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

THE OPTIMIST is Nick Houllis, a Bucs fan and an accomplished writer whose steadfast allegiance to the team goes back to the 1970s. Houllis is the founder, creator and guru of BucStop.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.

The Saints game was ugly, no doubt. The Bucs were exposed in just about every area of need they have.

The lack of pass rush? Fifteen NFL Players have more sacks than the Bucs do.

Trying to stop the run? The top two draft picks including the 3rd overall choice has increased the Bucs from dead last in Rush Defense to, well, next to last — 157 yards per game. But hey, that is better than last year; where at 158 yards per game the defensive coordinator was fired.

That is not likely to happen this year, as its good to have friends in high places! But if you look closely, there is a difference. No folks, the Bucs are not there yet, and anyone who reads my Bucstop website regularly knows I predicted exactly this kind of start to the year. I said the Bucs would start the year 3-1, before reality hit in; this is a very, very young team. How young? This is the  entire Blue-Grey team plus Ronde Barber playing all time cornerback. This is a team where Josh Freeman and Sammy Stroughter are veterans and Gerald McCoy and Brian Price just havn’t found their home yet.

I won’t sugar coat it. Warren Sapp had a sack by now; heck, he had one before halftime of his very first game up in the Vet at Philadelphia.

But that’s about all Sapp did for the first year or so, and Randall Cunningham trips up every once in a while too, you know. McCoy is still trying to think about what to do, instead of instinctively just doing it. That takes time, as anyone who switches jobs can attest to. If you’re a cook at Hops for 5 years, then you take a job with Chili’s, it’s going to take awhile before you don’t have to think about how the fixings on an order of fajitas are set up. You think, you take up time. You react instinctively, you’ve got fajitas for everyone!

Last year, the Bucs gave up 158 yards per game on the ground, but that was to everyone, including the likes of Fred Jackson and the Buffalo Bills gashing us for 163 yards. It was also the Redskins adding on 128, and Miami rushing for 198.  Sure, Chris Ivory is an unknown too, but the offensive line he was running behind wasn’t; we were watching them in February, remember?

No this team is not ready to take on the Steelers or the Saints just yet. What they are ready to do is take on the weak teams, you know, the ones that beat them last year, and play competitive with them. They are ready to play in the same league with the average teams, all the while learning their lessons from their beat downs, taking film of their ills and having them dissected.

At this time a year ago, we were wondering, Can the Bucs win a game?

Today, were wondering, can the Bucs reach .500? We’re asking the tougher questions because the players are better. Byron Leftwich has been replaced with Josh Freeman, who still has not finished a full 16 games. Michael Clayton and Maurice Stovall have been replaced with Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn. Mike Nugent’s wide right kicks would have dreamed of the chance to hit the right goal post.

The progress is there folks, if you care to see it. The finished product, however, is not. But don’t think for a moment that just because of last week’s game, that it won’t be.

Gregg Rosenthal believes the way the Bucs have played against Pittsburgh and New Orleans that they don’t deserve respect, so he says in this NBCSports.com video.

Joe’s already got a $50 bet going that the Bucs will throw the ball on first down of their first possession.

Often this has led to trouble for Josh Freeman, and Joe typically is near vomiting when he sees the Bucs bail on the running game. But considering how bad the run game has been, Joe believes the Bucs are going to open it up early Sunday and hope to grab a lead and set up the run.

Besides, Josh Freeman is a Pro Bowl talent, so says Rams defensive coordinator Ken Flajole, via CBSSports.com.

Defensive coordinator Ken Flajole said Tampa QB Josh Freeman is a lot like a younger Donovan McNabb. So even though the Rams have played against an again McNabb this season, Flajole said they haven’t faced a quarterback with Freeman’s skill set.

And Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo got in on the Freeman love:

Spagnuolo on Tampa QB Josh Freeman: “Even when you’ve got a free shot at him, he’s hard to bring down. He’s always looking downfield, looking to make a play. He doesn’t panic. He’s way beyond his years.”

Joe expects the Bucs to let No. 5 go out and win what is an extraordinarily critical game for the new regime. Freeman might be their best shot.

Gerald McCoy getting his first sack Sunday would go a long way in halting the Bucs defensive woes.

Three weeks into the season the Bucs were on Cloud-9, undefeated and hosting fellow undefeated Pittsburgh.

A win over the Steelers may have launched a magical season for the Bucs. But it was not meant to be as the Steelers played big boy football and pummeled the Bucs on the ground.

