Joe tries to immerse himself this time of the year in baseball. More so this year.

Baseball actually helps Joe keep his mind off the asinine lockout forced upon the innocent American society by NFL strongman Roger Goodell.

Joe understands that late-June is often the small dead period for NFL news, and this year is no different.

What is different is that no one knows if anyone will hear the crack of pads when training camp starts in July because it very well may not happen. This has Joe lying awake at night with the shakes, not unlike what happens to Joe if he goes for a prolonged period of time without a cold adult beverage.

It seems Bucs receiver Arrelious Benn is of the same mindframe. All his life he had spring football of some sort until this asinine lockout happened. Now, just like Joe, he has no idea if there will be a training camp next month, so he Twittered over the weekend.

#Lockout please be over! I think I’m going insane!

Yes, Arrelious, please, please, please let this asinine lockout be over. For the sake of humanity, sanity and all that is right about America, NFL training camps need to be open or NFL cities may become Vancouver!

Get the job done Goodell!

St. Pete Times columnist Gary Shelton apparently had a crappy lunch last week and penned a very negative column about the NFL that appears in today’s newspaper.

Shelton takes a page from THE PESSIMIST and rambles about how fans he knows don’t care about the NFL and carries on that we’re all doomed to watch second-rate football because teams have missed OTA days and minicamps.

What ought to alarm the players, and what ought to scare the dickens out of the owners, is the growing apathy. That’s the real cost of this wasted offseason. Every time a fan turns his head, the Benjamin Franklins in his wallet do the same.

And so it does not go. Bounce around the Internet and you can find dozens of NFL headlines a day, and not one of them says anything new. Secret meetings? Positive signs? Someone else arrested? Both sides are talking, neither side is listening, and what else is new.

You know what ought to be new?

By now, someone — anyone — should be concerned about how good the football will be when the NFL comes back.

The quality cannot be the same, you know. A league cannot sacrifice all the organized team activities and offseason workouts and minicamps without losing chemistry and cohesiveness. The result is bound to be a lessened product on the field.

Joe must disagree with Shelton — at least right now.

First, Joe knows Bucs fans are aching for football and there is no real loss of interest yet in the NFL. Shelton’s off the mark. The non-hardcore Bucs fan, which is the vast majority of fans, hasn’t missed a damn thing yet. These people don’t care about OTAs. They have rippin’ Super Bowl parties, keep their eye on on the Bucs’ draft, and circle their calendars for opening day of training camp.

Second, the hardcore fans may be a bitter bunch right now, but Joe doesn’t know any that are ready to write off their passion — notyet anyway. (Joe also looks at the traffic numbers here and isn’t seeing a dropoff.) If hatchetman Roger Goodell screws up and lets training camp and preseason to get screwed up, sure. But it’s not there yet.

As for the crappy football Shelton claims is a given in 2011, Joe’s not buying that the best football coaches in the world, along with the best players, can’t figure out how to execute on Sundays without OTAs. As Bucs linebacker Scot Brantley always said, the core of football is still  “blockin’ and tacklin,'” which isn’t about to change.

Of course, more practice time is a good thing, but Joe thinks coaches and players can adjust seamlessly as long as they don’t miss training camp.

Joe’s choosing to be optimistic about all-things lockout today. Just get the damn thing done in the next two or three weeks. It’s important to note that the $700 million of expected revenue from preseason games primarily all falls in the owners’ pockets, as players are only paid a small stipend — not salary — for those games.

Joe continues to hope that $700 million is enough motivation to get 24 of the 32 billionaires to end this asinine mess.

Joe knows a lot about food, and Joe is proud to say that Mugs Grill & Bar in Clearwater serves up some of the finest quality and value in the Tampa Bay area.

Mugs Grill & Bar wings have won more awards than Derrick Brooks, and everything on the menu is extraordinarily fresh and homemade. And if you find a colder draft beer, you’re lying.

Joe loves the wings, of course, but often grabs Mugs’ phenomenal filet mignon tips, real grouper sandwich, or chili cheese fries with bacon.

Don’t forget to join the Mugs E-Club for free nachos for 2 (click above), plus great discounts and deals all year long. You’ll be glad you did.

Mugs also is a dynamite spot to watch all MLB games.

Last year Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman put up some sick statistics, specifically his touchdown-to-interception ratio (25 to 6), which was crazy.

