Always good for numbers that get Bucs fans worked up, ESPN shared yesterday, via Pat Yasinskas, that Tampa Bay has $28.2 million under the salary cap.

That’s the third most available dough in the league. [read more]

Whaddya know, the famous Gruden QB Camp makes its 2015 debut on ESPN2 tonight at 7 p.m.

Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota is the opening episode, which lets you know just how uninteresting the session will be. [read more]

To hear some, Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota is easily a No. 1 overall pick and is fighting with Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston to be selected by the Bucs later this month. [read more]

The Bucs were busy with Boston College linebacker Josh Keyes

The rumor is true: Buccaneers scouts and personnel people are busy with something other than searching the globe for viable offensive lineman. [read more]

Pushing Jameis Winston for a starting gig?

Barring Jameis Winston doing something really, really, really stupid in the next three weeks (Joe hopes his family has him locked up at home), it would be a shock beyond words if the Bucs don’t draft Winston No. 1 overall the night of April 30. [read more]

The MRSA saga of commander Greg Schiano’s days won’t go away.

With Schiano relegated to part-time TV work, one of the three Tampa Bay players known to have contacted MRSA in 2013, Lawrence Tynes, has slapped the Bucs with a $35 million lawsuit for lost potential earnings and damages. [read more]

“I’m the only rock star around these parts, pal.”

Regular readers know Joe coined the phrase “rock star general manager” to describe former Bucs GM Mark Dominik.

He got that moniker for two reasons: When the Bucs were winning and pushing for the playoffs in 2010, virtually every national media outlet wanted to talk to Dominik. And he obliged. It was as if he was the rock star of the NFL the way folks wanted to rub elbows with him. [read more]

Lovie Smith thought ghostly, ghastly Michael Johnson was a double-digit sack guy.

Greg Schiano claimed Da’Quan Bowers was double-digit sackmaster.

Raheem Morris regretted not lobbying for his favorite double-digit sack machine. [read more]

“You better be ready.”

The NFL draft will begin in a little over three weeks. Damn, this reminds Joe of the old “Hot for Teacher” video Van Halen put out in the mid-1980s, when David Lee Roth held up an hourglass, stared into the camera and said, “Aw man, I think the clock is slow.”

(These idjits, they book their Tampa show on their 2015 tour on the first Sunday of the NFL season. Son. Of. A. … ) [read more]

Time is ticking on the Lovie Smith regime. That’s just NFL reality. [read more]

The Bucs worked out Penn State safety Adrian Amos.

Joe knows fans read this all the time: So-and-so worked out for (insert team name).

You read this so often this time of the year you get numb to it. Sort of like local meteorologists forecasting a hot Florida summer afternoon, or hearing Josh McCown turned the ball over. [read more]

Tampa Bay can’t just make Band-Aid moves on their offensive line, they must groom it for the long term and Jameis Winston’s rise to prominence.

Finding a replacement for Logan Mankins should be a priority. [read more]

Joe talked to Andy Reid, Steve Keim, Jason Licht and others about building an offensive line.

Developing a sound offensive line is getting harder and harder.

Gimmick college offenses haven’t prepared players. Better athletes are playing defensive line. Teams dump offensive coordinators every couple of years. And leaguewide impatience has taken its toll on a position that demands time on many fronts. [read more]

Sacks seem to be an issue.

Since the end of the college football season, the spreadsheeters over at ProFootballFocus.com have updated their Excel programs and tapped away at their keyboards inputing data to determine the best players in the 2015 NFL draft. [read more]

Herm Edwards talks about his friend Lovie Smith

Among NFL head coaches in Year 1 of their programs last year, Lovie Smith had a rough time.

Some, like Mike Zimmer, Mike Pettine and Bill O’Brien, managed to advance their franchises. [read more]

The Bucs seem pleased Jameis Winston is losing his pitching-motion-like football delivery

Of course, Jameis Winston haters threw all sorts of mean words at him when the Bucs won the Chase for Jameis with the worst record in the NFL.

One slur was “Leftwich.”

That came because Winston had somewhat baseball-like windup in his release. Understandable because Winston is also a pitcher, and a damned impressive one. [read more]

Caution: This is another in a long series about the offensive line of the Bucs. Naturally, it is not pleasant. Read at your own peril.

So as it stands, the rotten Tampa Bay offensive line is no better. Last seen, it was so frightening Freddie Krueger had an accident in his pants watching it. [read more]

Joe knows that not everyone had a chance to watch Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston throw. Not everyone could blow off work to watch his entire pro day on NFL Network last week.

Likewise, not everyone remembered to DVR the program. Or they had better things to do when the pro day was rebroadcast. That is why Joe has your back. [read more]

The Bucs’ new cornerback talks about his free agency experience

The journey into free agency is different for every player.

The range of emotions can be great. [read more]

Mark Dominik weighs in after Josh Freeman’s re-emergence.

The gloves have come off. Not all the way, but they’re getting there.

Former Bucs rockstar general manager Mark Dominik was pressed to answer the question, “What went wrong with Josh Freeman?” [read more]

Crab-legs-stealing, BB-gun-shooting, obscenity-hollering, Heisman-Trophy-winning, former national champion Jameis Winston, the pride of Florida State University, continues to look like a much better quarterback prospect than Mike Glennon.

It’s Joe’s daily nugget on the Jameis Watch, celebrating the best quarterback ever to wear No. 5 in the state of Florida. [read more]

A drunk in a bar couldn’t have picked a worse draft than what the Bucs did in 2007, highlighted by DE Gaines Adams.

With the draft less than four weeks away, it is hard to think about anything else. Especially when the Bucs are hurting more for a quarterback than any team in the NFL — and the best one, Jameis Winston, is there for the taking. [read more]