Since, the Bucs defense has been in a freefall, so writes eye-RAH! Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune.

Pittsburgh’s 38-13 romp has triggered a three-game slide for a defense that had been playing consistently well, holding seven of Tampa Bay’s previous eight opponents to 20 points or fewer.

All four of Tampa Bay’s sacks came during a 20-7 triumph at Carolina in Week 2, yet the Bucs have blitzed sparingly because, according to Morris, they don’t want to leave the secondary exposed for big gains.

The Steelers set the blueprint and, the NFL being a copycat league, Cincinnati and New Orleans have picked up the baton. Yes, the Bucs got over on the Bengals, thanks to forced turnovers.

Of course, later in Kaufman’s story, all the Bucs players he spoke to said all the right things. Joe is more into results than talk. The Bucs could easily turn the page with a stout defensive stand against the Rams.

If not, it would help to force some turnovers against St. Louis. Remember, Sam Bradford is still a green quarterback. If Aqib Talib is to make plays befitting a Pro Bowl player, Sunday against Bradford would be a good start.

The thought of last season makes Joe’s stomach turn, specifically the heinous Jim Bates Experiment.

Watching opponents’ passes sail over the secondary’s head like a Dirtbag Longoria line drive into the left field gap, seeing Barrett Ruud run after ball carriers downfield like Thunder Puppy Lou chases scantily clad fraulines at the beach, and watching Sabby take horrid angles week after week, game after game, possession after possession, Joe just wanted to pick up his barstool and wing it across the room.

Joe cannot tell you how many beers he guzzled, forced to watch this farce of a defense.

Probably the best personnel move Raheem Morris made all of last year was to tell Bates to go eat chicken at a fast food joint while the Bucs practiced, defrocking the Bucs then-defensive coordinator.

Though there are still potholes in the Bucs defense, it has improved.

Not so fast, says Justin Pawlowski. Joe’s good friend at WDAE-AM 620, otherwise known as “The Commissioner,” and host of the popular “Blitz” heard Saturday afternoons.

Pawlowski is of the mind that after the Bucs got slapped around by the Saints last week, the Bucs are better off with Bates, if one can imagine such a thing. Pawlowski details on his blog found on his station’s website.

It’s easy to see that the Bucs defensive statistics should be vastly improved from last year, not just because the schedule was much easier, but also because the Bucs are running a defense that fits their players much better, right?

In 2009, the Bucs, in their first 5 games, allowed 140 points, 763 yards on the ground, 4.7 yards per carry, 227.2 passing yards per game, and sacked opposing quarterbacks 9 times. In 2010, the Bucs, in their first 5 games, allowed 111 points, 785 yards on the ground, 5.3 yards per carry, 210.6 passing yards a game, and have sacked opposing quarterbacks just 4 times.

It’s easy to see that even with a much easier schedule this year than last year, the Buccaneer defense has actually put up worse statistics than a year ago through 5 games.

Joe loves Justin but Joe’s not ready to go there yet. As Justin pointed out, the Bucs have (had?) two rookie defensive tackles getting starts and playing loads of snaps. Rarely do rookie defensive tackles play well; Joe’s been over this many times before.

Secondly, under the watchful gaze of Bates, the Bucs defense set a franchise record for consecutive games allowing opponents to score 25 or more points. When you factor in some of the rancid teams the Bucs fielded in their checkered history, this is an appalling and unexcusable mark.

Were the Bucs freight-trained by the Steelers? Yup. Did the Bucs get alley-beaten last week by the Saints? Sure. But the Bucs already have won as many games in their first four outings as they did all last year.

In the end, that’s all that counts: Ws.

At various times since the Saints beating Sunday, Raheem Morris has blamed himself for some of the problems on defense.

Today, he offered a little more clarity at his news conference. The coach essentially said he made things too complicated for his young defense.

“If I don’t evaluate myself, then I’m not doing our team or our talent a service. I maybe gave them too much last week. And we went out there and didn’t play as well as we could. You know, we were a little bit paralyzed by analyzation, sort of speak, instead of going out there and playing our fast brand of football,” Morris said. “So we’ll get back to doing that. We’ll cut back a little bit. Now I don’t want to go back to the point where you’re just vanilla, and you’re doing nothing, but at the same time I don’t want to hurt the guy’s play and how fast they were able to play.”

Yesterday, as Joe documented, Derrick Brooks said the Bucs should make sure not to “overscheme.”

Surely, Raheem overwhelming his young defense was bound to happen, as he tries to feel out what they can handle. But now that it’s happened, the defensive coordinator/head should know exactly what to do next to get the team back to the execution level they showed against Cleveland and Carolina.

