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.

Joe is sure he is not alone. Since we all have so much respect for Steve White’s work, Joe is confident his readers have noticed White’s frustration with how rookie defensive tackles Gerald McCoy and Brian Price are being used.

Add Joe’s good friend Justin Pawlowski of WDAE-AM 620 to the list. Pawlowski, “The Commissioner,” and host of the popular “Blitz” on Saturday afternoons, isn’t holding back. He believes the Bucs coaching staff is not developing the rookies well at all, so Pawlowski wrote on his blog on the station’s website.

I learned that the coaching staff is not developing the young talent on the team. Over time, young players are supposed to get better. Other than Freeman, who I still think has a long way to go, the young players on the Bucs are not getting better. From Quincy Black to Gerald McCoy to Arrelious Benn to Roy Miller, unless these players get better, the Bucs will not succeed. Typically, teams have veterans to help these young players progress, but the Bucs do not have those veterans, so that puts more pressure on the coaches to develop these players. Around draft time I said that it didn’t matter who the Bucs drafted if they don’t develop them properly. So far, that is holding true.

This is a frightening thought to Joe that all of these solid draft choices won’t get any better. Surely this can’t be the case? If it is, well, it makes Joe very chagrin.

Father Dungy decided to reach across denominational lines today to spread his Word and appeared on the only Yiddish sports radio show Joe is familiar with, “The King David Show,” co-hosted by Shaun King and Toby David on WQYK-AM 1010.

Father Dungy stepped to the pulpit and preached largely about the NFL in general but also gave his blessing to Bucs coach Raheem Morris.

Toby David: Do you see any parallels between the Bucs now and when you first came to the Bucs?

Father Dungy: I do. I like the direction of the building that is going on. They made some good moves in the draft. They are building the team they way they want to build it. We had growing pains too. They are doing some good things with some good building blocks. I like the direction they are going.

Shaun King: They can’t defend the run. At times in Indianapolis, you struggled with the same thing. What can they do to shore that up?

Father Dungy: A lot of that is experience. They have two young tackles. They are between styles. Last year they got away [from the Tampa-2] and now they are reteaching that. All of this will come. I see a lot of guys trying to do too much and not trusting in the system. Some of it is growth. One of the things is needing better players. That will come also.

King: When you got here home game were blacked out. When you left, there was a season ticket waiting list. We have come all the way around. What can the organization do to reconnect with the fans?

Father Dungy: There were two things we wanted to do. When we came here there were 25,000 or 30,000 here at a game. There was one game with the Seattle Seahawks where there were only 25,000 in the stands and the next year when we played Miami you couldn’t get a ticket. Building a winner is part of that and will bring fans in but we wanted to be a part of the community and I challenged the players to be part of a community. The organization and players need to be part of the community.

Raheem Morris has lobbed kudos at his offensive line a couple of times recently, and Davin Joseph, Jeremy Zuttah, and Donald Penn have all been singled out.

Jeremy Trueblood, Keydrick Vincent and Jeff Faine have not drawn the head coach’s public love of late.

It seems Donald Penn gets the highest score among the linemen, as Raheem gave the Bucs’ big investment props last night on The Raheem Morris Show, on WDAE-AM 620.

“Donald Penn is really playing Grade A ball right now,” Raheem said.

Raheem hasn’t pointed fingers any fingers at the running game, simply saying its struggles are from many causes. But it seems to Joe like Raheem leans more towards the rushing attack’s problems being a deficiency at running back rather than along the line. 

JoeBucsFan.com photo by Kyra Hallett

Last year the Bucs special teams was literally keeping them in games and flat out beat the Saints.

This year, it’s a different story.

Micheal Spurlock was supposed to make everyone forget Clifton Smith, who had a strong season in 2009, following his 2008 Pro Bowl effort. Smith and his concussed dome was cut by the Bucs in September, landed in Miami, and was cut by the Dolphins three weeks ago.

The colorful, now environmentally-friendly fellows at PewterReport.com have published a story this afternoon that quotes an anonymous source telling them the Bucs are pursuing Smith.

