Will Brinson, prickly Pete Prisco and Pat Kirwan break down the Cardinals-Bucs game in this CBS Sports video. Find out why they feel sorry for Bucs quarterback Mike Glennon.

Something to keep an eye on Sunday is Doug Martin’s ability to hold on to the football.

Yes, Martin is a true Bucs superstar and being critical of him feels like an act of treason. But the reality is Martin has dropped too many balls thrown his way in this young season.

Greg Schiano even acted like acknowledging those drops is painful to his tongue. Speaking on his radio show Monday, Schiano wouldn’t use the word drops but talked around the two balls Martin couldn’t catch in New England by calling them hot throws Martin needed to squeeze. Schiano also said the Bucs “still think” Martin is a third-down running back.

Yesterday, asked about Martin’s hands, Schiano again seemed uncomfortable admitting Martin has struggled.

“Is he having some problems holding on to the ball?” a reporter asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know. I wouldn’t go there yet. I wouldn’t say that yet,” Schiano said. “We as a team have had more drops than I would have liked. I think Doug’s going to be just fine as a receiver this year. He’s shown that he can do it in this league and I think he will.”

Yes, Martin is an amazing running back, but the jury is still out on his hands. Joe would like to see the Bucs diversify their offense and throw some balls to Brian Leonard and/or Erik Lorig out of two-back sets.

A little Arizona perspective on Sunday’s game from this AZCentral.com video. Their scribes talk about matching up with Adrian Clayborn and how the Cardinals will go after Mike Glennon but “they don’t have much to throw at him.” It’s also comical/sad to hear their take on the state of the Bucs.

Veteran sportscaster Dave Wirth, of WTSP-TV, Ch. 10, weighs in with a preview of Sunday’s Cards-Bucs game. Wirth includes a worthwhile take on Mike Glennon’s skill set versus other recent successful rookies and young QBs.

Gabe Carimi started at left guard for the Bucs in the opening two games, but he’s sort of disappeared for nearly two weeks with an undisclosed illness.

“He’s been out all this time. So it’s not something, it’s certainly something significant,” Schiano said today. “But other than that I can’t go into more.” 

Is it MRSA-related? Schiano was asked. “No,” replied the head coach.

There are rules — written and unwritten — that prevent teams from revealing non-football issues that keep players off the field.

Joe can only hope Carimi isn’t in a life-threatening physical or mental condition.

Joe would love to see the Bucs get back to slant routes from their top guns

The greatest news to come out of One Buc Palace today was the return of Vincent Jackson and Mike Williams to the practice fields. There’s no doubt that the Arizona Cardinals will load up the defensive box to stop Doug Marin on Sunday, and the Bucs’ new quarterback will need his elite weapons to step up in a big way.

Hopefully, the Bucs will get Mike Williams back to running the slant passes he ran so effectively early in his career.

Joe would also love to see screen passes return to the Bucs’ offense. Glennon’s height — and his accuracy that impresses Greg Schiano — has to be an advantage there.

The last image Joe will have of franchise quarterback Josh Freeman is him, half-dressed, running from the local fourth estate rather than being a man and just droning a few empty words, as he is known for saying.

Instead, he had to run off to BSPN to talk, unsanctioned by the Bucs. Hey, they produced his Michael Jackson video and magazine spread, so why not? It’s a thriller after all.

Tampa Tribune humorist Martin Fennelly documented the scene.

Once upon a time, it was all about 5. Once upon a time, in 2009, Josh Freeman threw three touchdowns and willed the Bucs to a comeback win over the Packers — his very first NFL start. Once upon a time, in 2010, Freeman threw 25 touchdowns and just six interceptions. Once, he was a franchise quarterback. Thursday, he was an empty locker.

There are few things more nonexistent, more awkward, than an NFL former starting quarterback still in residence. There are never ruffles or flourishes, so there were none between Freeman and Glennon, now the 33rd starting quarterback in Bucs history — no passing of the torch or the Josh Freeman Tuesday radio show time slot.

It’s on to the next one. The Bucs are big on that. For 38 years, this franchise, for all sorts of reasons, has never grown a franchise quarterback — 38 years and not one Bucs QB has ever gotten to a second contract with this team. Josh Freeman was going to be the one, once upon a time.

Actually, Brad Johnson got a hefty contract extension from the Bucs and Dan Orlovsky is on his second contract, but that doesn’t take away from the magnitude of the Freeman freefall.

Meanwhile, Joe must get that image of Freeman shirtless running away from the pen and mic club out of his head. Maybe after another belt of coffee, that image will be replaced by Freeman one-hopping passes to his running back.