The Rams, especially on the road, aren’t much better than those teams.

Visit BlackoutTour.com to get on board for Sunday.

The folks at the Post-Dispatch in St. Louis are making noise about Gerald McCoy’s quotes after he chatted with the St. Louis media yesterday.

Inevitably, the MSM out there wanted to talk about McCoy taking on his former college QB teammate Sam Bradford on Sunday, when the Lambs come to Tampa.

“I’m going to kill him,” McCoy said Wednesday. “If I can get to him, I’m going to kill him. We are definitely cool off the field. But on the field, I do not know him. He is No. 8 for the Rams, and that’s all I know.”

McCoy embellished the message, adding that if he sacks Bradford, “I might even do something dirty, like knee him or something. When we get off the field, I’ll say, ‘Hey, Sam, don’t take it personal, man. It was an accident.'”

Bradford acknowledged hearing the smack talk and even offered an excuse. “At Oklahoma, he was never allowed to hit me,” Bradford said. “So, I think he’s got a lot of built-up frustration that he’s going to try to take out on Sunday.”

Now McCoy and Bradford are friends so there’s no juicy bad blood here. McCoy professed his love of Bradford on The Gerald McCoy Show on WDAE-AM 620 on Tuesday night. McCoy even told a story about how he passed some college classes because Bradford was his personal tutor.

As for “killing” Bradford, Joe would be pleased if McCoy can simply touch, maybe hit, Bradford a few times. That would be a big improvement over the past few games.

The gorgeous Jenny Dell once again graces Joe’s site to look inside the numbers of the Rams-Bucs game. The way Jenny talks about percentages, Merlot Joe Maddon would go wild over here. Then again, who the hell wouldn’t?

Say what you want about the wacky Manchester United fans, but their love for their club runs a lot deeper than any vendetta that some of them have against Team Glazer and its massive debt.

Superstar Manchester United player Wayne Rooney made big headlines this week saying he didn’t want to re-sign with his team because he wasn’t satisfied by ownership’s commitment to signing the biggest and best free agents, despite being offered a fat new deal for himself.

The fans could have fired back at Team Glazer for what many over there view as a tightening of team purse strings, but the opposite happened, the Manchester United fans have come after Rooney.

He’s been ripped for his lack of team loyalty, as one can see from the headline above. A Daily Mail headline called him “Wayne The Whore” (which also is a takeoff on Rooney’s hooker escapades).

It’s an interesting scenario.

What could be remotely similar in Tampa? Hypothetically, say the Bucs had a 10-6 season and offered Davin Joseph a long-term contract, but Joseph said he wasn’t signing because he wasn’t convinced the Bucs would spend enough money on other players.

Would Bucs fans tell Joseph to let the door hit him in the ass? Or would Bucs fans come after Team Glazer with a finger of blame?

The great Derrick Brooks co-hosts a weekly radio show on WDAE-AM 620 every Wednesday at 4 p.m. where No. 55 talks all things sports with Steve Duemig.

There’s always a little Bucs chatter, but it’s hardly a Bucs show.

Yesterday, Brooks was asked about the struggles of the Bucs defense stopping the run and about the defense in general. If its possible for Bucs-loving Brooks to point a finger of blame, then he did just that at the Bucs’ defensive line, specifically the pass rush.

Brooks said he sees good things on film from the defense and believes the run defense will turn around somewhat quickly, but he cautions that the overall learning curve will continue for a long time. Brooks showed frustration with the pass rush, saying that you can “overscheme” the rush and the front four need to line up and “whoop the guy in front of you.”

Brooks repeated that line multiple times, “whoop the guy in front of you.”

It may sound simple and silly, but the analysis is the core of the problem. The Bucs have stopped winning the in-your-face, man-to-man battles on the D-line.

No sacks and flimsy pressure in past three games. The Bucs are lucky to have come away with a win in that stretch.

Yes, the Bucs game with the Lambs will be blacked out, pending confirmation by the Bucs today at 1 p.m. This is expected.

What Joe didn’t expect was the nasty and unfair backlash the Bucs received last week about the blackout.

Lest we forget, it is NFL rules that force blackouts. The Bucs don’t make the call.

Last week, the Bucs announced on a Monday that the Saints game, based on the prior rate of ticket sales, would be blacked out. For some reason some fans erupted in outrage and Joe just couldn’t understand why.