Joe’s not surprised. Joe shot Smith a Twitter message last night asking him if the Bucs were coming after him. It seemed to make sense with Kareem Huggins going down with an injury.

Smith never replied to Joe, which Joe took as a sign there might be something brewing.

Now some might be thinking, ‘Hey Joe, Smith didn’t respond because he thinks you’re a cartoon-faced idiot.’ This might be true, but Joe highly doubts that, considering Smith is one of the nicest guys around and has always been acocomodating to Joe.

As for bringing him back to the Bucs, Joe’s all for giving him a shot.

One of the coolest sports media people in the Tampa Bay area who sadly happens to work for the most Satanic of media syndicates that is openly hostile to football fans, Victoria Lim of Out House Networks, has penned an interesting story on the Bucs rushing woes.

In short, she writes, per Bucs offensive coordinator Greg Olson, that Cadillac Williams and his 2.5 yards per carry average has not been benched because no one on the roster is better than him.

Olson defended not using Blount and Lumpkin more, sooner.

“We wanted someone to prove they’re better than Cadillac and we haven’t seen it,” Olson said.

In short, Olson notes, per Lim, is that there are many responsibilities that a running back has other than, you know, running the ball.

Now for background, remember that Olson is a Chucky guy, one of the few holdovers from the Chucky era. To this day fans pound their empty beer mugs on the bar in frustration Chucky got rid of Thomas Jones, a running back who still produces yards.

The main reason why Chucky unloaded Jones was that he couldn’t pick up blitzes in order to keep heat off of quarterbacks.

Always remember and never forget that Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman is the franchise. If he goes down, well, Joe doesn’t have to explain how dire things will become.

Right now the absolute No. 1 goal of the Bucs offense is to keep Freeman’s jersey clean. Cadillac can pick up blitzes.

Joe is sure you can complete the rest of this mathematical equation.

Also, in closing, real football fans do not have to be held hostage by Out House Networks. Until they reward the thousands (millions?) of hard-working, honest football fans in the area with the NFL Network, there are other options available for your television viewing pleasure. Let your voice — and wallet — be heard!

As we all know and as Joe has written often, real men have the NFL Network.

"And to think I let him watch the Cowboys with me back in the day ..."

Every family has disrespectful troublemakers. And one in the Raheem Morris clan is no fan of the Bucs.

Joe was stunned to learn yesterday that a relative of Morris launched heinous personal attacks on the Buccaneers organization. It was such an ugly assault that the young man was penalized by the NFL.

It turns out Saints cornerback Malcolm Jenkins, who dished out a flagrant late hit on Josh Freeman’s knee Sunday, is Raheem’s cousin, so said the head coach during The Raheem Morris Show on WDAE-AM 620 Monday.

Jenkins got a personal foul on the play and then another one for throwing a punch at Freeman.

Joe hopes Jenkins will get nothing for Christmas this year from Raheem. Scratch that, Joe thinks a framed Jim Bates would be appropriate.

Like probably every Bucs fan alive, Joe’s a big Mike Williams fan.

Williams continued to show his excellent yards-after-the-catch ability Sunday, and he played through a foot injury and caught four balls. With 23 receptions and three touchdowns on the season, he’s already assured of a very good rookie year, barring a major meltdown.

But, Williams is the Bucs’ No. 1 receiver. And in the telling category of yards per game, among wide receivers Williams ranks 32nd in the league (56.6 ypg.). Considering the Bucs can’t run the ball, this number is a little troubling.

It’s not good enough.

Raheem Morris said Williams is the Bucs go-to receiver during The Raheem Morris Show last night on WDAE-AM 620. Yes, Williams is just a rookie. But if he’s the main man, the Bucs need to get more out of him to keep a winning record.

Derek “Old School” Fournier of WhatTheBuc.net seems to have the life sucked out of him by the Bucs’ alley-beating at the hands of the Saints. He summed the game up, saying the only silver lining was “the game is over.”

Joe stumbled across an interesting feature thanks to the dogged research of Jimmy Traina of SI.com.

In his fantastic, twice-daily feature on Hot Clicks, he featured a link from Esquire magazine that has a cheerleader discuss her team’s previous game.

