The Bucs may have won the game yesterday over the Bengals but many national football experts believe it was the Bengals that lost the same game.

Some, including Adam Schein, believe the Bengals lost yesterday to a lesser opponent.

Discussing the game with his co-host Rich Gannon, heard exclusively on Sirius NFL Radio, the duo tore apart Carson Palmer for losing to the Bucs.

“After that game, who would you rather have, Carson Palmer or Josh Freeman on your team?” Gannon rhetorically asked. “I’ll take Josh Freeman, who is in, what, his 12th or 13th start?”

“You can’t lose to an inferior club,” Schein said, mocking the Bengals. “Look, Josh Freeman has the knack. Mike Williams is incredible. The Bucs took advantage.”

Gannon was especially hard on Palmer for throwing a pick-six to Bucs rookie safety Cody Grimm, claiming the play was all on Palmer’s shoulders, not Grimm reading the play like a book.

It was an ugly moment for Micheal Spurlock. His fumble on a kickoff return led to a Cincinnati touchdown and appeared to turn the game in the Bengals’ favor.

Joe was so sick he couldn’t finish his beer. Apparently, per Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune, so too was Spurlock (sans the beer).

But given a chance to redeem himself, Spurlock did with one of the plays of the day in the NFL, a top-tipping, falling-out-of-bounds catch that set up Connor Barth’s game-winning field goal.

Few, including Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, believed Spurlock had made the grab, but in the time it took for replay officials to confirm their original finding, Spurlock was redeemed.

“Yeah, that was redemption,” Spurlock said after his catch set the stage for Connor Barth’s 31-yard game-winning field goal with one second left in the Bucs’ dramatic 24-21 victory against the Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium.

“The thing is, we practice that play every day,” Spurlock said. “It’s a drill that some might think is a waste of time but it’s a drill that sure helped us out today.”

As Joe learned when he was a kid, practice makes perfect. And Joe was happy that Spurlock got a chance to wipe that ugly play off out of fans’ memories.

So there was No. 34 hurdling Bengals DT Pat Sims and blown up Keydrick Vincent in the backfield yesterday.

No. 34 then regained his balance and willed and powered his way into the endzone.

And No. 34 also was the guy hammering into the line with the Bucs backed up on their 1 yard line and busting a 61-yard run.

Joe doesn’t know many fullbacks with that kind of ability. So when is Earnest Graham going to get more touches?

Cadillac Williams jacked up his season average to 2.6 yards a carry after another sluggish Sunday. And Caddy dropped yet another screen pass. Clearly, the Bucs can’t run the ball and, as expected, the coaching staff has little faith in Kareem Huggins’ and LeGarrette Blount’s ability to protect Josh Freeman, so they’re not on the field.

If Huggins and Blount are on-paper options more than anything else, then Greg Olson needs to find away to get more out of Graham. When given a chance, the guy has delivered, even last year in his inexplicably brief opportunities (14 carries for 66 yards).

What exactly are the Bucs saving him for?

Joe can’t imagine anyone making a case that Cadillac is a better option than Graham.

Most of Joe’s readers were incensed if not mortified when Sports Illustrated’s popcorn-shoveling Peter King predicted the Bucs would win a meager two games this season.

Well, now the Bucs have as many wins as they mustered last year through just four games. Suddenly, King is drinking Bucs Kool-Aid more than he chugs coffee.

King is now so enamoured with the Bucs, he believes Josh Freeman is in the running for the NFL Offensive MVP honors.

In King’s MVP Watch in his weekly must-read Monday Morning Quarterback, King lists Freeman among his top five candidates.

5. Josh Freeman, QB, Tampa Bay. Forget the stats. Watch the Bucs. They’re a gallant team, and Freeman makes more mistakes than he should. But he’s the on-field keystone to an intriguing team that’s not going away.