So these same fans would rather have been given false hope that the game had a chance of being televised locally? Joe, and we all should, hope that sports organizations be upfront and honest with fans. The Bucs absolutely were with regards to the Saints game.

So why the hate?

If anything, the Bucs were giving fans more than fair warning so fans could make arrangements and plans otherwise, such as perhaps going to the game or taking advantage of The Blackout Tour.

Long before the season started, the Bucs made no secret that games would likely be blacked out unless there was a surge in ticket sales. With sluggish ticket sales in this rotten local economy, it became clear that there were only two games that had any chance of selling out, short of an unforeseen uptick in ticket sales: Pittsburgh and New Orleans.

The Steelers game did not sell out, though it was close, thanks to the always rabid Steelers fanbase who would travel to far reaches of the globe to watch the Steelers. The New Orleans game was always dicey in that Saints fans don’t travel nearly that well.

Joe was flabbergasted when some fans reacted the way they did when the Bucs announced it would be blacked out, barring a massive rush to buy tickets at the last moment.

Were these same outraged fans paying attention at all the past few months?

Look, blackouts suck. For everyone. It has little to do with people not caring about the Bucs. People simply cannot afford to go in these trying times. A third of Tampa Bay’s homes are underwater. Foreclosures are at record levels.

What, people should lose their house and buy Bucs season tickets? Seriously? Many people are working weekend jobs just to save their homes. So they should quit their second jobs to go to a Bucs game and have no home to come to later?

Unemployment in the immediate Tampa Bay area is 13 percent. Lakeland and Sarasota, where many Bucs season ticket holders came from, is worse off.

And as Joe has written before, it’s not just a Tampa Bay thing. Oakland, despite its massive fan base, cannot sell out games. San Diego, one of the better NFL teams with a dynamic quarterback, struggles to avoid blackouts.

Hell, if it wasn’t for Anheuser-Busch and a deep-pocketed TV station buying thousands of tickets in St. Louis, the Rams would have had blackouts.

Shoot, watch the next Florida State home game, a team that school boosters claimed had rivers of new revenue since Jimbo Fisher took over, and notice the tens of thousands of empty seats for maybe the best team in the state. Two years ago, those same seats were filled with garnet-attired fans.

The blackouts aren’t some devious plan by Team Glazer to alienate the local fanbase.

Rick Stroud looks at why the Bucs acquired Kansas City defensive end Alex Magee and offers an update on fellow defensive lineman Gerald McCoy in this St. Petersburg Times video.

The Bucs under Raheem Morris respond pretty well to a good beating.

That bodes well for Sunday’s game against the Rams.

Raheem’s Bucs have been clobbered six times in the 21 games since Morris took over. (Clobbered equals losing by more than two touchdowns.) Here’s the ugly/pretty evidence:

Loss to Giants 24-0
Loss to Eagles 33-14
Loss to Patriots 35-7
Loss to Saints, 38-7
Loss to Jets, 26-3
Loss to Steelers 38-13

In the games immediatly following those losses, the Bucs went 3-3 and the three losses were by a combined 13 points.

It’s safe to say that something good happens at One Buc Place after the Bucs get blown out. Perhaps whatever that is should go on every week.

Ryan Sims, pull up your pants.

Brian Price didn’t practice today and Raheem Morris said Price is hardly a sure thing for Sunday, per the Bucs official Twitter feed.

DT Brian Price has a pelvis injury and is considered week-to-week. He may not be able to play on Sunday vs. the Rams.

First it was a hamstring injury for Price that limited through the preseason and early in the regular season. Now he’s got a pelvis injury. Years ago, Joe knew a wild 180-pound woman, so Joe knows those pelvis injuries can take time.

Joe was hoping/praying the Bucs would find a way to slow down the running game against the Rams on Sunday, and Price would get several chances to rush on 3rd-and-long, what seems to be the strongest part of his game.

Looks like he’ll be on the shelf a while. In the world of NFL teamspeak, the “week-to-week” designation is always worse than “day-to-day.”

This week Bucs safety Cody Grimm was nominated as the NFL Rookie of the Week  Joe had a chance to chat briefly with Grimm. Largely regarded as a smart football player, Joe tried to learn where the seventh-round draft pick got his football smarts or if football is just part of his DNA.

JoeBucsFan: You have been described as a very smart player. Where does that come from? Is it because of talking football over the years with your dad [Hall of Fame offensive lineman and Arizona Cardinals assistant Russ Grimm] or is just instincts or is it from massive amount of watching tape? Where do your football smarts come from?

