Preseason Week 2
Chiefs at Bucs
Kickoff: 7:30 p.m.
TV: Blacked out. The game will be broadcast in its entirety Sunday morning on WFLA Ch. 8 at 11 a.m.
Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network (in Tampa WFUS-FM, 103.5 and WDAE-AM, 620); Sirius Channel 126.
Weather: Per AccuWeather.com, while it’s supposed to be rainy today, the thunderstorms are expected to clear for kickoff at the CITS with the temperature expected to be in the mid-80s with virtually no wind and soupy humidity. In other words, the beers should flow. Temperatures and the stagnant air should remain consistent through the end of the game.
Odds: Per Bodog.com, Bucs -3.
Outlook: Yes, the game is blacked out. This has been well-documented. Joe will be at the game, in the stands, cold $8 beer at his side, hoping to dodge raindrops while developing blisters on his thumbs from Twittering on his trusty blackberry. … What will be interesting in this game is to see if Josh Freeman can continue his perfection the way he started the preseason last week at Miami. It will also be interesting to see if running back Derrick Ward can live up to his guarantee and run the ball effectively. He won’t have a baseball infield to blame this time (gee, how on earth did Jim Brown, Gayle Sayers or for that matter, Ricky Williams, ever succeed playing on a baseball infield?). … Joe is also looking forward to seeing rookie Brian Price wear the Bucs uniform for the first time. As Joe has documented many times already, Price was an absolute animal early in preseason, a fact Mark Dominik raved about on Sirius NFL Radio, until his tender hamstring flared up again.

Joe’s not a senior vice president of marketing at some highfalutin Fortune 500 enterprise, but Joe has a pretty good track record of results.

Today, a little bored in the rain, Joe happened to buy an old fashioned news delivery item, aka a newspaper. Now Joe rarely reads these filthy handheld products, but a Tampa Tribune story about rampant illegal political signs (a major pet peeve of Joe’s) got Joe’s eye, so he forked over the 50 cents.

On Page 3 of the sports section, Joe was stunned to find a full page color advertisement for Bucs’ regular season tickets featuring a massive, half-page photo of  the Bucs head coach with big bold lettering “RAHEEM MORRIS” across the middle.

Then, at the bottom of the page, is ticket information for the Sept. 12 home opener.

Now the Bucs ticket sales mavens and the esteemed Glazer family leaders must know that many serious Bucs fans think Morris is an absolute joke of a head coach. And the casual fan perspective of him is surely one of an inexperienced young coach coming off a 3-13 season riddled with troubling decisions.

And this guy is supposed to sell tickets? “RAHEEM MORRIS,” so it reads in the Tribune ad.

His face and name is supposed to inspire the credit card to come out of the wallet and get fired up?

Please.

Nobody buys tickets to watch a game because of a head coach unless it’s one of the tiny handful of big name coaches with huge appeal. The Bucs’ defensive mastermind isn’t that guy. And he’s not going to help ticket sales right now.

Joe wants these blackouts to go away fast. They’re horrendous for the community.

Marketing the head coach before he wins games is not going to cut it. The Bucs’ marketing people must have been dreaming.

Joe knows that not every Bucs fan will be at the CITS tonight and will be grumbling for the next day until they can watch the game on tape-delayed basis on WFLA-TV Channel 8 Sunday at 11 a.m.

To help Bucs fans survive the blackout, Joe has some tips for you:

First of all, listen to the radio. Yeah, old school, the radio. It doesn’t get much better than listening to Gene Deckerhoff on the radio. He may have outlasted Bobby Bowden and Chucky but the dude still has the pipes.

The radio broadcast can be found on the Bucs radio network (in Tampa WFUS-FM, 103.5 and WDAE-AM, 620) as well as Sirius Channel 126.

There are any number of places on the internet to “watch” the game. By that Joe means you can follow the play-play-play with updated stats. NFL.com is Joe’s first choice. Also there is Yahoo!, CBSSports.com and BSPN.

Then there is Twitter. There are all sorts of ways to follow the Bucs on Twitter, including Joe. Here’s a brief rundown of some of the best Twitters documenting the Bucs.

The official Bucs Twitter feed can be found at @TBBuccaneers though Joe is not sure how often or how much the Bucs (intrepid multimedia specialist Scott Smith) will Twitter during the game. Otherwise, it’s a good feed to follow.