Look, Joe is giddy with the Bucs’ start as much as the next Bucs fan, and Joe is really liking Freeman’s intangibles. But to suggest Freeman may be NFL Offensive MVP is a bit of a stretch, even by the most avid of pewter-colored sunglasses wearing Bucs fans.

Of course, if the Bucs continue to pull out fourth quarter wins, Joe will even have to concede Freeman may be in the discussion at year’s end.

Paul Severino and Jon Ritchie of BSPN analyze the Bucs win over the Bengals Sunday.

Joe’s not trying to take a dump on the Bucs’ stunning 3-1 record, but the Bucs are having some very serious issues stopping the run and rushing the passer.

The “disruption” from the defensive linemen that Rahem Morris talked about all offseason and preseason was absent again Sunday in Cincinnati. And the Bucs have no pass rush when their front four is left on its own to make something happen.

The Bucs have four total sacks and rank 30th in the NFL against the run. Gerald McCoy has no tackles in the past two games. What a savior their playmaking secondary has been.

The Bengals’ Cedric Benson, who was NOT having a good season before Sunday, managed to jam 144 yards down the Bucs’ throats on just 23 carries and no big breakaway run.

Joe knows former Bucs defensive end Steve White will break down all things D-line in great detail on his blog this week, but it doesn’t take a super expert to see that the Bucs have a very long way to go in the trenches.

Time should make them better. Maybe. But for now the fixes will have to come through creativity from the defensive coordinator.

Micheal Spurlock’s crazy catch late in Sunday’s game came as a surprise to Joe because the zebras didn’t overturn it.

To Joe, the fact Spurlock appeared to bobble the ball meant he didn’t have possession. Thankfully, the zebras saw differently.

But this confused Don Banks of SI.com. A former Bucs beat writer, Banks now doesn’t know what is a catch and what isn’t a catch and believes Spurlock’s phantom catch will be talked about from near and far and not in any way a Bucs fan wants the attention.

I’d love to know what Calvin Johnson thought of that 21-yard, game-deciding catch by Bucs receiver Michael Spurlock in the final seconds of Tampa Bay’s 24-21 upset at Cincinnati. Really, NFL, that was a reception? Even though Spurlock clearly used the ground to help secure the ball as he landed, and the ball ended up moving in his arms as he came in contact with the ground anyway?

To repeat myself from Week 1, I’m not sure I know what a legal catch is any more. I was almost positive Spurlock’s catch would be reversed by replay, because I thought the cameras clearly showed he failed to maintain possession once he hit the ground. The way I saw it, Johnson’s nullified game-winning catch against the Bears in Week 1 was about three times more of a catch than Spurlock’s upheld reception against the Bengals.

Why do I think we’re in for another four of five days of raging debate about this latest call, and that the NFL’s rules for the possession of a reception just got more confusing than ever?

Joe knows that the NFL has different rules for touchdown receptions than it does other receptions, and that simply shouldn’t be. A catch is a catch no matter what area of the field a receiver is on.

Wow, the good people of the NFL Network have uploaded bunches and bunches of highlights from the Bucs win at Cincinnati earlier today.

Of course ,Joe has them for you.

First are most of the highlights rolled into one video.

Cody Grimm puts the Bucs on the scoreboard.

Earnest Graham barrels downfield for 61 yards.

Graham also plowed into the endzone.

Aqib Talib picks off Carson Palmer.

Sabby saves the day with his late-game interception.

Mike Williams hauls in a pass from Josh Freeman for a touchdown.

Spurlock makes perhaps his best catch of his career.

Connor Barth gives the Bucs the win.

The Bucs defense was strong when it needed to be.

Freeman and Williams connect on a long pass.

More Bucs defense highlights.

Still more defensive plays by the Bucs.

Raheem Morris and Freeman talk about the Bucs’ win.

Joe’s annoyed.

As Joe loves to do, Joe watched the NFL Gameday Highlights show on NFL Network, hosted by Rich Eisen, Deion Sanders and Steve Mariucci. Each game has lengthy extended highlights shown and the trio talk about the meaning of it all.