Still, many in the NFL pen and mic club elite are not moved. Given the choice of Matty Ice of the Dixie Chicks or Freeman, many will choose Matty Ice, like Steve Wyche who bared his soul recently on an NFL.com chat.

jeffrey, clearwater beach
steve, in your opinion how is better right now matt ryan or josh freeman? personally freeman is one of a kind to me.

Steve Wyche, NFL.com
Jeffrey, Right now, Matt Ryan. A year or two from now, it could very well be Josh Freeman. Josh is making some major gains and making them quickly. Ryan was more Pro ready and has played like it. He’s also had a better team to work with. Freeman and the Bucs are on the rise, though. The NFC South could turn out to be the best division in the NFL for a second straight year. Yeah, I said it.

While Joe is not anti-Matty Ice, Freeman is easily in his league now. Joe suspects that people in general will continue to think Matty Ice is better unless or until Freeman can guide the Bucs to a playoff win.

Like the rest of the 2009 Bucs defensive linemen, Roy Miller got the edict from Jim Bates, and presumably the rest of the Bucs staff, to fatten up. Gain weight.

Bates needed/wanted big bodies to play his heinous two-gap system, even if the bodies on his roster couldn’t be their best selves with all that extra beef. It was an embarassing miscalculation by Raheem Morris, which led to Rock Riley chasing down Bates at a fast food joint after he was defrocked by the Bucs midseason.

It’s been about 20 months since Bates was put out to pasture, but the edicts of that woeful era are still haunting Miller, so he told “Old School” of WhatTheBuc.net, during the website’s online radio show Thursday night.

Old School: In some ways, you’re kind of lost in the shuffle in the middle there with this revamped D-line. Where can you stand out?

Roy Miller: What I’ve been doing this offseason is losing a bunch of weight. I really, I’ve been playing at a weight that I never really played at, and even in college I always stayed around 290, 285. When I first came into Tampa, my coach, we were kind of more in a 4-3, two-gap type defense and I gained that weight because they told me to gain, and I never really could shake it, man. I mean, I got down. My first year I was like 325, and coming from 285 was crazy. Last year I was down to 316. I just want to keep getting back down. I want to just get off the ball and get back to what I’m used to and just do my thing. You’re right. You could say I’m, whatever, ‘lost in the shuffle.’ That’s fine with me. I just working to do what I got to do … and produce.”

Obviously, from Miller’s comments, he felt he was lacking burst last year and was perhaps a step slow. Very telling considering he started every game and was up the gut in the Bucs’ porous run defense and weak pass rush.

In addition to losing weight, Miller said he’s still bench pressing 540 pounds and has been focusing a lot this offseason on building his hand and forearm strength, areas he said he’s never focused on previously.

Still 23 years old, there’s no reason to think Miller can’t take his game up a couple of notches. He might have to if Brian Price’s unique injury isn’t ready for the rigors of the NFL.

NFL Draft guru Justin Pawlowski, The Commish of WDAE-AM 620, is back today with his award-winning sometimes Saturday show, The Blitz, thanks to the good radio gods of the Clear Channel family.

Pawlowski gets behind the microphone at 1 p.m. and drives The Sports Animal bus up to 3:30 p.m. Father Dungy will have a revealing chat with The Commish at 2 p.m. Did you miss the excerpt on CommishOnline.com?

Also, Joe is confident The Commish will bring Rays news, fantasy baseball insight and, of course, there will be plenty of Bucs talk and perhaps some college football talk as well.

Those chained to a computer can listen online at 620wdae.com.

In between telling readers during a BSPN live chat that Ronde Barber wouldn”t make the Hall of Fame, Aqib Talib should be cut and the Bucs won’t sign Reggie Bush, NFC South blogger Pat Yasinskas offered up some thoughts on the Bucs’ next Ring of Honor inductee.

Perhaps with inside information from a key source connected to One Buc Place or a local barber shop, Yasinskas suggested the Bucs might get away from the old school inductees for 2011 and take someone from a more recent era.

Greg (Tampa):  Any word who the bucs will put into the ring of fame this year?

Pat Yasinskas: Have not heard anything yet. Going to be interesting. Obviously, I don’t think Doug Williams and the franchise are real friendly right now, so they may skip over him. Do they skip all the way up to Brooks? Or do they go with someone like Paul Gruber or Hardy Nickerson?