Perhaps the best Bucs beat writer who Twitters is Rick Brown of the Lakeland Ledger. His feed is @LedgeronBucs. Rick very much believes in interactivity and he will respond to your queries, which for Joe makes him the best Bucs Twitterer.

Maybe the next Bucs beat writer who Twitters often is good guy Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times, found at @HolderStephen. He Twitters nearly as much as Brown but doesn’t respond to queries as often as Brown, though that’s not to say he isn’t interactive.

The Tampa Tribune gang of Woody Cummings, eye-RAH! Kaufman and Anwar Richardson triple-tag team the TBO Bucs Twitter feed @TBO_Buccaneers. While the trio does a damn fine job of providing some very substantive Twitter updates, it’s not an interactive forum, though Richardson will respond on occasion.

Perhaps the best Bucs Twitterer does not work for the Bucs nor does he work for an MSM outlet. That would be former Bucs defensive end Steve White, who also writes a weekly Bull Rush column for Joe.

Joe’s not sure if White will be at tonight’s game but during the broadcast tomorrow morning, Bucs fans can be sure White will Twitter often about the game, and throughout the week with football tidbits. White’s Twitter feed can be found at @sgw94.

How popular is White on Twitter? He has over 1,100 followers, more than TBO, more than Holder and significantly more than Brown.

St. Petersburg Times Bucs beat writer Rick Stroud, who publicly has stated he is not a fan of Twitter, will Twitter from time to time at @NFLSTROUD but watch and read closely. Periodically, his Twitter posts will vanish beneath your very own eyes.

Joe is personally chagrin that Tom Balog of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune doesn’t Twitter. He’s very pointed in his opinions and doesn’t pull any punches which generally makes for fantastic reading. Come on Tom, join the 21st century! Get on Twitter!

Between the various play-by-play sources on the internet, Gene Deckerhoff’s pipes, and several Twitter feeds, Bucs fans should not go wanting for much information in order to pass the time away until Sunday morning when they can see the game on TV.

Joe is longing to see the Bucs get to Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel tonight in the blacked out preseason home opener.

With all the other Bucs stuff to keep an eye on, plus Chiefs safety Eric Berry, Joe wants to see a real pass rush against a quarterback who takes an incredible amount of sacks and likely will be throwing the ball a lot tonight.

The Bucs haven’t gotten to the quarterback successfully in years, and Joe wants to see a real stride taken. Stop the run reasonably well like in Miami, great, but it’s time to get after the QB.

Finally, Gerald McCoy and Brian Price will be together rushing inside on third down. Disrupt, young men. Put some heat on film and get the Browns all stressed out.

Regarding Cassel, who had a decent season last year in Kansas City, Joe remembers that The Tampa Tribune reported the Bucs were making a play to get him before the 2009 draft, but the Chiefs snatched him for a 2009 second round pick.

Cassel had a half-way decent year on the crappy Chiefs. And while Joe is in no way wishing the Bucs had Cassel, it is intriguing to think about what the Bucs would look like if they had plucked Cassel for a second round pick and taken wide receiver Jeremy Maclin rather than Josh Freeman.

The media can be a very confusing animal at times.

Early this week, ESPN NFC South super expert Pat Yasinskas wrote about how Derrick Ward looked good at times against Miami.

Speaking of Ward, who’s fighting to earn more carries, he looked good at times. He even was having a nice run on a third-down draw play, until he fumbled. Turning the ball over probably will wipe out the rest of the good stuff he did Saturday. The Bucs aren’t going to be a team with a big margin for error, so they’re not going to give a lot of carries to a guy who puts the ball on the ground.

A lone wolf with that positive assessment of Ward, who had 12 carries for 20 yards and two fumbles against Miami, Yasinskas went full circle with his in-depth analysis on Friday during a chat on ESPN.com.

Chat participant: Is Derrick Ward’s job in Tampa really in jeopardy? He did awful in the first week @ Miami, but I have a hard time believing he will slide down on the depth chart or worse.

Yasinskas: Somewhat. I mean, he was awful against Miami, didn’t have a good camp and wasn’t anything much last year. They’ve got some young guys that have been impressive. But not sure any of them are ready to be Caddy’s backup. Bucs might have to keep Ward just as insurance because of Caddy’s injury history.

Hmm. Joe hasn’t seen such an about face since he once asked a Bucs cheeleader for her phone number.

Hang in there, Joe will always be here to navigate the media for you.

"Joe's got my back."