So the show gets to the Bucs-Bengals game, and “What’s Wrong With The Bengals?” flashes up on the screen and stays there for a few minutes.

Sanders, Mariucci and Eisen then proceed to discuss the game and breakdown the highlights and give the Bucs no credit for the win and hang it all on the Bengals’ ineptitude.

The only positive Joe heard about the Buccaneers was Mariucci praising Sabby Piscitelli’s runback and Sanders saying “nice catch” after Micheal Spurlock’s tightrope reception to set up the winning field goal.

Joe gets that the Bengals choked the game away in epic fashion and that Cincinnati was a playoff team last year with lofty goals. But to have the 3-1 Bucs portrayed as an afterthought is just shameful coming from the NFL Network. Joe usually only expects this kind of one-sided crap from BSPN.

Aqib Talib has been living the feast-or-famine life of a cornerback in a big way in only three games following his suspension in Game 1.

Two weeks ago, Talib bobbled away an interception against Pittsburgh into the waiting hands of a Steelers’ receiver. Early in today’s theft victory of the Bengals, Talib was beaten handily by Terrell Owens on a 43-yard bomb. But Talib bounced back with two huge plays: a tough interception in traffic in the fourth quarter and a tipped ball that led to Sabby Piscitelli’s late-game heroics.

That ups Talib’s interception total to three on the season.

Cody Grimm said in a postgame interview on FOX-13 that he credits Talib forcing a tough throw for Carson Palmer on Sabby’s interception and said Talib’s earlier fourth-quarter pick was the result of him recognizing Cincinnati’s route. “He can’t get enough credit. He had the option to steal that, and he did,” Grimm said.

Grimm went on to say Raheem Morris was in the face of his prized secondary and “kept us cool” late in the game.

Last year, Talib had five interceptions at the halfway mark of the season. He finished with just five.

If Talib can elevate his game to fulfill his Pro Bowl potential — and the Bucs find a good pass rush — Joe’s confident Ronde Barber’s single-season record of 10 interceptions will be in jeopardy.

Bucs stud rookie wide receiver Mike Williams spoke on the Bucs radio network about his impressive score late in the game.

On his touchdown where he wrestled with a defender:

“We came through with the exact same things in practice. It was just like practice. [Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman] gave me a chance to make a play and I made the play.”

“Free just trusted me. He gave me the go route and threw the ball up to let me go up and get it.

“We know we can win. We know we have the players in place. We just have to execute and that’s what we did.

“Josh is a great quarterback. He showed we [the Bucs] again why he was drafted. He’s our guy.”

Bucs reserve safety Sabby spoke on the Bucs radio network following the game to talk about his game-changing interception return that set up the Bucs winning field goal in the closing seconds.

“Rah had called a great defense to get pressure on the quarterback. Talib had great coverage and T.O.[Cincinnati receiver Terrell Owens] tried to tip it up and I tried to make a play.

“The funny thing was, we were aware [of the clock and field position] so I tried to get as many yards as I could and get to the sidelines and help win the game.

“Hey, 3-1 is huge for us. We try to break the season down in quarters. If we can go 3-1 each quarter, we will have a helluva team.”

When the Bengals were marching downfield in the final minute things looked grim for the Bucs. It appeared a near sure thing Cincinnati would at least get in field goal position and Mike Nugent (remember him?) would drill one through the uprights and the Bucs would have a depressing loss.

Wonder what Bucs place kicker Connor Barth was doing during this painful moment in time?

Practicing his kicks. That’s what he said when he appeared on the Buccaneers Radio Network after the game.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” Barth said about practicing kicks when it looked like the Bengals were about to kick a game-winner. “You have to always be ready. So I was warming up at the time. I was kicking into the net.”

And he was ready. It was his field goal that pushed the Bucs to an improbable 3-1.

Funny thing is, Bucs special teams coach Rich Bisaccia had a premonition that Barth indeed he would win the game for the Bucs.