This week, one of Joe’s favorites, Tiffany Jimenez, picked apart the Bucs loss to the Saints.

ESQ: What was the biggest issue for the team yesterday?

TIF: It just felt like every time I turned around, a yellow flag was in the air. There was so much fighting, I asked one of the other girls, “Are we at a UFC match right now?” Also, the Saints had 212 yards rushing, and we only had 42. Our team is so young. I’ve watched them grow tremendously. I’ve cheered when we were pretty bad, and it’s impressive how we’re rebuilding.

Tiffany went on to suggest that she thinks the cheerleaders should do more radio spots, which Joe is confident would go over swimmingly for both radio people, and the listeners. Smart girl!

Problem is, radio is not a visual medium.

Then, there is this little nugget that got Joe’s attention:

ESQ: We hear you’ve never seen snow, but you’ve obviously seen plenty of sand. If a guy were to surprise you with a vacation, what sort of destination would make you cheer?

TIF: I love the beaches, tropical islands, rocking a bathing suit.

Indeed!

In all seriousness, this is Tiffany’s last year as a Bucs cheerleader, as there is a new mandate that Bucs cheerleaders cannot serve longer than four years and Tiffany has been a Bucs cheerleader for five years now.

Her next vocation should be working TV. Last year the Bucs tried out a few cheerleaders as video hosts. None were bad, but Tiffany’s spots were tremendous. She’s a natural in front of the camera. Her bubbling personality just jumped off the computer monitor.

Joe has told this to Bucs multimedia guru Scott Smith before: that Tiffany is perfect for video. And Smith agreed, telling Joe he also received quite a bit of positive feedback about her video spots. Some people just have “it,” and Tiffany does.

Some of Joe’s friends in the fourth estate also remarked to him about what an impression Tiffany made upon them.

If there was a smart local TV producer or station manager — and there are — they would contact Tiffany to do some of these off-the-wall, fun features, or perhaps a producer could have her host some syndicated cable series.

Just about every Bucs fan worth his red battle flag has seen by now how Division-II running back Chris Ivory, now the Saints’ top running back, freight-trained the Bucs defense.

It was enough to make Joe throw up ,and it had nothing to do with the quality adult beverages Joe consumed the previous evening. Joe suspects many Bucs fans were equally ill.

It was uglier than an image of Rosie O’Donnell in a private adult film.

Former Bucs defense end Steve White decided to put erasable marker to whiteboard and diagrammed why Ivory ran through the Bucs defense as if it was Missouri Western State University on his blog.

So what do we make of all this? Well first of all aside from Roy Miller getting tossed around on several plays which is unacceptable, we mostly gave up the big yardage because guys weren’t on the details or missed tackles rather than having been physically manhandled. Second of all there are some problems that we are having that are recurring. Our defensive ends aren’t getting underneath kick out blocks like they should and that’s all about technique and using your eyes. That’s something that can definitely be fixed but you have to wonder why it hasn’t been to this point. Thirdly you will notice that aside from the one line stunt, these were plays where the Bucs just lined up in front of the Saints like it was drawn up on a chalkboard. I don’t know that movement or blitzes would have solved all of our problems but I have to wonder when we will at least TRY to start helping ourselves on early downs with a few zone blitzes to give offenses a different look to block.

It was a terrible day for our defense, make no mistake about it, but in watching the replay online I didn’t get the sense that we were physically dominated anywhere but our nosetackle position. The Bucs tried to play a lot of G with Miller which is something I thought might be useful, but with his outside hand down and outside foot back I think he was going to have a hard day regardless. Still you can’t make any excuses, he HAS to play better. Otherwise I’m pretty sure that it won’t be long before Price is out there with the starters. After all if we are going to suck on defense against the run we might as well suck with our rookie 2nd round pick in there getting some good experience.

Something has to be done by the Bucs’ defensive braintrust and has to be done quick. If Bucs fans — and it appears so too does White — think Sunday’s defensive performance was unacceptable, imagine what Steven Jackson could do to this defense in a few days?