The idea of Gruber or Nickerson is interesting. Call Joe misguided, but Joe thinks Nickerson is a no-brainer when compared to Gruber.

Sure, Gruber was a beast of a left tackle for a dozen years on a ton of bad teams. But unlike Gruber, who didn’t get the national recognition, Nickerson bruised his way to five Pro Bowls with the Bucs and was sort of the godfather of the Bucs’ legendary defense, serving as a mentor to guys like Derrick Brooks while being a dominant fixture in the heart of it.

While Joe would love to see the Bucs give Doug Williams his rightful place, Nickerson would be a hell of a choice.

Checking in with the Ron and Ian Show on WDAE-AM 620 this morning, “Insurance Graham,” as Raheem Morris likes to call him, talked about life during the lockout and the Bucs.

Among the highlights, Graham said among NFL quarterbacks Josh Freeman ranks behind Drew Brees and Peyton Manning, only because of his lack of experience. Graham lauded Freeman’s football knowledge and preparation and said, “Josh is really a guy who’s ahead of his time as far as age is concerned.”

Graham issued a major hat tip to Chucky and explained Chucky helped mold him as a man.

Graham talked about the impact Chucky had after he was signed when he told Graham, “You can be one of the top players in this league” and laid out a plan for Graham to succeed in the NFL. Graham said Chucky’s work ethic and high expectations helped form “Earnest Graham the man.”

As for “Earnest Graham the man,” he said he recently spent time talking to youth at a juvenile detention center as well as at a probation program.

Graham said he’s been working out regularly with Josh Freeman and other Bucs. (Hmmm, a veteran leader with off-the-field interests and a family who finds it valuable to work out with teammates. Whaddya know.).

No. 34 also talked about how Raheem Morris understands the needs of veterans when it comes to maintaining their bodies and the importance, or lack thereof, of practice.

That was good to hear, since Graham is going to get a ton of work this year if the Bucs don’t re-sign Cadillac Williams.

Welcome to the backlogged justice system.

To date, per Aqib Talib’s attorney Frank Perez, the Dallas County prosecutor assigned to Talib’s felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon case hasn’t had time to review the defense’s evidence. Nothing happened during yesterday’s scheduled talks, Perez told JoeBucsFan.com, and there have yet to be any substantive talks towards a reduced charge and plea agreement for Talib.

Perez said this kind of backlog is very typical in Dallas. Talib has not entered a plea.

While the State of Texas may be bogged down, Talib’s lawyers continue to work on Talib’s behalf investigating, and interviewing witnesses and people close to the situation. Perez said his legal team has yet to talk to anyone that says Talib was using a gun at the scene.

Perez said he is very eager for the State to review the defense’s documentation and his confidence has grown with recent information obtained regarding the alleged victim in the case, Shannon Billings, Talib’s sister’s boyfriend/husband.

“At this point, I’d rather go to trial,” Perez said. “But first we have to have substantive talks” regarding a deal or dropping charges.

From Joe’s research, since there apparently were no injuries to the alleged victim, if the State dropped the gun charge it could reduce Talib’s charge to a Class C misdemeanor assault, which carries no jail time and a fine up to $500.

It’s not difficult to see how society is affected by this asinine lockout. People are grumpier, on edge. Pets cower in corners. Bartenders are wont to pour drinks in plastic cups for fear of what patrons can and will do with glasses.

As the days count down to July when training camps would start, NFL fans grow more anxious. Irritated. Angry.

Even with Father’s Day mere hours away, Joe’s good friend Justin Pawlowski can’t forget the asinine lockout. He even spoke about it with Father Dungy yesterday, (Justin will play the interview on his show Saturday in its entirety — wait a minute, the Clear Channel gods have seen fit to clear air time for Justin Saturday? Yes!)

Justin offers an excerpt on his site of the Father Dungy interview.

Commish: “With Father’s Day tomorrow, my dad and I have used Bucs home games as a way to bond over time as he has taken me to games with him since I was 2 years old, and we haven’t missed any in that time. Please tell me that this lockout is not going to hinder that streak.”

Father Dungy: “No, You might miss a preseason game, but you won’t miss a regular game.”

Joe’s not even going to guess when this asinine lockout ends and won’t even try to entertain when it will end. No need for Joe to get his hopes up.

Just wake Joe up when free agency or training camp starts, huh?