Just when the Bucs’ chief defensive mastermind/head coach finally showered some praise on Tim Crowder, beat writer Rick Stroud tries to make a case for the anointed one, Kyle Moore, in part by bagging on Crowder in a feature story in the St. Pete Times. 

The Bucs need more proof of that from their collection of castoff defensive ends. The veteran of the group is Stylez White, 31, who has 191/2 sacks in three years but has never started more than eight games in a season. There’s not much of a resume for Michael Bennett (one career sack), Tim Crowder (71/2 sacks) and rookies Brandon Gilbeaux, James Ruffin, Carlton Powell and Erik Lorig.

Moore, a fourth round pick last year, who has cast a lot of blame on others in his tenure and was a chronicled meeting snoozer, has accomplished nothing in the NFL other than losing weight after getting too fat last year. He had no sacks in eight games.

Yet he seems to be the man at left defensive end. But even in Stroud’s story the Bucs’ defensive mastermind/head coach says Moore “has a tendency to coast a little bit right now.”

Sleeping. Blaming. Coasting. Fourth-round pick. Hmmmm.

Joe’s an unabashed Crowder fan. The guy’s got a big motor. He’s only 25. And he was a second round pick out of Texas. He’s also got those 7 1/2 sacks in limited time that Stroud seems to think he’s meaningless.

Joe just hates the idea of anyone not earning a job. It happens all the time in the NFL. But someone at Moore’s level should have to earn it.

After an excellent start in Miami, Moore may be very well on his way. But hopefully, it’s a fair fight.

Joe’s taking his trumpet out to announce a new partnership with the great Bucs fans over Northgate Lincoln Mercury on North Florida Avenue in Tampa.

Soon, Joe will be telling you all about this fantastic dealership.

For now, you can check them out online.

Not just an NFL Draft guru, Justin “The Commish” Pawlowski, of WDAE-AM 620, is a maven of all things fantasy football.

Daily updates and a great fantasy football competition are ready for you, courtesy of The Commish. Check it out below.

Whoa, the Bucs’ esteemed leader of men got all serious in front of the media yesterday when asked about Clifton Smith’s role on the team.

After a largely loose, smiley news conference, the body language of the head coach would have made Frank Luntz take notice. About seven minutes into the video on Buccaneers.com, you can see Raheem Morris say he expects impact play from Smith.

Coach got all serious, as if to say there’s no way Smith doesn’t have a roster spot locked up.

“I don’t see anything different happening for him this preseason as far as what he’s been able to do when he gets on the football field,” Morris said.

Now Joe’s just an amateur on the body language stuff. The last time Joe thought he had had that down a chick slapped him in the face.

That said, Joe’s pretty confident Smith is here to stay, which might create a tough road for Kareem Huggins. There’ll be a lot to learn at running back on Saturday.

If Derrick Ward plays well, he can lay plenty of blame on the mud in Miami. If Smith performs better than Huggins  … lots of ifs.

"Oh, Joe. You're always willing to try new things."

Rather than answer e-mail after e-mail and comment after comment on this issue, Joe’s going to just explain this up front.

Joe decided today to try a slightly different approach and keep nicknames of players and media and others from all new posts on these here pages.

Joe’s going to try it out and see what happens.

Joe was thinking that when he talks football with colleagues and friends, he doesn’t reference common farm animals or one’s Twittering habits, or one’s propensity to swing helmets. So Joe thought that maybe he wouldn’t do that here and see how that feels — to not write like Jim Rome talks.

Feedback is always welcome.

In case one missed it last Saturday, a defensive back few have seen play previously, E.J. Biggers, started against the Dolphins in the Bucs preseason opener and played damned well.

That would be E.J. Biggers, seventh round draft pick. He was drafted in April 2009 by the Bucs and missed the regular season with a bum shoulder.

Seems as if the Bucs may have found another gem, so writes Ira Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune.

E.J. Biggers, whose first pro season was derailed by a shoulder injury suffered in the last exhibition game, may have the inside track at nickel corner, fighting off challenges by rookie Myron Lewis and Elbert Mack.

“Spirited would be a good word for the competition at nickel,” said veteran cornerback Ronde Barber. “E.J. had a great offseason and an awesome camp. He went to every meeting and put the work in last year, even though he was injured. We know what we have in E-Mack … he’s a heck of a competitor. We haven’t seen much of the rook (Lewis), but the way he looks, he has to factor in.”