Fresh off the news from Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, that backlash to Josh Freeman’s team-unauthorized interview with BSPN last night will lead him to be deactivated for Sunday’s game, Bucs commander Greg Schiano dodged a chance to deny the report during his daily press conference with the local pen and mic club Friday.

When asked by Stroud about the unauthorized interview and as a result, will Freeman be placed on the inactive list, Schiano refused to answer.

“I understand the question and I appreciate it,” Schiano began. “I feel this [Freeman benching] has become a focus all week. I am not going there. Ninety minutes before the game I will announce the inactive list. I am done discussing that other stuff. Let’s go win a game.”

When Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune pointedly followed-up asking if Freeman was still a backup, Schiano replied, “Again, 90 minutes before [kickoff] I will name inactives.”

Schiano easily could have killed the rumor by saying, “No, he is our No. 2.” (then again, Schiano was adamant that Freeman was the starter on Monday). So at least Schiano is thinking about it or has already made a decision to effectively keep Freeman out of uniform Sunday.

If not, Schiano could have quashed the report with one word. “No.”

He didn’t.

As for the nonsense about grumbling how the Freeman issue has been the focus all week. Come on! A guy the Bucs traded up for in the first round, a guy who fans were told for four years was the team’s savior — “it’s all about No. 5” — has been benched three weeks into the season, what does Schiano expect? He cannot be that naive. This is the biggest Bucs story since Schiano himself was hired, maybe bigger.

Would Schiano rather have the fourth estate focus about how Schiano is 1-9 in his last 10 games as an NFL head coach?

Bucs commander Greg Schiano is strict about who talks to the local fourth estate, and more importantly in Schiano’s ways, what the Bucs say to the fourth estate.

So when shirtless Josh Freeman blew off the local pen and mic club yesterday, then ran to BSPN, without the knowledge of the Bucs, apparently, it really rubbed the Bucs the wrong way. So much so that Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times said the Bucs are so peeved, Freeman may be the No. 3 quarterback and placed on the inactive list Sunday to pay for his sins.

Freeman was benched in favor of rookie Mike Glennon Wednesday but coach Greg Schiano said he would serve as the No. 2 quarterback. But that was before he broke his silence Thursday night in an exclusive interview with ESPN’s Josina Anderson that was not authorized by the team.

The Bucs encouraged Freeman to be available to the media both Wednesday and Thursday, but he declined.

“Josh just needed his voice to be heard,’’ agent Erik Burkhardt told the Times of the decision to make Freeman available to ESPN.

Needed to be heard??? What the hell were the 20 guys and girls standing around his locker there for yesterday, to sell him new aluminum siding on his house?

S(p)it, even the product of Seminole High, Jeff Darlington of NFL Network, was there with a massive camera crew. “Needed his voice to be heard” Joe’s rear end!

If this wasn’t checkbook journalism by BSPN — Joe wouldn’t be surprised if that outfit would do anything to get an interview with their sordid track record — then Freeman was paying the four-letter back for them producing his pedophile Michael Jackson spread.

After all, this season has turned into a thriller for Bucs fans, sans victories.

NFL inside Adam Schefter last spring had an innocent Twitter where he said the Bucs had reached out to pursue then Raiders quarterback Carson Palmer. It didn’t happen.

Joe made mention it back then, but the news barely created a ripple.

This week after Bucs franchise quarterback Josh Freeman was benched, Palmer reignited the flames saying the Bucs contacted his agent “a lot.” Now, after some digging, Schefter finds out Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik thought he had a trade worked out for Palmer.

Tampa planned it out. It had extensive talks to try to get a trade done. A deal was within its grasp, so much so that the Buccaneers believed Palmer would be theirs.

And just when the Buccaneers thought they would land him, the Cardinals stepped in and made an offer the Raiders could not refuse. Arizona, not Tampa, got the trade done.

In the end, one of Palmer’s agents, Dave Dunn, helped steer his client to Arizona instead of Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers felt jilted, betrayed. It did not play particularly well in their training facility. And the Buccaneers had little choice but to find their new emergency backup quarterback, North Carolina State’s Mike Glennon, in the third round of the draft.

Palmer started out this season terribly but has progressively improved each week. It will be interesting to see how he does against the Bucs.

It’s a major “what-if” had Dominik landed Palmer. If he did, would Freeman, never shown to be mentally strong to begin with, have melted down in the preseason with Palmer on the roster? Would Freeman have been traded last offseason?

Just what the hell happened to Freeman, after posting career-year numbers in 2012 before he hit his typical December freeze? Did he do to want Schiano (and/or Dominik) to want to wash hands of him so badly, so quickly?

Joe’s smelling something here and it isn’t because he hasn’t jumped in the shower yet.