“Rich told me I was going to win this game at halftime,” Barth said.

He did. Wonder if Joe can get lottery numbers from Bisaccia?

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Joe just wants to make a quick point that the offseason free agent acquisitions of Keydrick Vincent and Sean Jones played huge roles in the Bucs’ incredible win in Cincinnati today.

Why? They both provided depth on display against the Bengals.

Sean Jones’ arrival put Sabby Piscitelli on the bench and ready for action in a role much more suited to his skill level. And Vincent’s presence — starter or not — gave the Bucs the freedom to use Jeremy Zuttah at center, where he filled in very admirably when Jeff Faine left today’s game injured. 

Nobody will confuse Sean Mahan with Zuttah. And Vincent also dove like a veteran onto Josh Freeman’s ugly fumble in the fourth quarter.

Good, experienced depth is critical to winning in the NFL. It’s no secret.

The Bucs don’t have much of it, but it was a major factor today. Kudos to Mark Dominik for bringing these free agents in. Joe hopes (prays) the Bucs don’t need experienced backups at positions where they don’t have any, and that they go out and get more depth next offseason.

Bucs stud rookie safety Cody Grimm spoke on the Buccaneers Radio Network and had a few thoughts to share about the win, a robbery of a 24-21 victory at Cincinnati.

“You can play the best game of your life and lose and you feel like crap. We didn’t give up.”

On his pick-six, also his first NFL interception: “I only needed to catch the ball. Coach Morris called a great defense for that play. It feels good to help the team out but I didn’t do much on that play.”

On the mentality of the Bucs late in the game:

“Everyone stayed calm. We didn’t try to bring in different calls or anything crazy. We just kept playing and we knew if we had an opportunity, we would make plays. Aqib Talib made a great play [on the Sabby interception]. People won’t understand what a great play that was. Everyone just played to the last seconds. We made mistakes but everyone stayed committed and we came out on top.”

On Sabby’s 31-yard interception return:

“I was thinking we needed to stop them and keep them out of field goal range. I was happy Sabby got it because he’s a fast guy. I just watched and thought, ‘He’s still running!’

“When I saw the field goal go through I was overwhelmed with joy that we didn’t have to go to overtime or lose.”

OK, who around here has been difficult, sometimes viscious on Sabby?

Joe stands up and raises his hand.

There was — and is — little question who the worst defender on the Bucs is. Sabby.

But just as Joe is sometimes over the top with criticism of the Bucs reserve strong safety, Joe has to give the guy mad props when it’s due.

Today, it is more than just due.

Sabby played positively goatish for much of the game, starting off in fine fashion when he didn’t make it on the field in time to replace injured Sean Jones and the Bucs had to burn a timeout before the first play from scrimmage of the ballgame!

Then, Sabby’s tackling was more difficult to watch than Rosie O’Donnell in an adult film. Cedric Benson literally dragged Sabby downfield as if Sabby was a puppy nipping at his shoes.

Then Sabby gets schooled on a Carson Palmer touchdown pass.

Joe was so outraged, nearly blinded with rage, he was ready to even curse out Joe’s beloved fantasy, Rachel Watson.

Just when it appeared the Bucs were about to lose — boom! — here comes Sabby. He played ballhawk, got a tipped pass from Aqib Talib and returned the pick 31 yards to set up the Bucs winning score.

It was impressive. Impressive. Clearly the play of the game and clearly Sabby’s best play as an NFL player.

Yes, Joe’s very, very critical of Sabby, and Joe thinks it’s all warranted.

But when Sabby makes a play, Joe has to give credit where credit is due.

Sabby, you get Joe’s game ball today. Joe stands and raises his bottle of beer in your honor.

Well done. Salute!

Now Josh Freeman didn’t exactly look spectacular today.

He seemed to be misreading blitzes. He threw an ugly interception. He seemed a little unprepared for some of the hits he took. And he coughed up a critical fumble late, thankfully recovered by Keydrick Vincent for a five-yard gain.