Biggers, and Stroughter, and a few other players are why Bucs general manager Mark Dominik is leading the Bucs and no longer are Bruce Allen or Jon Gruden. Consistently, annually, that duo whiffed on latter round picks.

Unlike his predecessor, Dominik seems to be hitting on his late round picks. It appears, thanks to Biggers, Stroughter and others, that Dominik’s mantra of “building through the draft” is beginning to blossom.

JII

Looking exceptionally content and at peace yesterday, Raheem Morris shared stories of his end of training camp Wednesday night with the team.

Mr. Morris told the gathered media it was one big, happy bonding session with the rookies doing all kinds of silliness.

In that conversation, Mr. Morris got talking about Cadillac Williams and his presence, “He’s the heartbeat of our football team. He’s the character of our football team. He’s just fun and dynamic to watch on and off the field,” coach said.

Multiple Bucs have told Joe how inspiring it is to play with Cadillac. So Joe is not surprised.

But Joe wishes someone else — someone healthier — was the heartbeat. As much as Joe tries, Joe just can’t get those heinous visuals of Cadillac’s injuries out of his head.

Joe still gets sick to his stomach knowing how much the Bucs are relying on Williams to help provide the running game Josh Freeman needs to be successful, no matter how healthy Cadillac appears.

Joe hopes Caddy can hang in there strong until the Bucs snatch a running back with a high 2011 draft pick.

Joe enjoyed talking football and hanging out with former Bucs quarterbacks Jeff Carlson and Shaun King yesterday at a party rolling out the new Cadillac CTS Coupe at Ed Morse Cadillac Tampa.

Now there’s a sweet ride.

Carlson and King were introduced to the crowd, and through the evening there were sober partygoers who thought the retired QBs were currently on the Bucs roster.

That sparked a discussion about how the Bucs have lost so much of their identity and their star power in the community. It’s an interesting topic, and one that is quite timely as the Bucs are facing blacked out games and are in the midst of an admittedly painful process of building a “lasting contender.”

Joe and hardcore fans are always fired up about the team. But where’s the excitement for the average fan?

Comrades Rick Stroud and good guy Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times discuss in this video whether Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman is getting enough playing time in the preseason, among other subjects. There’s even a Sabby mention. 

Joe II

Joe can’t wait to sit out in the rain with his binoculars during the blacked out preseason home opener on Saturday, probably sitting next to some freaky drunk old woman who will get way to touchy feely with him. 

Of course, Joe is being sarcastic. It’s going to stink being out there sweating like a soaked manbeast getting rain in his $8 beer. But such is life when rebuilding meets recession.

While Joe will have his eyes on the game and his Twitter mechanism in hand (and reporting here like a madman immediately following the game), Joe will be keeping his eye on one statistic to emerge. That would be the attendace figure for the game.

Since the old Tampa Stadium was demolished, every Bucs game has been just about the same reported “sold out” attendance, close to 65,00o, give or take a little.

Now it was obvious that Team Glazer or somebody else was eating tickets to reach that number last year and avoid a television blackout. (Thank you, whoever you are.) But this season, it seems that’s not going to happen. Hence the blackouts.

So the reported attendance number on Saturday should be the first indicator of just how far the Bucs need to go to sell out a regular season game. Joe can’t see a reason why Saturday’s number would be fudged.

If Joe had to hazard a guess, he’d put Saturday’s official number at 44,001.

The crowd at the Bucs' last playoff game foretold a decline in ticket sales that really kicked in during the subsequent 2008 season.

Outside of watching SportsCenter, nothing turns Joe’s stomach like reading bogus information in the newspaper.

So Joe was annoyed while reading a St. Pete Times story Thursday by Stephen Holder about Bucs attendance and blackouts.

It included the following paragraphs:

But as it relates to the Bucs, specifically, they’ve never had a problem drawing when they’re playing well.

If they can get back to that, and do it soon, Raymond James Stadium has a chance to be full yet again.

The facts force Joe to disagree. The Bucs indeed have had trouble drawing when they’re playing well.

The team’s decline in attendance really started strong when Giants fans infested Raymond James Stadium for the Bucs’ last playoff game following the 2007 season. That was a massive, painful red flag to see that huge sea of blue.

Then in 2008, on Mike Alstott Night on Sunday Night Football, the 4-2 Buccaneers had plenty of seats at nearly all prices available via TicketMaster on gameday. Lots of empty seats at kickoff, too. (All those actual attendance records are kept neatly and publicly for all to see.)

Mike Alstott Night!

