The mighty Jaguars won their fourth straight game last night, taking care of miserable Houston at home on Thursday Night Football.

That pushed Jacksonville (4-9) behind the Bucs in the quest for the top pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. Factoring tiebreakers, the Bucs are sitting with the fourth overall pick with four games to play. Houston (2-9), losers of 11 straight, seems like a stone cold lock for the No. 1 overall pick, but all bets are off after that.

Sunday’s Bucs (3-9) versus Buffalo (4-8) game now comes under a bigger draft spotlight. Regardless of the outcome, the Bucs’ draft position should change significantly by Sunday evening. Strength of schedule hurts the Bucs when it comes to draft slot tiebreakers; Tampa Bay has played one of the toughest schedules in the NFL.

Is Team Glazer listening?

Joe can say from experience that Darrelle Revis is one of the smartest guys on the Buccaneers. He’s sharp, measures his words, and he’s been one of the most successful players in history on the business side of the NFL.

So Joe found it noteworthy that Revis gave what felt like an endorsement to the New Schiano Order last night. (more…)

Bill Sheridan and Darrelle Revis explain

Every year at about this time, Joe hears all the whining from the local yentas who happen to have access to a microphone. These skirts want, need, must have cold weather because it is December and Christmastime.

Joe has a four-letter word for these hausfraus: Ohio. You want cold, go (back?) to Ohio where you can have all the cold weather you could want for nine months of the year and for five months of the year scrape ice off your windshields at 6 a.m. with the sharp wind stinging your face. (more…)

If the Bucs can bottle up Bills running backs C.J. Spiller (above) and Fred Jackson, expect a win from the Pewter Pirates.

It doesn’t take a guy walking around with a white cane to see the best way to stop the bungling Bills is to stop the run. The Bills have two damned good running backs, but also have a rookie quarterback.

If you were a defensive coordinator, what would you rather take your chances with? If you are Bucs defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan, you’d roll the dice and let that rookie try to beat the NFL’s leading interception squad. (more…)

The braintrust over at One Buc Palace is taking the allegedly mighty Bills (4-8) and their big pass rush very seriously. Of course, that’s their job.

However, nobody’s going to dupe Joe into believing Buffalo is a good team. The New Schiano Order must emerge with a win Sunday. No excuses! Buffalo News beat writers gather in the video below to talk Bills and Bucs. Two pick the Bucs to win, and one is darn sour that EJ Manuel hasn’t won a road game. 

The film loves GMC

As long as the littles believe Gerald McCoy is overrated, Joe will continue to provide graphic evidence to the contrary.

This week, the film guru of theMMQB.com, Greg Bedard, updated his chart on interior defensive linemen and the pressure they put on opposing quarterbacks. (more…)

Among the interesting nuggets at today’s Greg Schiano news conference was a shout to Bucs fans for noise. The head coach wants Buffalo to struggle in their hurry-up offense.

“I just throw this out there to our fans that when a no-huddle team tries to communicate, if you can take the verbal communication out of it by crowd noise, it’s very, very helpful,” Schiano said. “So now it’s all hand signals. So we need our own 12th man when we’re on defense this weekend.”

Catch the entire news conference below via WDAE-AM 620 audio.

Last week Bucs stud cornerback Darrelle Revis messed up his shoulder against the Panthers and was knocked out of the game, the second time he had to leave the field for an injury in as many games. (more…)

Joe went looking for emerging rookie tight end Tim Wright yesterday to talk about his development and what it’s like to have top NFL defenses double-teaming him repeatedly, as was the case against the Panthers. 

Wright, who’s beefed up his skinny frame, had plenty to share. (more…)

Much has been made of the Bucs’ second half adjustments, or lack thereof. Naysayers say this is the reason Bucs commander Greg Schiano should not return for the 2014 season.

Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune started researching and found that, indeed, Schiano’s charges have made the ever-popular halftime adjustments.

Gone was the original plan to run Rainey mostly out of single-back sets, and in its place was a new plan that called for Rainey to run almost exclusively between the tackles and behind fullback Erik Lorig. (more…)

The leader of the New Schiano Order was ordered to pluck the weeds and revolutionize Bucs players’ behavior when he was handed the keys to the franchise last year.

Speaking in a candid interview with Steve Duemig on WDAE-AM 620 Tuesday, Schiano used strong language to explain that his cleanup job was not optional. (more…)

It’s back to the diner again for TBO’s Patrick Welter and Tampa Tribune humorist Martin Fennelly as they discuss the upcoming Bills and Bucs game at about the one-minute mark in this TBO video. Fennelly gets free orange juice for pulling out a Wizard of Oz reference when discussing the Bucs’ fortunes.

NFL Network caught Ron Rivera offering counseling

Panthers head coach Ron Rivera was considered a dead coach a couple of months ago after his talented team was 1-3. He was getting run out of Carolina.

Now, the Panthers have won eight in a row and Rivera is a genius and Panthers tickets are a hot item. (more…)

Eight games into his triumphant return from his couch, wide receiver Tiquan Underwood has opened a few eyes with his play of late after a rough start. He’s now got 16 catches for a whopping 325 yards and three touchdowns.

Joe talked to the soon-to-be free agent yesterday about taking over for Mike Williams and surviving an ugly 2013 debut. No hair questions, though Joe does think the Buccaneers need to sell an Underwood bobblehead. (more…)

Gerald McCoy dove deeper into his opinion of the Bucs’ frequent use of defensive line stunts

All that dancing along the Bucs’ defensive line (aka line stunts) is a head-scratcher and really needs a nickname it’s become so comical.

“The Rutgers Shuffle?” “The Sack Sucker?” 

How about “The Te’O Tango?”

The Bucs do it too often with too little results. It’s the 2013 Benn’d Around. (more…)

It’s sort of neat to understand how, in part, a couple of Bucs players found their way onto the roster.

When Bucs commander Greg Schiano accepted the job as Bucs coach in January 2012, he knew a lot of guys who entering the NFL draft or soon to enter the draft because he had recruited many of them.

Leonard Johnson and Mike Glennon are two guys Schiano recruited hard to join him in Rutgers. While neither player did, they left a large enough impression upon Schiano, that Schiano came calling in the NFL. (more…)

Joe remembers during the offseason, once you got past the rancor of Bucs fans wrestling over the pros and cons of former Bucs franchise quarterback leaky Rip Van Freeman, that the second-most angst-ridden topic was the lack of a tight end.

Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik thought he found a steal when he purloined Tom Crabtree from the Packers, yet fans still howled for more. This, despite Bucs offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan’s offense not featuring tight ends. (more…)

Getting squeezed by the feds may not be so fun after all.

The two baffoons who decided to wire tap the phone of Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik, then thought they could get wise and make a couple of shekels off of their misdoings by selling a recording to the notorious Deadspin.com, quickly found out the error of their ways when the long arm of the federal government went after them.

Apparently scared out of puberty by the thought of prison time in Guantanamo or coughing up hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and being on every federal watch list in the free world, the bozos copped a deal, so reports the creator, curator and overall guru of ProFootballTalk.com, the great Mike Florio, by way of the Associated Press. (more…)

It’s Joe’s weekly hour with the dean of Tampa Bay sports radio, Steve Duemig of WDAE-AM 620. Oh, what fun! Joe dove into all kinds of topics, from Johnny Football to Mike Sullivan and more. Enjoy!