If Joe’s heard it once, Joe’s heard it a hundred times: Barrett Ruud is an insult to the greats who once wore a jock strap at linebacker. He’s weak. He tackles seven yards down field. He couldn’t stop a stiff wind. A Tampa Breeze linebacker is more masculine.

But the NFL insiders have a far different opinion of Ruud, the Bucs free agent linebacker. In fact, one NFL insider and former Super Bowl quarterback went so far as to invoke a future Hall of Fame linebacker’s name in the same breath as Ruud.

A Broncos fan called “The Blitz” today, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio, co-hosted by popular sports radio personality Adam Schein and former NFL quarterback Rich Gannon, and pined for the Broncos to sign Ruud, whenever this asinine lockout is over.

Then, both Schein and Gannon began to wax poetic about Ruud in a way that would make most Bucs fans run for a bottle of 151 rum to chug.

Adam Schein: Rich, if Barrett Ruud hits free agency — I don’t mean a pretty good chance, I don’t mean an OK chance — I mean there will be a phenomenal chance he will get paid well.

Rich Gannon: If the Browns sign him, I look for them to use him as a Brian Urlacher-type of player in that defense. Barrett Ruud is a high-energy guy and a high-impact guy. He’s going to make some money for himself. He is one of the top linebackers available. He has been productive since he first got in the league.

Schein: I don’t see our good friends Raheem Morris and Mark Dominik letting him get away. Last year there was a divide as to how much he is worth but at this state with the lockout and a short window to sign free agents, if you let Barrett Ruud go, you can’t replace him.

Gannon: No, you don’t. You develop a guy to be a perfect fit for what you want to do defensively and you don’t reward him? And you lose a significant leader in the locker room? That linebacker corps with Quincy Black and Geno Hayes, that’s a pretty stout group. I don’t think Mason Foster can fill that hole and get the same kind of production. That is an important position in that defense. He makes all the calls, he gets them all lined up in the right position to make a play. That’s a very important role and that’s a big hole to fill. Why take a step back when you have made so much progress?

It’s beginning to become a chorus from NFL insiders and movers and shakers in the NFL: Letting Ruud walk would be a grave error by Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik, despite the Vancouver-like rage in the streets that keeping Ruud may provoke from so many outraged Bucs fans.

Especially in these lockout times, Joe’s always sniffing hard for anything Bucs-related, but Joe also devours all sorts of NFL news and business news.

What struck Joe today was seeing the exploding Groupon craze reach the hallowed halls of the St. Pete Times. You can now have the Sunday Times delivered — and purchased — for roughly about 19 cents a newspaper.

Talk about devaluing the product (or overvaluing it depending on one’s perspective). For those clueless, Groupon offers drastic discounts for all kinds of service businesses and more, and businesses pay Groupon to sell their stuff.  

So essentially, the Times is giving away the newspaper. Man, the media continues to change rapidly. What’s next? The Times paying readers a couple of pennies to read a story online?

But the Groupon craze got Joe wondering when the NFL is going to get into the action, perhaps selling fans a $250 stadium concessions gift card for $125, using that as another method to drive revenue in a down economy and drive interest in attending games.

The Bucs now offer season ticket holders a discount on concessions. It’s not hard to imagine the innovators at One Buc Palace and other teams might find a way to expand on that option for the full fan base.

Don’t get confused here: Bucs icon Derrick Brooks many times has talked about the value of building team camaraderie through OTA days and now via player-only workouts.

Joe’s all on board with that, which is a primary reason Joe didn’t hesitate to hold captain Jeff Faine accountable for saying he didn’t see why he belonged at Josh Freeman’s Tampa workout sessions.

However, Brooks doesn’t want fans to think these player workouts are anything close to a substitute to OTAs even for veterans, so he explained yesterday alongside the dean of Tampa Bay sports radio, Steve Duemig, on WDAE-AM 620, during their weekly “Legends” hour.

It’s an excellent take.

“You can only conditition a certain way when you’re under the microscope, when you’re under the coach’s watch. Your body responds differently; your mind responds differently,” Brooks said. “You can’t [simulate] that. You can do the best you can through the player-only workouts going on right now. And that’s going to have a certain seat at the table. And I respect … each player that’s doing it. But you can’t replace the work that’s going to have to get done under the watch of the coach. You can’t, because your body, everything about you responds differently and the competition level, that picks up. You’re not necessarily competing out there in player only workouts. Who are you competing in front of? Who are you competing for?