Joe is quite certain Team Glazer and/or the mystery ticket goblins began eating unsold tickets early in 2008, despite the Bucs’ strong 9-3 start.

A great Bucs start in 2010 will generate lots of wonderful excitement, but Joe doesn’t see anything short of a legitimate playoff run (think 6-4 start at minimum) actually generating a sellout. With this current economy and roster, it’s going to be a long road back to televised games.

The leadership question has permeated Raheem The Dream news conferences and the Bucs organization since Derrick Brooks was shown the door along with other veterans.

Who was going to rise up and fill the void?

Sure, guys like Jeff Faine and Ronde Barber were said to have a lot of those leadership qualities, but neither was identified by the head coach as “the guy.”

Today, in his session with the Tampa Bay press corps, Raheem The Dream shined a spotlight on Earnest Graham as a team leader. “Earnest, the ultimate fighter, the guy that came from nowhere from this football team and really [became] one of those leaders that you keep asking about,” Raheem The Dream said.

Joe is a huge fan of Graham, who is a refreshingly unselfish player and a candid speaker.

Joe does know, though, that the best leaders are guys on the field. And Joe is concerned about how Graham will hold up taking a season’s worth of punishment at fullback.

The rookie nobody’s talking about, cornerback Myron Lewis, is fired up to see some action, and Joe’s not talking about wherever the players were off to last night after training camp officially broke. (Joe was combing the jail records in the wee hours and was very pleased to see there was no trouble like last year.)

Lewis, the Bucs’ third round pick, is expected to make his debut in Saturday’s blacked out Bucs-Chiefs game.

Per Stephen Holder, of the St. Pete Times, Lewis had a standout practice yesterday.

“I’m real anxious,” he said. “This is going to be my first official NFL game, even though it’s preseason.”

Lewis looked like a guy who was serious about making an impact during today’s practice at One Buc Place. Among his highlights was an interception of pass that had been tipped by Mack. Lewis corralled the ball and went the other way for what would have been a defensive touchdown.

I came off my break clean and actually caught it before it hit the ground,” he said. “Then, it was off to the races.”

Joe is as excited as the next guy to see Lewis, who’s been saddled with nagging injuries since joining the Bucs. Joe wonders whether he might actually get some reps with the first team defense, just to see what he can do.

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

While everyone says you can’t learn too much from the preseason, when it comes to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you can get quite a lot from it, if you know where to look.

To be sure, preseason is a glorified practice, and the Bucs are actually an OVER .500 team in preseason (74-70) compared to their regular season totals (204-328-1). In their history, this .383 team that would have to go 10-6 every year until the year 2041 to become break-even, .500 club lifetime!

Yet each year, we are able to take something from preseason that, if we look close enough and carefully, can give us a glimpse into what is in store for Bucs fans in the coming year.

In 1997, Bucs starters were able to outscore their preseason counterparts in the first period of combined games that year, as well as hold them scoreless in three-fourths of them; The result was a Bucs team that went 10-6 and had a very good defense.

In 1999, Bucs starters gave up only two field goals and one TD. They didn’t give up much more during the regular Season, either, on their way to an NFC Championship game appearance.

To be sure, judging preseason performance does not always guarantee similar regular season achievements, but it doesn’t hurt.

In 2008, both the Patriots and Texans combined to outscore the Bucs starters 13-0, the Dolphins game was scoreless, and the Patriots fell behind to the Bucs starters 7-0 on a fumbled snap by Tom Brady’s backup that Sabby Piscitelli took in for a score. We all know what 2008 brought us, and in 2009 more of the same, as the Bucs were outscored 10-6 in the first quarters on their way to a three-win season.

So did we learn anything from Saturday night in Miami? Perhaps. But it definitely will take more than one rehearsal for people to glean an understanding of what could be in store for Bucs fans this year, but we do have this much to go on so far:

1)   Josh Freeman in his two series exhibited the good composure and poise shown at times last year. And he showed us that his offseason of schoolwork has familiarized himself with the offense. Freeman could be seen checking down and going through his progressions, as opposed to the Jets game last year where he stared down his receivers resulting in trouble.

2)   Cadillac Williams shows absolutely NO signs of wear and tear from the two knee surgeries he underwent. He may not break a 65-yard TD this year, but likewise he won’t be tackled for no gain that often either.

3)   The wide receiver position may go from a NEED to satisfactorily stocked overnight. Sammie Stroughter looks to step up from a solid offseason. And rookie Mike Williams who may have Rookie of the Year talent judging by his performance in camp and in Miami.