Cody Grimm: I’d say it’s from a lot of those things but mostly a love of the sport helps me out. When I was in high school we’d watch a lot film [of games] and when I got to college, obviously, we’d watch a lot of film and that helped me out a lot.

Joe: You did this on your own or in groups?

Grimm: No, no, no. We did it as a team. Coaches would watch it with us. Pretty much, I always wanted to do something in football whether it was as a player or coach. I tried learning it and I was interested. When you love something you want to learn about it. I think that’s what helped me out there.

Joe: So studying football only stoked your fire more?

Grimm: Yeah. It’s like going to a class you are interested in. You are going to pay a little more attention in class. That’s what football is to me.

Joe: Since you were a linebacker at Virginia Tech and now are a safety with the Bucs, whenever you talked to you dad, did you ever think, “What the heck do you know about defense, you’re an offensive lineman?”

Grimm: (laughs) Nah, he knows a good bit [about defense]. It’s funny, when he talks about our games — when you are a coach in the NFL you have to know as much about the defense as you do the offense if you are an offensive coach because, obviously, you want to know what [the opposing defense] is in and try to take advantage of it.

Joe: Since the Bucs play the Cardinals later this year, you think he’s trying to pick your brain to get an idea or an advantage of your defense?

Grimm: (laughs) Nah, nnnoo!

Joe: Your pick-six against Cincinnati, it was obviously a huge play in the game and something you’ll personally treasure for a long time. What did your dad have to say about that?

Grimm: Nothing really, just, “Hey, good job.” He’s proud of me, that’s pretty much it.

Joe: Did your dad needle you about the play, something like, “Nice play but you have a long way to go to match me kid.”

Grimm: (laughs) Nah, nah, no. Obviously, my dad was a great player. I’m just trying to play the best I can. I’m a DB; he’s a lineman.

Joe: Does it ever get old for you when people ask about your dad, as if you are always in his shadow?

Grimm: No, I don’t really mind it. People always ask if [having a Hall of Fame dad] there are pros or cons [to the relationship]. I think its all pros. I’m happy of his achievements. I’m not trying to live up to his shadow or anything. I’m just trying to play the best I can and see what happens.

Ahhh, it wasn’t that long ago when the Bucs’ defense routinely feasted on young quarterbacks, especially at home.

Joe remembers when Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan visited Tampa in his rookie season and the Bucs made him look like a lost sheep.

So maybe the Bucs are being served up a shot at the good ol’ days on Sunday against the Rams.

Just like the Bucs, the NFL schedule makers blessed the Rams with four of their first six games at home. The Rams are 3-3 and haven’t won a road game.

Their road struggles are a big deal in St. Louis, per today’s Post-Dispatch.

The challenge for the Rams is to transfer what they’re doing at home to the road, where they’ve lost 16-14 at Oakland in Week 2 and 44-6 at Detroit in Week 5.

“We’ve got to find a way to do that because we do seem to be much more comfortable playing here than on the road,” quarterback Sam Bradford said. “I think that’s one of the steps from being an average team to being a good team — being able to play well on the road. So if we do want to become a good team, then we’re going to have to learn to play well on the road.”

For a young team with a rookie quarterback, a certain amount of ups and downs are inevitable. Spagnuolo would like to smooth out some of those bumps on the road, where momentum changes in games can get the home crowd into it and make the environment even more difficult.

In Oakland, the Rams were up 7-3 and had some semblance of control in the game. But when fan favorite Bruce Gradkowski replaced Jason Campbell at quarterback to start the second half, the crowd got into it. When Gradkowski experienced early success they really got into it, and things snowballed from there.

If the aftershocks of a Bruce Gradkowski sighting rattled the Rams, then surely Josh Freeman and 40,000+ screaming Bucs fans should send have them seeking the nearest bottle of Valium.

The Bucs should and need to win on Sunday. The Rams are vulnerable, young and very beatable, and the Bucs are at home.

If the Bucs can’t take out the Rams in Week 7, then how many games can fans really expect them to win this season?

Do the Bucs have a few too many slackers on defense?

Geno Hayes spoke Monday about how it was obvious that some of his teammates weren’t watching enough film, during his appearance on Total Access on the Buccaneers Radio Network.

Essentially, without Joe quoting all the detailed Xs and Os discussed, Hayes explained that it’s apparent on film which players are recognizing things before they happen and which aren’t. And that’s a direct result of film study, he said. Host and former Buccaneers tight end Dave Moore backed up Hayes saying it was always obvious in his day who was and wasn’t watching enough film.