Patrick Welter of TBO.com and Tampa Tribune humorist Martin Fennelly discuss the benching of Josh Freeman over pancakes in this TBO video. In short, Fennelly in no way believes this was a panic move by Bucs commander Greg Schiano, and instead, was planned from the moment Schiano walked in the door to One Buc Palace in January of 2012.

It has not been a good couple of weeks for Bucs commander Greg Schiano. His team lost its first three games, coughed up late lead twice, and Schiano was taken over the knee of his mentor Bill Belicheat with a drubbing in New England that, barring injury, will be the last time Bucs fans see Josh Freeman taking a snap wearing a Bucs jersey.

Soon after the game and for a full day, Schiano was adamant, bordering on angry, claiming Josh Freeman was his quarterback.

But he forgot one word: “Backup.”

Then came the news Freeman had been benched. Not a way to start the 2013 season, a season David Whitley of FoxSports.com believes will end with Schiano being asked to clean out his office.

The Bucs are winless and Freeman’s been terrible, so you can’t fault Schiano for the move. You can fault him for how Freeman’s gotten increasingly terrible since the coaching staff arrived.

Part of that is undoubtedly on Freeman. But whether he was overrated from the start or undisciplined or whatever, his relationship with Schiano was terminally ill. As bad as that has become — and Freeman wants out, according to FOX Sports sources — the real problem is nobody in uniform is connecting with Schiano.

It’s never good when players hold a private meeting and one of the topics is whether the coach rigged the vote for team captain so his quarterback would get jobbed. The other hot topic was debating whether Schiano should dress as Sgt. Hulka or Bobby Knight for Halloween.

First, off, Joe doesn’t believe Schiano wrecked Freeman. Freeman wrecked Freeman. He started off slow last year and had his career season until December approached. Historically, Freeman has been horrible in December. So if Schiano blew up Freeman, how the hell did Freeman have such a good year last season and, at one point, look like a top-5 quarterback in the NFL? People seem to have a very selective memories.

Also, look at the progress the Bucs have made defensively in the past two seasons. Joe really doesn’t understand how people can say Schiano has been a complete failure unless they are simply blinded by hate and rage.

Look, Team Glazer has never made a coaching change until a coach has had three seasons. Could they break their pattern? Sure, but history suggests, no.

Will this season be a trainwreck? It already is. “This Joe” firmly believes Team Glazer decided to pacify the freeloader fans, who screamed about why others wouldn’t spend their hard-earned money so the whiners could get games on TV free. Yesterday’s move to end blackouts quelled the unrest for many Bucs fans, who Joe has never seen this angry before. In a span of three days, Schiano went from being respected if not liked by Bucs fans, to being reviled nearly as much as Raheem Morris. It’s a stunning turnaround.

If the Bucs lose Sunday, they likely could start the season 0-7 (and who knows where the losing will end) and make a run at the first pick in the draft and begin to really fall unravel. Then who knows what Team Glazer will do with Schiano?

Right now Schiano’s best antidote is to win games. It cures all ills and is the game’s best deodorant.

Back in June, Bucs quarterbacks coach John McNulty was very clear with Joe when he said that a quarterback in the Bucs’ offensive system needs a few years to master it.

McNulty came to the Bucs with experience in the system from his days as an assistant under Tom Coughlin in Jacksonville.

“It took [Mark] Brunell a few years. It took Eli [Manning] a few years in this system. It takes time to just be able to go out there and just do it,” McNulty said. “So you try to simulate those reps as much as you can in the classroom, because physically it’s just hard to get all the looks and the different plays and all that. And [Freeman’s] been excellent with it.

“And I mean it could tire you out where you get to the point where you say, ‘Hey, c’mon. I got this.” But he’s been very good with [studying.] He’s a very intelligent football player. He knows a lot of football. He’s played in a lot of systems. So, you know, he’s able to funnel all of that knowledge and energy into, “Here’s what we’re doing here.” You know what I mean, when you’ve played in three or four different systems, you can kind of just run them together. So I think the second year with this, what we’re asking him to do, he’s done a great job with it so far.”

So where does this leave rookie Mike Glennon, who’s jumping into the mix with little practice time, let alone a full offseason, with the first team?

Joe’s happy for Glennon that he’s getting his shot in the NFL, but he’s not in an offense that’s going to make it easy for him.

Last year, Joe talked to former Bucs wide receivers coach P.J. Fleck after Fleck left the Bucs to coach Western Michigan University. Fleck was rather candid and said that a lot of the perceived “mis-communication” issues Bucs had late last season with Josh Freeman was more a result of NFL defenses catching up to the Bucs.

Joe doesn’t see how the Bucs and Mike Sullivan have recovered. And now they’ve got a huge challenge of a rookie QB on their hands.

Father Dungy did a radio interview recently in which he stated that Greg Schiano made the wrong move going to Glennon, and Dungy said he would do nearly everything he could to keep a rookie QB — one that didn’t get the starting job in training camp — off the field.

