Joe suspects Leslie Frazier, fighting for his job, will realize that Freeman is best when he’s, um, free — free to run and improvise and not worry about coaches ripping his head off. Freeman was the second leading rushing QB in the NFL in 2010, and now he’s fitter and stronger. The Vikings have nothing to lose, and Joe suspects Freeman would love to showcase his versatility.

3) Freeman will be Freeman, aka inconsistent. Barring a miracle game, look for ol’ No. 5 to wow and frustrate. With Minnesota, however, Freeman lovers will be able to blame his Freemanesque ways on unfamiliarity with receivers.

4) Joe did a Saturday interview on Minneapolis sports radio and Joe was amazed by how smitten Vikings fans are with Freeman, primarily because he absolutely torched a solid Vikings defense on Thursday Night Football last year. It’s also been widely reported up there that Vikings players seem to be smitten with Freeman and what a cool guy he his.

Here’s some DUI law need-to-know from criminal defense lawyer Brett Metcalf. Visit MetcalfLawFirm.com now and schedule a free consultation.

What should I do if I get pulled over after having a few drinks?

Rule #1: Never incriminate yourself. Every question the officer asks and every exercise you are asked to perform is designed to build a case against you. Each time you slur your speech, that’s evidence against you. Each time your balance isn’t perfect, that’s evidence against you. Each beer you admit to drinking is evidence against you.

Rule #2: Show respect to the officer. Getting arrested is not a pleasant experience. But the officer can make it far worse if you act like a jerk. Remember that the prosecutor will always take the officer’s opinion into consideration, so make sure not to leave a bad impression.

If you’ve never been arrested for DUI, we have a much better chance of beating your DUI charge if you refuse everything. Don’t do field sobriety tests. Don’t blow*. Don’t make any statements. And, for the love of god, please be nice to the officer.

*If you have previously refused to provide a breath/blood/urine test, you have a legal obligation to submit to chemical testing; My advice not to blow is limited to people who have never previously refused chemical testing.

The news appeared to be grim for Bucs running back Doug Martin, who is believed to have suffered a torn labrum Sunday in the loss to the Dixie Chicks.

In his daily press conference this afternoon, Bucs commander Greg Schiano would neither disclose Martin’s injury nor get into specifics. Why?

“If [Martin’s injury] was season-ending, I would,” Schiano said.

Schiano also would not get into specifics about a projected time table for Martin to return to the lineup, though Schiano did offer that playing Thursday would “be a stretch,” yet he refused to rule Martin out at this point.

If the middle of such a rotten season, at least this is a rare glimmer of good news. Joe is thankful for that.

This afternoon, Greg Schiano lamented the fact that the Bucs are “dead last” in the NFL in penalty yardage, far worse than they were last season.

So why is this happening, Coach?

The Bucs are “trying too hard,” Schiano offered as a reason before media at One Buc Palace.

Schiano said penalties are spread evenly across the team so a fix is not about changing personnel. Schiano called it “an evolving penalty problem.”

The Bucs’ lack of discipline is heinous. Are they really “trying too hard?” Joe hopes that’s not the reason because that’s not really fixable.

Rockstar general manager Mark Dominik made four large calculated gambles on health entering this season. He banked on four highly-paid Buccaneers returning productive off major surgery: Adrian Clayborn, Carl Nicks, Davin Joseph and Darrelle Revis.

If Joe adds up what these guys have delivered, it doesn’t look good.

Clayborn seems healthy, but that’s a little scary if he is, considering he only has two sacks while playing alongside a Pro Bowl defensive tackle. The trade deadline is in eight days. Joe knows the Bucs won’t trade Clayborn, but what would he fetch on the open market? Joe suspects it wouldn’t be much.

Nicks’ foot wasn’t right in the offseason before he was afflicted with MRSA twice.

Joseph says he’s 100 percent, and the team has deemed him healthy. But Joseph is playing ugly football at right guard. Either the Bucs were wrong in their assessment of his readiness or the Bucs’ captain is on the down side of his career. Joseph turns 30 in a few weeks.

Revis has played well, but not like a $16 million-per-game cornerback should. He’s not quite 100 percent, and the debate rages on about whether he’s been used properly.

Again, Joe knows the Bucs planned on getting all these guys back at 100 percent. Before the season, Joe said on the radio that the Bucs would be lucky to have three out of four of them healthy.

Now, it seems like the Bucs haven’t even got half of what they expected from these team cornerstones. The gamble didn’t pay off.

Update 12:09 p.m. Fox Sports is reporting Martin has a torn labrum that likely will shelve him for the remainder of the season.

Bad news keeps piling up for the New Schiano Order. Per NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport, Pro Bowl running back Doug Martin could be sidelined for much of the season. The sad note moved on Twitter late this morning.

@RapSheet – As if the #Bucs needed more bad news: I’m told the shoulder injury to RB Doug Martin is serious. Could be out several weeks or longer.

Joe hopes the Bucs just shut down Martin completely if he does, in fact, have a serious problem. There is ZERO reason to mess around.

This injury steams Joe particularly because it was on a play that never should have happened, as Joe wrote about earlier.

A hopeful stat for the Bucs before yesterday’s beating by the Falcons was that Atlanta had the NFL’s worst defense on third down.