4)   Gerald McCoy’s name alone is drawing him double teams, and Left DE Kyle Moore made the best of it Saturday.
 
Again, it’s too early to tell, so we can only make guesses, but for the first time in a while, the guesses have some nice answers to them for a change.

Many, many moons ago, Joe learned that you never let a news reporter write a sports story.

Why? News reporters, while gifted at their craft, are not necessarily familiar with sports, which can lead to some embarrassing gaffes.

Take TV news for example. How many times have you watched a local TV news anchor butcher famous athletes’ names if not team names? Watch WTSP’s newscast sometime and you can visibly see Heather Van Nest struggle through the sports teasers. However, to Joe’s knowledge, Van Nest has never committed a ghastly error like Bob Hite once did.

In teasing a Lightning game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Hite pronounced Mario Lemieux’s name as “Leh-mewks.” Ugh!

So it didn’t surprise Joe a whole lot when he read Mark Albright, not a sports reporter, of the St. Petersburg Times type a piece on the business hit local sports bars may take if/when there are blackouts during the regular season.

Now Joe has never met Albright and doesn’t know if he is a sports fan, or a football fan at all. But it sure seems as though Albright is not much of a follower of the Bucs.

Consider this paragraph:

Kirk Dreyfus, bar manager at Chammps Americana sports bar in Tampa, said he’s seen more people coming in to watch other teams because of the Bucs’ crummy record in recent years.

Crummy record in recent years? Joe seems to recall the Bucs having winning records in 2007 and 2008. A quick check of ProFootballReference.com and, sure enough, the Bucs won nine games in each of those seasons. Sure, no Super Bowl appearance but Joe would hardly classify those seasons as “crummy.”

Then Albright used the following quote from Dreyfus:

“In my four years here, the Bucs have had only one winning season,” he said.

Well, that’s patently inaccurate if Dreyfus is referring to the last four seasons. To be fair, Joe isn’t sure of the specific years Dreyfus is referring to, but in the past four calendar years, the Bucs have had two winning seasons.

Now Joe learned the first day of journalism school you do not monkey with quotes. Joe’s not suggesting that. However, being the savvy reporter Joe is, if someone is going to offer up a grossly inaccurate quote, well, that’s gold Jerry, gold!

At best/worst, a seasoned, ethical reporter often wouldn’t even use such an inaccurate quote.

But Albright does not challenge Dreyfus’ quote. That tells Joe that Albright (and the Poytner Paper’s copy editors) had no idea Dreyfus was speaking out of turn.

Albright wasn’t finished showing his lack of knowledge about the Bucs. Take a gander:

In playoff years, sports bars were often packed. But since the team’s recent extended swoon, more transplanted locals hit the bars to follow their previous home teams with winning records like the Steelers, Saints, Patriots, Colts and Cowboys.

Extended swoon? Twice in the last five years the Bucs reached the playoffs and three of those years the Bucs had winning seasons. The 2008 season the Bucs were in the hunt for a playoff bid right into the final game of the season.

Joe can’t pin all of these mistakes on Albright. Simply put, some editor should have had the common sense to let a sports copy editor take a peek at the story.

A share of the blame for the errors must be placed at the feet of copy editors. Joe’s guess is a few news/business copy editors read this and their idea of sports is watching Rachel Maddow each night while planning such riveting excursions such as a reading festival or a poetry recital in some small, seedy, sparsely populated, darkened hole of a bar between listening to some schlock music by James Taylor.

This article by Albright simply is not the standard of journalism that the Poynter Paper would have the general public conned convinced they are worthy of.

Mike Nugent, Luke McCown, Byron Leftwich, Derrick Ward, Michael Clayton, Angelo Crowell, Jim Bates, Jeff Jagodzinski — the list of million dollar free agent signings from Mark Dominik’s first season is not pretty.

Joe suspects that if Dominik had hit a homerun in free agency last year, Team Glazer and the Bucs would have a different attitude towards how to build a winner. That’s just how life goes.

Now Joe is one of those fans who believes that free agency is not a satanic ritual destined to fail. Joe just thinks you have to sign the right people.

So aside from the fact that Ward is wearing pewter and red, maybe Bucs fans should pull for Ward so the team gets a healthier attitude toward free agency. 

If Ward is a total bust, Joe suspects the evil, “dark path” of free agency will get the blame, not the guy picking the players.