Dungy talked about how he started Trent Dilfer in 1999, made a change to Eric Zeier, then went back to Dilfer to keep rookie Shaun King off the field, but then went to King as a last resort. King went 4-1 to finish the season and led the Bucs to the NFC Championship game, a feat Dungy called a “miraculous job.”

At 0-3 in a struggling offense on a team mired in a media circus and with a head coach under pressure, Glennon might need more than a miracle for a successful season.

Here is a clip from a soon-to-be broadcast BSPN interview with Bucs franchise quarterback Josh Freeman.

Bucs franchise quarterback Josh Freeman blew off a large gaggle of reporters Thursday at One Buc Palace — which included Jeff Darlington (pride of Seminole High) working for Big Brother, the NFL Network — and instead chose only to speak to BSPN, likely a very controlled, tempered sit-down.

Per dapper Rick Brown of the Lakeland Ledger, who transcribed the interview preview, which is scheduled to be broadcast in its entirety at a later date, Freeman, who rarely says anything outside of cliches, when cornered, admitted a trade may be best for all parties.

Then Anderson asked him straight out, “So Josh, do you want to be traded?”

This is what he said:

“I don’t for a number of reasons but the bottom line is you know, if you want things to change, something’s got to change. At the end of the day, yes. I think that moving forward that might be, that is going to be, probably the best option.”

Just what team is desperate — or crazy — enough to pick up Freeman’s $8 million contract for 2013, a guy who leads the league in inaccuracy and has proven time and again to meltdown under pressure or when the slightest thing goes wrong?

If a team is going to trade for Freeman — the best target would be a playoff-bound team who loses its signal-caller to injury — they likely want a guy who at least has seen a playoff game without buying a ticket.

While franchise quarterback Josh Freeman hid from the assembled pen and mic club (which included Jeff Darlington from the NFL Network) so he could kiss up to BSPN later, his soon-to-be former teammates manned up and had no issues talking Bucs Thursday.

Among the Bucs who did speak were defensive tackle Akeem Spence, linebacker Mason Foster, wide receiver Eric Page, cornerback Darrelle Revis, safety Dashon Goldson and wide receiver Mike Williams.

Also, defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan had his weekly press conference and of course, the daily press conference from Bucs commander Greg Schiano.

Of course, all of the audio is courtesy of Joe’s good friends at WDAE-AM 620.

Now Joe understands this is a pure coincidence. For the debut game of rookie third round pick Mike Glennon, supplanting franchise quarterback Josh Freeman as the Bucs’ starter, the actual ticket for the game is very interesting, thanks to a catch by Jason Lisk of TheBigLead.com.

Josh Freeman was benched yesterday by head coach Greg Schiano. If you have a game ticket for this week’s home game against the Arizona Cardinals, you might just have a picture of Josh Freeman, in the orange creamsicle uniform, looking at you as you enter the game to see Mike Glennon’s first career start.

You can see that the ticket also markets this as the “Throwback Game”. That would make this ticket 0-fer Sunday.

Last week, it was announced that the Buccaneers would not be doing the throwback game this year, because of a new league policy that players should wear the same helmet all year. Switching from the pewter helmet color to the all-white background Bucco Bruce swashbuckler would have been too difficult, and the team didn’t want to go with the same helmet while wearing the throwback uniform.

Joe finds the irony funny. The Bucs want Bucs fans to move past Freeman. After all, Schiano refused to even touch the subject today, claiming he spent sufficient time discussing the issue on Wednesday. Yet there Freeman will be in the hands of thousands of fans.

And like he did with DJ Toes on the Line, the moment Freeman leaves and Schiano is asked about the transaction, Schiano will say he doesn’t discuss players that are not on his roster.

And the door to the Josh Freeman Era in Tampa Bay will be shut, slammed, dead-bolted shut.

Jason La Canfora claims other NFL teams were trying to acquire Josh Freeman last summer in a trade in this CBS Sports video.

Yesterday, Bucs players put on a good face, saying they would play hard and how third round draft pick Mike Glennon is the man. Now. Right away.

While it is difficult to believe some veterans, like Dashon Goldson, Vincent Jackson and Carl Nicks, weren’t a little bit irritated at relying on a rookie signal-caller trying to salvage their season, Bucs wide receiver Mike Williams insisted that was not the case.

“[The Bucs] made the decision for a reason,” Williams said. “They didn’t make the decision to keep losing. Hopefully it is a great decision and we will go out and try to get the rest of these wins.”

Well, maybe getting a new quarterback, even a rookie who has never taken a regular season snap, can be enough of a shot in the arm to energize the offense.

We will all find out in a few short days.