Brooks went on to predict more early-season injuries than ever before in 2011 because of players not being as mentally and physically prepared as in previous seasons.

“Your body’s not going to have time to process what it has over months of under being under the microscope [like in previous seasons],” Brooks said.

Brooks makes a great point. Nobody’s competing right now, as they would be in OTAs or even in the One Buc Palace weight room, where the strength coach can deliver feedback to Mark Dominik and Raheem Morris. Only a year ago, the Bucs coaches watched Mike Williams compete in rookie camp and determined he was their No. 1 receiver and groomed him as such.

Time will tell on Brooks’ injury prediction. All the more reason for NFL hatchetman Roger Goodell to ensure football returns by July 4.

A Bucs caller decided to pepper the co-hosts of “The Opening Drive,” Peter King and Ross Tucker, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio this morning about defensive lines, specifically the Bucs’ and the Lions’.

Said caller believed the Lions are getting way too much run for their defensive line when the Bucs could very well have a chance to have a stronger defensive line.

Tucker did not agree in any way and King sort of understood where the caller came from but wasn’t ready to agree.

Ross Tucker: Yeah, the Bucs have invested a lot of resources over the years but none of the guys have really done much. Brian Price was hurt. Gerald McCoy had an avearage year. Adrian Clayborn and Da’Quan Bowers, the jury is still out. Now Detroit, Ndamukong Suh was a dominant force as was Kyle Vanden Bosch, he was solid. Cliff Avril is one of the mos underrated defensive ends and Nick Fairley some thought he was a top-five or a top-eight pick.

Peter King: Imagine a trio, a rotation trio at defensive tackle, with Corey Williams who is an above average nose guy, Ndamukong Suh and Fairley with Suh and Fairley in there on passing downs. I don’t know you will block those two with two or even three players. The Lions will be a load. I’m not saying the caller was wrong. The Bucs have a chance to be a load too. Both play in a tough division. I can see the Saints or the Falcons going deep in the playoffs just like I can see the Bears or the Packers going deep into the playoffs. I think the Lions have a chance to make a lot of noise. If Matt Stafford is healthy, they have a chance to do some very surprising things.

The key with the Bucs will be how quickly Bowers and Clayborn develop. If those guys are able to bring heat from the edge, that takes pressure off the Bucs defensive tackles. It would be a domino effect.

If Bowers and/or Clayborn are able to bring it, GMC will blow up.

Kellen Winslow has Luke Stocker firmly under his wing, says James Lee.

Hard-working NFL.com Bucs blogger/reporter Jenna Laine has served up some intriguing slices of can’t-miss Bucs news in her latest effort.

Among them, per guard James Lee, the Bucs are still training regularly together at USF and some real leadership is playing out. Kellen Winslow has been tutoring Luke Stocker, Lee said, and Lee and Jeremy Zuttah are grabbing the reigns as well.

“Right now basically me and Zuttah -– we’re the guys who are basically running it for the O-line,” Lee said. “And we do our different drills and we go work on our snaps with Josh [Freeman] and Josh [Johnson].”

Meanwhile the receivers, which include Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn, spend about an hour or so with Freeman, with the defensive backs and linebackers lining up for seven-on-seven-type drills.

Two guys that have stepped up and impressed Lee the most have been fellow offensive linemen Ted Larsen and Will Barker.”

“When I saw him and we did some running and stuff, he looked pretty good –- in his O-line drills and everything,” Lee said of Larsen. “And Barker, he looks pretty good. He looks in shape. He looks like if it’s time to go (now), he’ll be ready.”

Joe’s glad to hear of Zuttah being willing to snap the ball to Freeman and block air.

Of course, the real value of these workouts is open for debate, but there’s no questioning that real leaders can emerge from this kind of environment.

Before he was a rock star, current Bucs general manager Mark Dominik was a mere rookie learning the ropes as an NFL team’s top executive short of ownership.

Perhaps looking to make a splash or trying to find someone more suited for the heinous Jim Bates Experiment, Dominik made a run for malcontent defensive tackle Facestomper Haynesworth.

Reportedly, Dominik offered Facestomper more cash than any other team, but Facestomper passed on the Bucs and signed with Washington.

