One of the obstacles for rookies trying to jump off the bus running into the NFL is change. There’s a new town (far more often than not) to move to, new teammates become familiar with and most importantly, new coaches and likely a new scheme to learn.

Adapting to new coaches shouldn’t be much of a concern with Bucs rookie cornerback Johnthan Banks. While at Mississippi State, Banks had four different defensive coordinators. Banks told Joe yesterday after the first day of Bucs rookie school that change isn’t much of a bother to him.

“I can handle it. I am a grown man. Change is change. You just have to be able to handle it. I am a corner. Whatever they ask me to do, that’s what I will be willing to do no matter what it is.

“I think it is more mental than physical in his camp. [Mississippi State] Coach [Dan] Mullen is very similar in a lot of ways. Both are workaholics. I don’t think [training camp] will be [anything] I cannot handle.”

Banks has an interesting attitude. He’s sort of a quiet buy, but with loads of confidence. It’s not really cockiness, but confidence.

Joe knows many NFL types point to coaching changes as such a disruption that it takes many players a couple of years to fully ingrain themselves into a new scheme.

The fact that Banks has been able to do this four times in four years, when he was a kid, not an adult, and still excel speaks volumes to Joe that he is both a versatile and an intelligent player.

Rookie nose tackle Akeem Spence is somewhat Warren Sapp-like with his gift of gab.

No, Spence isn’t crazy arrogant like Sapp, not yet anyway. But Spence is fun and engaging, and  there’s almost always a giant smile plastered across his face.

Spence, however, sees another similarity to himself and the legendary No. 99, who enters the Pro Football Hall of Fame next month. Spence explained to Joe and other media yesterday.

“Like Warren Sapp, you know what I’m sayin’, we’re like the same built, same everything,” Spence said. “I try to mimic some of his stuff. But you know the scheme is kinda different, but I’m still trying to do it for the short guys around the league, man.”

Joe admits it’s hard not to want to slap a rookie fourth-round pick who dares to remotely compare himself to Sapp. Joe’s not sure if Spence realizes Sapp was a coveted first-round pick who ran a freakish 4.69 40 time at the NFL Scouting Combine. Spence chugged out a 5.15-second time.

Regardless, Joe can tell Spence, who stands 6-1, 207 pounds, is just excited, eager and yungry, rather than cocky and foolish.

Joe likes the attitude, and Joe will leave you with Spence’s take on the looming start of training camp.

“I know that first day we put on the pads its going to be intense. Scratch claw, do whatever, bust somebody’s butt, do whatever you gotta do,” he said.

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Bucs coach Greg Schiano spoke about losing kicker Connor Barth for the season as well as other subjects after the first day of Bucs Rookie School at One Buc Palace Thursday. Audio courtesy of the good people of WDAE-AM 620.

Bucs rookie Johnthan Banks is comfortable among reporters, and Joe’s proud partners at WDAE-AM 620 archived some Banks takes from practice yesterday at One Buc Palace. Listen below to Banks talk about getting targeted opposite Darrelle Revis, dealing with annual change at Mississippi State, and much more.

Yes, last January when the Bucs finished the 2012 season out of the playoffs, Bucs coach Greg Schiano stated he wanted competition at every position including that of inconsistent quarterback Josh Freeman.

Given the fact Freeman is now in the final year of his contract, many did the simple math and concluded Freeman was on thin ice. A few weeks later, at the NFL combine in frozen Indianapolis, Schiano confessed he may have misspoke and that under no uncertain terms, Josh Freeman was his guy [at least through the 2013 season].

Countless times since, Schiano, in one form or another, has reiterated his position: The Bucs have a starting quarterback and his name is Josh Freeman, though Schiano oddly re-kindled the Freeman fire in May when he told a national writer that rookie Mike Glennon could win the starting job.

But for reasons unknown, people don’t want to believe Schiano, even after third-round pick quarterback Glennon himself, stated this spring he is no where near ready to start in Mike Sullivan’s offense.

Apparently Paul Burmeister hasn’t caught Schiano’s repeated direct endorsements of Freeman, including one on NFL Network this month. While introducing a piece on the Bucs’ Rookie School last night on “Total Access,” Burmeister, an NFL Network anchor, said the following:

“Head coach Greg Schiano says he expects an open competition at quarterback between Josh Freeman and third round selection Mike Glennon.”

Open competition? Really?!

Joe immediately stood up from his leather couch. Joe was out at One Buc Palace yesterday, attended Schiano’s press conference and never heard him say anything about the quarterback position. Surely a solid outfit like NFL Network had a side interview with Schiano where he talked about how the quarterback position was open? But no. There was no sound byte from Schiano, no attribution from any publication or media outlet reporting this news, nothing. Only Glennon talking about how much he has learned since he was drafted by the Bucs.