Joe assumes Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo is drooling over Sunday’s Saints-Bucs gametape as if someone placed a plate of toasted ravioli and cold Budweiser before him.

How thorough was the chainwhipping the Saints gave the Bucs? Joe, being the history geek, was somewhat reminded of Bill Sherman’s march to the sea through Georgia in the Civil War.

The only difference was, the Saints didn’t jump in the stands at the CITS, to rob people of their beers and concessions and accost the women.

After Kareem Huggins went down with a season-ending knee surgery, there was no running game. None.

As a result, Charles Robinson, of Yahoo! Sports, believes the Bucs have the solution on their own roster: Earnest Graham.

The early deficit to the Saints took the running game away, but Tampa Bay’s backfield is totally uninspiring. Regardless, Earnest Graham is the best running back on the roster. He’s being wasted.

Well, yes and no. Part of the reason Graham was moved to fullback is, at his age (NFL nursing home age), he’s getting susceptible to injuries, which happened again Sunday when he pulled a hamstring.

Graham may very well be a good short-term option at tailback but doing risks losing Graham for the season, again, to injury.

Then the Bucs are down a fullback. And another tailback.

The growing pains of the Bucs’ young defensive line have been felt by Bucs fans and coaches. But few thought the pain would be as agonizing as it’s been the past three games, with the Steelers, Bengals and Saints having their way with the D-line and running at will.

On today’s Raheem Morris Show, on WDAE-AM 620, the Bucs’ head coach, who has been markedly protective of his young players and enthusiastic about his youthful roster, showed a hint of frustration with the learning curve of his defense.

Callers pressed Morris to talk about the struggles of the run defense on multiple occasions and, after some prodding by host TJ Rives, Morris gave a candid take that included singling out Gerald McCoy. 

“The other reason, which we always talk about time around here is we’re being a little too much yield signs, you know. And what I mean by that is we’re in our gaps, we’re in the right spot, and now we’re looking to see who’s supposed to be in that gap, rather than shedding the block and making the tackle. We got to go out and be better shed tacklers up front, at linebacker and in the secondary.

“Right now, I’ve got a bunch of young guys, and they are really concerned about being wrong. And I got to tell those guys, you know, ‘Don’t be afraid to achieve and go out there be your best self.’ You know, Gerald McCoy, he can take some of the reigns of him[self] a little bit. ‘Yeah I know what to do.’ That’s great. Now go out there and shed this guard and make this tackle in somebody else’s gap. Because you can do that, too. It’s not illegal.”

Morris hardly threw McCoy under the bus, but the frustration was evident. McCoy has eight tackles and no sacks in five games.

Joe gets that D-line is probably thinking way too much to be successful consistently. But if that’s really a major problem, than it should be fixable very quickly.

If the Bucs have drafted good players, their raw football instincts should take over in a hurry.

There’s all the Bucs analysis on the Internet, and then there’s what former Bucs defensive end Steve White churns out on his blog.

It’s sort of like the difference between eating off the dollar menu Checkers and feasting on the awesome food at Mugs Grill & Bar in Clearwater.

White’s posted his usual intense look at the Bucs’ defensive line and other takes on the Bucs-Saints game. For now, Joe’s going to only post here what White wrote about the ineffective 3-3-5 alignment Raheem Morris has shown a commitment to.

The 3-3-5 may be a useful tool but we are using it too damn much. And Coach Morris can’t keep using the excuse that Quincy Black is a good rusher because he isn’t. As I have said time and again he is a good BLITZER not a good rusher and there is a helluva difference. I went back and looked at my notes and aside from that sack against Carolina, Black has only had two pressures by my count. And those were on plays where he ran a pass rush game with Gerald McCoy. I don’t believe that I have seen him win a single one on one pass rush against an offensive lineman this year. And I doubt I WILL see him win one because he for as strong and as fast as he is, he doesn’t have any moves. Every time he is out there as a rush end that is a play where a true pass rushing defensive end is on the bench, our two rookie defensive tackles aren’t pass rushing from their normal alignments, and there is zero chance to run a pass rush game unless its on his side.