Since, Facestomper has been a colossal bust and a gargantuan waste of millions of dollars from Danny Snyder. Rather than sacking quarterbacks or stuffing the run, Haynesworth is more interested in pouting and reportedly tanking practices and games and whining how he would have to play in a 34 defense despite being paid more money than most humans will ever see in their lifetimes.

In short, Dominik’s whiff on acquiring Facestomper is among the greatest keys in molding his image as a rockstar.But, if good guy Maoist Michael Silver is correct, Dominik still hasn’t lost his infatuation with Facestomper.

While Allen sounds as though he hasn’t given up on Haynesworth – “When the Redskins signed him he was a dominant football player in this league, and there’s no reason to believe he can’t be again” – trading or even releasing the disgruntled defensive tackle may prove to be the team’s best option. During last season, Tennessee made a run at reacquiring Haynesworth but was rebuffed after offering only a fourth-round draft choice. It’s believed that the Titans, Detroit Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Eagles would be the teams most interested in Haynesworth.

Joe just cannot believe this is accurate, unless Silver is on to something no one else outside of One Buc Palace is aware of. With all of Dominik’s drafts the past three years on the defensive line, why on earth would he want Facestomper unless Dominik can get Facestomper for next to nothing? Perhaps Dominik and the Bucs are not all that sold that Brian Price will recover from his messed up pelvis injury.

Still, as much of a malcontent Facestomper is, it’s difficult for Joe to believe he will be wearing a Bucs uniform this season.

If there is a season.

Aqib Talib’s legal team is back in court this morning in Dallas County in what seems like the next step in setting up a plea deal for the allegedly gun-toting, trigger-happy cornerback accused of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in March.

Joe expects a deal to come at some point — not necessarily today —  but only if Talib doesn’t have to admit to any kind of gun possession. There’s flimsy evidence that he used a gun, and admitting to gun play surely won’t go over well with Roger Goodell when it comes down to a possible league suspension.

As for that suspension, Talib’s got his fellow players apparently fighting hard to ensure all crimes committed during the lockout don’t count toward the league’s discipline code.

Roy Cummings, of The Tampa Tribune, noted comments at NationalFootballPost.com explaining that players are taking the issue very seriously.

In a breakdown of the top 10 issues being negotiated, nationalfootballpost.com founder and ESPN NFL business analyst Andrew Brandt says the players are fighting for a clause that calls for no discipline for lockout conduct errors.

 “Players feel (Commissioner Roger) Goodell has jumped the shark with overzealous discipline in a Policy not collectively bargained. They want an independent arbitrator for appeals and with no governing CBA, no discipline for lockout conduct,’’ Brandt wrote in his NFP column.

It’s interesting. Even if the asinine lockout leader Goodell gets his way and the league will discipline players for lockout funny business, one might think Goodell won’t use a heavy hand on any incident during the lockout as a nod to the fresh, new agreement with the players.

After all, he won’t come out with any disclipline until football returns, which means a new era of peace and harmony is in place. Hammering down on Talib would seem like a bizarre step out of the gate.

Stats are for losers, Raheem Morris tells us, but among those that stand out is Team Glazer being a very low spender on player salaries for a very long time. The numbers don’t lie.

Last year was no exception, as the Bucs were super young and the salary cap disappeared freeing up teams to spend as much or as little as they wanted. Team Glazer ran a mean and lean 10-6 ship.

Today, ProFootballTalk.com guru Mike Florio shares that the owners are proposing teams must spend mass quantities of cash and the divide between the salary cap floor and ceiling is likely to tighten with an increasingly likely new labor agreement for 2011.

The offer made by the owners on March 11 included a commitment to spend 90 percent of the salary cap in cash. This would prevent teams from relying on “dead money” arising from trading or cutting players with large contracts in order to meet the minimum, and it would require all teams to spend a lot of money.

If this provision makes it into the final deal, it means that teams on the low side of the spending equation (and several were millions below what the cap floor would have been in 2010) will have to spend a lot of money in 2011.

If this happens, and the football gods seem to be happily warning it will soon, Team Glazer is going to be sitting on a mountain of money it will have to spend — literally many tens of millions of dollars this season.

The Bucs could dive into free agency to meet their new financial demands, but they could decide to find creative ways to extend deals of younger players with some up front cash and stick to their new stated core beliefs of building through the draft — call it the post-Haynesworth era.