How bad were the Falcons? Teams were converting against them on third down at a 50 percent clip. Teams were even getting it done at better than 40 percent at 3rd-and-8 or longer.

But in came the Bucs offense. Tampa Bay was a flimsy 5-for-17 on third down yesterday. That just shouldn’t happen to an offense that has Vincent Jackson and Mike Williams.

Interestingly, Buccaneers staff member Scott Smith Twittered during the game that Jackson made his first third-down catch in a Bucs uniform without converting it for a first down. And then it happened again.

Of course, all those third downs are troubling on their own. It lets you know the Bucs aren’t moving the chains enough on first and second downs.

Xs and Os man Dave Moore, the Bucs radio analyst and former tight end, says one struggle of the Bucs offense doesn’t fall on the quarterback or the offensive line.

Receivers aren’t getting open easily, Moore explained this morning on the Ron and Ian show on WDAE-AM 620.

“If you freeze [game film] three seconds in to the play, not too many guys open,” Moore said. It seems like “tight coverage all the time,” he continued.

The same issues plagued Josh Freeman, Moore said, “especially in some of the play-actions when you’re leaving the tight ends and running backs in and its a two-man route.”

Not freeing receivers is usually one part speed, one part route running and two parts coaching. The opposition seems a little too dialed into what the Bucs are doing.

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A month ago after the New England game, Joe wrote that taking a deep shot to Doug Martin is the “wrong route” for a variety of reasons. Reason No. 1 would be Martin has not shown good hands on much easier catches all season, let alone catching the ball on a dead run with a bigger defender fighting him for the ball.

Reason No. 2 is that Martin can get beheaded and/or severely banged up on a play like that — one he’s not used to making.

And that’s what happened Sunday.

The same deep route Martin ran in New England got him free near the corner of the end zone in Atlanta in very tight space. Martin couldn’t hold the pass (again) and he got drilled and left the game with a bum shoulder.

Dear New Schiano Order, please don’t let this play become the new Benn’d Around. By Joe’s count this is the third time for the “Martin Mess” and that should be enough to send the play to the recycle bin.

The Bucs have speedy deep threats in Tiquan Underwood and Chris Owusu, guys with more speed than Martin. If these are NFL-caliber receivers, then Mike Sullivan and friends should find a way to get them in the mix. That’s got to be better than senselessly putting Martin’s career on the line.

This Bucs season has been shameful in so many ways it is difficult to point to the biggest embarrassment.

Perhaps it happened after the loss to the Dixie Chicks yesterday? Per WTVT-TV sports reporter Kevin O’Donnell, when the Bucs exited their locker room at the Georgia Dome, a hazmat crew entered and deloused the joint, so O’Donnell Twittered.

@ODonnellFox13: As soon as Bucs left their lockeroom at the Georgia Dome cleaning crews came in dressed in hazmat suits. Told not to risk catching MRSA. … Georgia Dome cleaning crews in hazmat suits going into Bucs lockeroom. Crew told me they had special cleaner.

Has it really come to this? Reports that Johnthan Banks had MRSA sparked a hazmat team to come in as if someone left a dirty bomb to explode? Banks was given clearance by the NFLPA and the league to play last week for goodness sakes.

Besides, the other two affected parties, Carl Nicks and Lawrence Tynes were not there. Only Banks.

Joe is starting to wonder whether this was an overreaction or a directive from the league?

Yes, you read that headline correctly. Joe doesn’t think it is prudent to fire the Bucs commander today, despite the ugliest of ugly tailspins the franchise is in, losing 11 of 12 games and One Buc Palace enveloped in drama and controversy.

Just what good would it do to release Schiano this week? You mean the Bucs might be propelled to win three games? Oh, good! Kiss goodbye to Jake Matthews or Jadeveon Clowney or Teddy Bridgewater.

It seems ESPN’s Pat Yasinskas is of the same mind, sort of. He doesn’t think it is smart at all to let the embattled Bucs commander loose.

But the alternative that so many fans want — an interim coach — isn’t the answer. Sure, the Bucs could make special teams coordinator Dave Wannstedt their interim coach. He has been an NFL head coach before. Or the Bucs could turn to Butch Davis, who is a special adviser to Schiano. Davis also has been an NFL head coach.

What good would either of those moves do the Bucs, who have to turn around and play a Thursday night game against Carolina? Firing Schiano and replacing him with Wannstedt or Davis would only throw this team into more disarray — and, yes, that is possible.

Going the interim route never is the answer. You only do that when things are totally out of control and you’re only prolonging the inevitable — the arrival of a new coach.

Now to be fair, Joe and Yasinskas want Schiano to stay for far different reasons. Joe wants a damned good draft slot. Winning games for the Bucs at this point is like going to a clothing optional establishment where you can’t touch the hired hands. I mean, what’s the point?

Yasinskas thinks there is a chance — albeit, a very, slim chance — that Schiano, with three years left on his contract, can still turn the Bucs around.

Either way, bouncing Schiano now just for the sake of doing something accomplishes nothing except to pacify AngryFan. If anything, it could scare away potential coaching candidates thinking Team Glazer will not support them through tough times.