We are cutting off all of that potential pressure just to get Black on the field. Hey, I have a novel idea. Why not just sub him in for Ruud or Hayes? If he is really THAT indispensable then why not allow him to play what he is best at? Hell you can blitz him from those positions too! You can even call Bark and have a FIVE man rush!

But here’s what you CAN’T do. You can’t say you want more pressure on the quarterback if you continue to refuse to use four defensive lineman for a four man rush. You can’t say you want more pressure when you refuse to call overload blitzes to either side. You can’t complain about not getting pressure when you aren’t allowing guys to pass rush from their more natural positions.

You can’t, you simply CAN NOT. Oh you can tell a few beat writers here in Tampa but its not going to fly with me. I SEE what’s happening on the field and what isn’t. McCoy didn’t have a great day but he did make one helluva move when he was rushing from his undertackle spot and got a pressure. I can only wonder how many more times that happens if he gets more opportunities to rush from that position. Or hell maybe he gets to run a true TEX game with a defensive end instead of being a crash test dummy trying to free everything up for Black. Or maybe he can run a TOM game inside with Price where they create pressure up the middle on the quarterback who now can’t step up and gets sacked by our defensive ends coming around the horn.

Or…..maybe we keep running that bullshit 3-3-5 and then complaining after the games about how much time the quarterback had.

Fun stuff.

Personally, Joe was getting ill watching the Bucs continually fake a blitz and drop back into the 3-3-5. It’s not working.

The Bucs got outcoached Sunday, as Cadillac Williams said. And Raheem Morris himself shouldered his share of blame. 

Joe expects to see a lot more blitzing on Sunday with rookie Sam Bradford quarterbacking the Rams,and the lack of respect he’ll get versus what the Bucs gave Drew Brees.

Plus, Raheem has to know his treasured secondary is ineffective without the threat of a pass rush. And there’s none of that going on with the status quo.

Asked today whether his loyalty to Cadillac Williams is shaping his judgment of Caddy’s on-field performance, Raheem Morris gave a roundabout answer.

In short, Morris explained that his loyalty is to what Cadillac does outside of running the ball very well — namely keeping pressure off Josh Freeman.

“It’s more about protecting No. 5 than anything else,” Morris said, when explaining why Williams is getting the large majority of playing time.

None of this surprises Joe, who wrote several times previously that Cadillac is the man because the Bucs have little faith in LeGarrette Blount and Kareem Huggins’ ability to pick up blitzes.

That’s not going to change for a while, Joe believes. Freeman is the franchise, and teams will keep bringing the heat on him.

The Bucs once had a blocking icon who couldn’t catch too well at wide receiver, and now it seems they might have a new blocking icon in place at running back, if only until the end of the season.

Pressured for answers to the Bucs’ ineffective running game during his news conference today, Raheem Morris wouldn’t cast a finger of blame and, in fact, he said the Bucs’ rushing attack looks improved on film than it did in 2009.

“It’s a lot better than it was from last year,”  Morris said of the running game. “The chances you do have to make plays, you’re not making them. There are some positives with our team happening with the running game.”

Morris went on to say the Bucs’ running failures fall equally on the line and running backs.

Morris was very pleased with the Bucs’ pass blocking and had specific praise for Jeremy Zuttah, Donald Penn and Davin Joseph. “At the end of the day, we didn’t get our quarterback touched,” Morris said.

Joe  has to wonder, if the running game looks better than it did last year, as Raheem said, then why did the Bucs bring back Cadillac Williams for 2010?

The bad news was made official: Kareem Huggins is lost for the season with injuries to his knee ligaments, so said Raheem Morris during his news conference today.

Huggins injured his knee during the 2009 preseason, then had more problems this year. After one strong run from scrimmage against New Orleans, Huggins was hurt getting hit while catching a pass.

Joe hopes Huggins, a great young man, gets another shot.

So there was Cadillac Williams, fresh off the brutal loss to the Saints, being asked on the Buccaneers Radio Network about the defeat Sunday.

And the first comment about the Saints performance that moved from his mind to his lips was that New Orleans “outcoached us.”