Joe thinks of guys like Mike Williams, Legarrette Blount, Geno Hayes and others making peanuts by NFL standards, and Joe wonders whether the Bucs would rather reward those guys as their first option. 

As Joe has mentioned more than a few times, there is perhaps no more polarizing player on the Bucs roster than linebacker Barrett Ruud. Many Bucs fans crumble their empty beer cans and throw them at their dogs over frustration that Barrett Ruud is not Jack Lambert.

In short, Bucs fans want Ruud to play in a way that his coaches do not.

The subject of Barrett Ruud came up yesterday when Joe was listening to “Movin’ the Chains” heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio co-hosted by Pat Kirwan and Tim Ryan.

Kirwan brought up who the Giants would go for at linebacker: Barrett Ruud or Paul Posluszny. Kirwan noted that Ruud was a better fit for the Giants and Ryan was torn, but he finally admitted he likely would have Ruud as a Giants linebacker.

Now months ago, Joe thought about The Poz playing with the Bucs and quickly dismissed it. Not a good fit.

Since Joe didn’t go to a BCS conference school (Joe regrets not going to Illinois when he had the chance, only because Joe wishes he had a big time conference school to call his own when swilling beers on fall Saturday afternoons. Now, Joe is not ashamed where he graduated from, in particular Joe caught a current-day NFL coach trying to steal a keg from him), Joe had to pick and choose schools from various conferences to sort of call his own and watch and follow. Penn State is Joe’s Big Ten school of choice.

The Poz is Joe’s favorite college linebacker. Dude personifies a Penn State linebacker: strong, physical, mean, smart, ballhawk. He’s a beast! In three NFL seasons The Poz has damned near 400 tackles. Impressive.

But The Poz could not replace Ruud. The Poz has hasn’t played in a 43 defense since his breakout junior season at Happy Valley. His senior season, to take advantage of so many solid linebackers, Penn State defensive coordinator Scrap Bradley used a four-linebacker set.

So many Ruud supporters — Kirwan among them — stress that Ruud’s greatest attribute is calling plays and getting players in the proper position to make plays. Given how young the Bucs defense is, this is not a lost trait.

Given the fact The Poz hasn’t played in a 43 defense since Bobby Bowden was relevant, some five years ago, Joe cannot see how The Poz could pull off what Ruud pulled off in being the leader of the Bucs defense. He hasn’t played in a Cover-2 defense in six years and even then, Penn State didn’t play much Cover-2.

Selfishly, emotionally, Joe would love to see Posluszny play for the Bucs.

Thinking with a clear head, Joe knows The Poz couldn’t replace Ruud.

The obsessive stat geeks at ProFootballFocus.com have completed poring over endless NFL game film to come up with another one of their homemade stats: pass blocking efficiency.

Now Joe rarely takes their data too seriously, but it’s always interesting, sometimes useful, and at times shines a harsh or happy spotlight on a player.

Today, Jeff Faine gets their Sean Mahan award. Their pass blocking analysis tags entrepreur/captain Faine as the worst pass blocking center in the NFL by a significant margin in 2010. He played in eight games (24o passing blocking snaps). Yet Jeremy Zuttah checks in as the seventh best (443 snaps).

As for guards, Davin Joseph and Ted Larsen are ranked as the fourth and sixth worst, respectively.

Now that probably proves Raheem Morris’ line that stats are for losers. The Bucs finished 10-6, which is all that matters, and Josh Freeman wasn’t exactly running for his life all the time. 

But one has to wonder if Faine could find himself on the bench or off the Bucs. He earns five times Zuttah’s salary, is five years older, and simply may not be better. He’s certainly not as durable.

There’s no need for the Bucs to hurt their depth by cutting Faine, but would the captain embrace a reserve role?

Hat tip to the great Cork Gaines, curator, founder and chief guru over at JoeRaysFan.com/RaysIndex.com for this video.

Last night, Cork noted the maturing “bromance” between Raheem Morris and Joe Maddon, who are shown together following the Rays smothering of the Red Sux last night. There’s clearly love and admiration in both men’s eyes. Their relationship has been written about by Joe many times.

Hey, Raheem gets love all over town. On Monday, Joe brushed elbows with Raheem at a V.I.P. event in Palm Harbor. Raheem graciously accomodated fans’ autographs and pictures throughout the three hours Joe saw him there. He may even be challenging Mark Dominik for the rockstar tag.