“That’s why the average player plays under four year,” Moore said. “Some guys are professional and some aren’t.”

Asked by a caller what Bucs do their homework, Hayes said he doesn’t know what kind of film study guys do on their own time but added that he, Ronde Barber and Barrett Ruud watch a tremendous amount film. Hayes added that Barber has “his little office” and is a fixture in it watching film and always ready to talk football with him.

Moore told listeners that Hayes is on pace for more than 20 tackles for a loss this season, up from 14 last year. “That’s no coincidence. That’s film study,” Moore said.

Given how young the Bucs are, Joe is hardly surprised that their film study work ethic is coming under fire.

More than a year ago, Hayes admitted that he didn’t want much film as a rookie in 2008, and Derrick Brooks later got him on the right path.

Joe hopes the Bucs have enough vocal veterans — and the coaching influence — to quickly impact the young Bucs about what it takes to succeed in the NFL.

When the Bucs have the ball run down their throats for weeks in a row, and on the heels of many games in 2008 and 2009, it’s hard not to view the defense as soft.

Former Bucs offensive lineman Ian Beckles, co-host of The Ron and Ian Show on WDAE-AM 620, was flat out calling the Bucs defense “soft” following Sunday’s gashing at the hands of the Saints.

Beckles singled out Gerald McCoy as extra soft, and explained that the Bucs are running a defense that calls for undersized players, but when soft meets undersized that makes for the ugly results the Bucs are experiencing.

During the Buccaneers Radio Network Total Access show on Monday night, also on WDAE-AM 620, linebacker Geno Hayes, without being prodded, went out of his way to say the Bucs aren’t soft while explaining the problems with the run defense.

“It’s all about us killing ourselves,” Hayes said. “It wasn’t something that [the Saints] were doing, you know, really just going down our throats and forcing like was were just a soft team. It wasn’t that. It was really us being out there and not making the tackles that needed to be made and not being in the gaps sometimes. And just really getting a little lost in the adjustments as far as making checks and things. But other than that, it wasn’t anything they did that was real big.”

Now Joe’s not sure how “soft” is defined. But surely the Bucs aren’t the opposite of soft.

If Hayes is correct (and Joe hopes he is), and the Bucs were merely lost and clueless at times and not soft, then that means the run defense should be fixable quickly. That would be a good thing and something fans should look for on Sunday against the Rams.

“The Professor,” John Clayton, discusses what the Bucs may do to address a subpar rush offense in this BSPN video.

Yesterday the Bucs were the lone team to acquire a player at the trade deadline when the Bucs traded an undisclosed conditional draft pick to the Chiefs for the immortal defensive lineman Alex Magee.

Certainly, the Bucs need all the help they can muster on the defensive front, but Joe’s not sure how Magee will help much. But the fact he came from the Chiefs moved Anwar Richardson of the Tampa Tribune to post on the TBO Bucs Twitter feed about how One Buc Palace is seemingly a halfway house for Chiefs rejects.

Bucs have become a safe haven for former Chiefs. Michael Bennett, Jimmy Wilkerson, Ryan Sims, Mark Bradley and now Alex Magee.

Well, Joe knows that Mark Dominik once worked for the Chiefs and that he was reported to be a finalist for the open general manager’s job there that eventually went to Scott Pioli, just about the same time Team Glazer hired Dominik to run the Bucs.

So perhaps Dominik is using his strong ties to the Chiefs to hopefully find a diamond in the rough in Kansas City?

If an article published Tuesday on Deadspin.com is to be believed, Joe is happy to announce he never had the pleasure of meeting former Bucs quarterback Jeff Garcia in the Bucs locker room.

It seems, allegedly, Garcia had a gland problem of some sort and used to wet in towels on the sidelines since there were no porta-potties available.

Garcia also claimed a former Bucs teammate used to regularly wet himself in his pants during games.

Said Garcia, “My first year in the league, I tried the towel thing. It was in a preseason game. Second half. I figured, ‘Well, I’ll try it with a towel. Just pee into the towel.’ I had to go pretty bad. As soon as I felt the warm pee touch my leg, I shut it down. I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ It’s just nasty. I couldn’t follow through with it. Players try all sorts of tricks to relieve themselves out there. My teammate in Tampa would just pee his pants and say it’s not going to make a difference because of all the sweat.”

OK, Joe’s got to think of who was the pantswetter with the Bucs. This allegation from Garcia offers up all sorts of one-liners, too many to list.

The bad Dexter Jackson springs to mind.