Joe transcribed Caddy’s words verbatim:

“Oh, man, tough loss man. First of all, you have to tip your hat off to the New Orleans Saints, man. They came in here, you know, outcoached us, um, outplayed us with their players, outphysicaled us. They controlled the line of scrimmage. They just beat us in all three phases of the game,” Williams said on WDAE-AM 620.

Joe wonders why a running back who can’t run the ball (2.5 yards per carry) is referencing coaching off the top of his head immediately following a humiliating loss.

From experience, Joe can say that Cadillac is not one to run his mouth, which makes this comment troubling.

Joe’s not going to say the locker room is falling apart and the Bucs have lost confidence in their coaches. But Cadillac pointing a finger at the coaching staff isn’t cool. At least Derrick Ward waited to point fingers until after he was gone.

Joe wonders whether Cadillac has now earned a place in Raheem Morris’ doghouse.

Now Joe knows there’s a reason former Bucs defensive tackle Chris Hovan was released by the Bucs. General manager Mark Dominik wanted to go young and let the kids sink or swim their rookie season.

In short, be baptized by fire.

By that premise, the burn unit at Tampa General Hospital was quite busy yesterday afternoon because the young Bucs got third degree burns from having Division-II running back Chris Ivory torch them time after time.

It was so bad veteran St. Petersburg Times columnist Gary Shelton was wondering if there was a way the Bucs could reacquire Hovan.

For goodness’ sake, I miss Chris Hovan.

That’s how badly the Saints beat up the Bucs on Sunday. They battered them, they bullied them, and they left them looking so bewildered that any possible answer at all, even last year’s incorrect ones, like Hovan, seemed like a fine idea at the time. Anything, just so it might help stop the stampede.

Here we go again.

Shelton went on to write how the Bucs rush defense couldn’t stop a parked car.

Folks, yesterday — and the Steelers pounding — was why Peter King expected the Bucs to only win two games this year. The Bucs were (and are) determined to win or lose with young players, players who are still learning how to play in the NFL.

The cavalry is not coming. There is no one Dominik will sign off the street to help because, frankly, who currently unemployed would be any better?

The Bucs are building with youth. Games like this, especially against the defending champs, isn’t really shocking. Disappointing, yes. Shocking, no.

Jon Anik and Cris Carter break down the Bucs loss to the Saints.

Joe could smell this coming, and it’s not a good thing.

Fairly or unfairly, Bucs first round draft pick Gerald McCoy will always be compared to manbeast Ndamukong Suh. Both played in the Big XII Conference. Both were the jewels of the defensive tackle position. It seemed evenly split, depending on who one spoke with, who would be the better defensive tackle.

Suh is off to a hot start in his rookie season, which for a defensive tackle is about as rare as snowfall in Miami. GMC has not had as much success. Yet.

Joe has heard rumblings from various local sports radio hosts that GMC will never be Suh’s equal. Now that is beginning to creep into the local papers.

Joe Henderson, the local sports voice of reason, has penned a column in the Tampa Tribune about the problems GMC has had in racking up tackles much less sacks. GMC has had few of the former and none of the latter.

This Joe could just smell this column coming after the awful loss to the Saints Sunday.

“I am so worried about playing the thing the right way instead of just making the play, it’s slowing me down,” he said. “I’ve just got to get out of it.”

None of this is what the Bucs had in mind when they made the defensive tackle from Oklahoma their top selection in April. “When the defense isn’t playing well, it’s my fault. That’s just how I feel,” he said.

“I’ve been in the film room early, I’ve stayed late. I don’t know what it is but I’m going to keep working. I just have to fix it.”

Joe can only suggest people be patient. Suh may just be  freak of nature that comes along once every 20 years. Rarely do defensive tackles have an impact as rookies. Warren Sapp didn’t. And last year one of the best rookie defensive tackles was Roy Miller of the Bucs, and his impact was minimal at best.

Let GMC breathe. Let him learn. Please, stay off his back.

Veteran sports columnist Gary Shelton talks about what kind of team the Bucs really are after the drubbing today by the Saints in this St. Petersburg Times video.