Photo courtesy of Tampa Bay Buccaneers

With the free agency dinner bell ringing in 13 short days, allow Joe to remind Bucs fans of that famous Lovie Smith quote from January 2014:

“Just as a general rule, you know there’s a reason why there is a salary cap.  And we want to use all of our resources to get as many good football players in here. It’s kind of as simple as that. We want to be right up; we don’t want to have a lot of money in reserves. No one does. I mean you want to use money to get as many good football players. And it takes money to get good football players in here. So that’s our approach.” [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 and Josh McCown.

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]

What will Lovie find?

It’s always worth noting when NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport is talking because he’s got a direct pipeline to every coach and general manager in the league.

And since Rapoport works for the NFL, he’s not going to get blown off or told to jump in a sewer. [read more]

Will Bucs DC Leslie Frazier be smiling with an upgraded secondary this fall?

Lost in the talk of the Bucs finally getting their franchise quarterback is that there are other areas on the team that need help, too. This may come as a surprise for a team that was 2-14. [read more]

Phil Simms doesn’t give a damn about Jameis Winston’s picks.

Just about the only thing the anti-Jameis Winston crowd can hang their hat on when it comes to Winston’s on-field exploits is his picks this past season. No, 18 picks is not good.

Joe already detailed that this may be overblown. Not included in that link is Matt Ryan, playing in the ACC like Winston, had 19 picks his senior season. [read more]

It was time again for the notable JoeBucsFan Hour, when Joe joins the dean of Tampa Bay sports radio, Steve “The Big Dog” Duemig, every Tuesday at 5 p.m on WDAE-AM 620.

All kinds of stuff was on the docket, including chatter from Joe’s visit to the NFL Scouting Combine, a losing wager, and more. [read more]

Former standout University of Colorado quarterback Joel Klatt, who also played professional baseball, is one of the more unsung analysts around. Joe’s definitely a fan of his work on FOX Sports 1.

Klatt continues to be in disbelief at what he considers a misinformation campaign when it comes to the 2015 NFL Draft. [read more]

King explained how the Bucs could avoid “major surgery”

Once a year, Joe touches base to talk Bucs with one of the more plugged in NFL writers in national circles, and that would be pickpocket-thwarting, Bucs-uniform-frowning, Allie-LaForce-smitten, Big-Ten-Network-hating, pedestrian-bumping, olive oil-lapping, popcorn-munching, coffee-slurping, fried-chicken-eating, oatmeal-loving, circle-jerking, beer-chugging, cricket-watching, scone-loathing, college football-naïve, baseball-box-score-reading, NPR-listening, filthy-hotel-staying, fight-instigating, barista-training Peter King, of Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports fame. [read more]

One of the more soft spoken voices on NFL Network is former running back great Terrell Davis.

But the 2014 Tampa Bay Buccaneers seemed to horrify Davis and get a rise out of him. [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 and Josh McCown.

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]

Former Bucs great Derrick Brooks wields influence at One Buc Palace.

Few folks living in the Tampa Bay area are held in higher esteem than Derrick Brooks, a man who helped start and run a high school, a man of many charitable endeavors and a man who is as clean cut and above board as anyone. [read more]

The free agency dinner bell rings in 14 short days

Early last preseason, Lovie Smith and Jason Licht advised Bucs fans to stop panicking about poor offensive line play.

The rest is history. The Bucs’ leaders, one could say, panicked themselves a few weeks later and made a deal with the devil. [read more]

Bucs GM Jason Licht weighs in

So what do Bucs officials really think of the performance of big-money cornerback Alterraun Verner, who was part of last year’s free-agency frenzy? [read more]

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Mike Tomlin might understand Lovie Smith’s often forgotten statement

In many ways, Tampa Bay’s 2014 season was more bizarre than the MRSA-infected, quarterback-gone-mental, Fire-Schiano-billboards campaign of 2013.

There were plenty of real Bucs mysteries last year, and Joe’s revisiting the most interesting of the bunch. [read more]

Upon arriving to the baggage pickup at Indianapolis International Airport, you are quickly reminded why you traveled to Indiana in the dead of winter.

So Joe survived frozen Indianapolis. For a few minutes there last week, that wasn’t a sure thing.

Joe grew up three hours from Indianapolis and went to college two hours away. Never has Joe been so cold. Wednesday was simply brutal.

The charm of Indianapolis, aside from so many craft beer houses within a couple of blocks of each other, is the labyrinth of skyways connecting buildings and hotels, where one could work in Indianapolis for a week and never have to step outside.

Sadly, Lucas Oil Stadium is not connected but is across the street from the Indiana Convention Center (nee: Hoosier Dome), a main hub of the skywalk maze. Joe’s hotel was on the outskirts of downtown, about a half-hour walk from Lucas Oil, maybe 10 minutes of which is walking inside the Indiana Convention Center.

Joe was so bundled up even while walking through the convention center, he didn’t notice a man who called out, “Alright, Joe!” The voice was that of Lovie Smith. [read more]

The chorus of NFL insiders claiming Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston has charmed the Bucs into selecting the former Heisman Trophy winner No. 1 overall continues to grow.

This time, the missive is from Maoist Michael Silver of NFL.com and NFL Network. He, too, had an all-access badge to get behind the curtains of the NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. [read more]

A Dunedin dentist once left Joe’s mouth all screwed up and screaming for pain medication and Valium.

Joe never returned to that dentist. [read more]

Maybe it is because Peter King of theMMQB.com wrote about it this morning, but Joe is starting to see a brushfire beginning to grow about Jameis Winston and baseball.

Yes, for those who aren’t familiar, Winston is a baseball pitcher. And a damned good one. His Florida State ERA last season was 1.08 and he had a strikeout/walk ratio of 31/7, and a fastball often clocked in the mid-90s. [read more]

What exactly was Jameis Winston talking about Saturday on NFL Network? [read more]