But Freeman was pretty unfazed by the brutal pounding he took today from the Bengals, one that even knocked him out of the game. He lost his center. No problem.

Freeman bounced back for yet another fourth-quarter comeback using his legs and making great throws to Mike Williams and flashing a hefty set of balls to fire the dart to Micheal Spurlock in the flat with seconds left.

Every Bucs fan knows the offense rides on the back of Freeman. Surely, it’s not going to be carried by the putrid running game and promising yet inexperienced receiving corps.

It might be time for Joe to buy that Freeman jersey.

Peppered at his postgame news conference about apparent doghouse resident Sabby Piscitelli pressed into action today and bringing home the critical, game-winning interception, Raheem Morris dropped an interesting inference.

The two seemingly have had an ugly relationship since Sabby moaned about the unfairness of losing his starting gig to starting strong safety Sean Jones, who was injured on the opening play today.

Morris explained that although things might have gotten intense between him and Sabby, he always had it under control, even if it took an old fashioned fight.

“Me and Sabby have a great relationship,” Morris said to the media. “We might even throw blows that we don’t tell you guys about.”

Did Raheem and Sabby resolve their differences like men? Joe’s not sure where his money would go on that fight. Tough call, but Joe’s going with Raheem.

Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman was giddy but honest after the Bucs pulled a Houdini act and beat the Bungles at Cincinnati, despite getting gashed by Cedric Benson late in the game, despite coughing up three turnovers on the road.

Freeman spoke on the Buccaneers Radio Network and described how the win came about from his point of view.

“This win goes to the entire team. Offensively, we didn’t play that well for three and three-quarters. The defense held up.

“The second half, we were able to take the lead and then Cincy took it back. It really was the defense that set up to be successful. It’s a great team win. A great team win!

On the game-winning drive:

“It was just understanding where the matchups would be. Don’t throw it inbounds. Don’t take a sack. We are right around our kicker’s ranges. I was just trying to get a cheap five yards and hit Sammie [Stroughter] on an out route. But I saw the safety bite and I thought, ‘Yeah.’ And Williams made a helluva catch.

“Hey, 3-1 doesn’t last. It took the entire season to get to three wins last year. Here we are already with three. I take everything in perspective. We got away with one today. We have the champs coming to town now and we have to prepare.”

Who’s the leading candidate for NFL Coach of the Year?

Now Joe’s not ready to build and erect a statue of Raheem Morris in downtown Tampa for three wins, but the guy deserves a standing freakin’ ovation.

The 2010 Bucs are 3-1.

Not even the most stout optimist had the Bucs in this predicament after four games. When the game was on the line today, Morris and his team flashed extraordinary will and drive — and some incredibly aggressive playcalling — that only comes from strong leadership. The head coach deserves his due. Now he’s got four in a row on the road.

If the Bucs can even split they’re next two games, home against the Saints and Rams, who got pounded today they sit at 4-2.

Unbelievable.

Boy, for a while this win sure smelled like a 2009 Jim Bates-Greg Olson special.

The Bengals ran the ball down the Bucs’ throat with ease and Tampa Bay missed way too many tackles.  The Bucs got beat over the top for a 40+ yard touchdown featuring late safety help from Sabby Piscitelli. And Josh Freeman got in trouble throwing on first down and abandoning the running game early.

Despite all that, the Bucs were in the game and had plenty of chances to make plays. They even had the ball driving deep in Bengals territory for the tying score, which they got from a Pro Bowl catch by Mike Williams in the corner of the end zone.

Fumble the ball away inches from the goal line (Mike Williams) and on a kickoff return (Micheal Spurlock) and you won’t win many road games. But the Bucs proved full of confidence and resilient.

Sabby snatched the late interception. Spurlock vindicated himself on a sick, aggressive play-call with seconds left. And Connor Barth sealed it.

The Bucs are 3-1!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Joe will have so much more through the afternoon and evening.