Where exactly did Burmeister get this information, that the quarterback position was open? Joe has been at virtually every Schiano media appearance since that frigid day in central Indiana when Schiano admitted he may have given out the wrong vibe about Freeman. Not once has Schiano said the starting gig was up for grabs.

If Burmeister, and ostensibly NFL Network, is just making up fiction as they go along, what else is the network conning people with?

Look, Joe loves  NFL Network. Loves it. It is Joe’s go-to channel on TV. He watches it daily, easily more than any other channel. In fact, Joe was mocked on Twitter this week for watching NFL Network as opposed to the MLB All-Star Game or that shameless spread of feces from Los Angeles BSPN assaulted innocent Americas with Wednesday night.

Joe just cannot believe the NFL Network, the house organ of the NFL, would just fabricate something out of thin air that directly contradicts something an NFL coach has been preaching for months without any sound byte or attribution.

Either Burmeister is woefully ill-prepared when he goes on the air, or he and/or some producer at NFL Network has an agenda in order to generate fiction like this.

Joe’s not sure even BSPN would pull a stunt this low.

Bucs rookie nose tackle Akeem Spence, a projected starter by the New Schiano Order, entered the NFL as a workout warrior and a former champion competitive weightlifter. Spence is a chiseled 300-pounder, almost like a 6-1 lineman version of Doug Martin, so it’s safe to say Spence loves the gym.

So it was notable that Spence said today that he’s crafting his weight room work ethic by emulating Gerald McCoy.

“We can’t slack. I like to think of it like college. We pad-clean, we lift, we come out here and we run; we get it. You know what I’m saying. And I see Gerald [McCoy] in there working on off days and I say, ‘Hey, I gotta do what he do.'” Spence said. “You know what I’m saying. I wanna be where he at. So I’m trying to stay up.”

Doing a little more digging today, Joe learned that McCoy has, in fact, taken his body to new heights and is blowing the minds of Bucs officials with his intensity and drive following his Pro Bowl appearance.

As Bryan Cox explained this spring, McCoy may be a Pro Bowl player, but his task is much greater. He’s got to “bring some guys with him.”

When the Bucs drafted Mike James this spring, it didn’t seem like an earth-shattering move. After all, just how many times could he touch the ball in a game playing behind star Doug Martin?

After a few OTAs and a minicamp, James’ versatility shone through. So much so that the Hurricanes product and Polk County native began to be compared with former Bucs everyman Earnest Graham.

Learning this, it both humbled and motivated James.

“I heard through the grapevine [the comparison to Earnest Graham] and I have a great deal of respect for someone like him,” James said. “He is a great guy. It is an honor to have my name compared to him. He’s done so much for this community and this team. He’s a guy I looked up to as a kid. I went to so many of his games here. It is an honor. I hope I can follow in his footsteps.

“As a second string running back, there are opportunities everywhere. There are opportunities on special teams. I am just trying to take advantage of the opportunities.”

Rabid Bucs fans know how high praise that is for James to be brought up in the same breath as Graham, a true team player. And the comparison came from rockstar general manager Mark Dominik. There wasn’t a thing Graham wouldn’t do to help a team win: special teams, fullback, running back, whatever it took. May be the ultimate Bucs team player.

If James can be half the player Graham turned out to be, James will become an absolute steal of a sixth-round pick.

The leader of the New Schiano Order couldn’t hold back his grin on the podium at One Buc Palace this afternoon. Perhaps Greg Schiano had no interest in keeping a straight face.

Schiano was asked whether his famed conditioning test for each Bucccaneer prior to training camp was still on the docket for next week. Schiano grinned and said the “16 110s, yeah, the fellas are excited about it.”

Of course, Schiano was referring to the famous demand on each player to run 110-yard sprints — 16 of them — when they report to training camp.

Last season, a good handful of players failed, but Schiano said he was OK with that because everyone was still adjusting to a new regime. But Schiano was clear he expects a 100 percent success rate this year.

Schiano quipped today that summer is over. Joe suspects Bucs players won’t believe that line when they’re running in the humidity next week.

As Pat Kirwan says — the co-host and sage of “Movin’ the Chains,” heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio — whoever is going to play opposite of Bucs cornerback Robin Darrelle Revis is going to be targeted early and often by the likes of Drew Brees, Matty Ice and yes, even Cam Newton.

After the opening today of what Bucs coach Greg Schiano calls, “Rookie School,” Johnthan Banks talked about how if he wins the starting corner gig opposite of Revis, then he too expects to be in the forefront of opposing quarterback’s minds.

“I haven’t thought about it but just about anybody playing on the other side of Revis is going to get targeted a lot,” Banks said. “We are all human. We have to be ready for the job. It’s what we do: play football. It’s why [the Bucs] drafted me, to cover people. If it happens, it happens. I just have to be prepared.”

In other words, Banks (not in a cocky way, but a confident way) was saying, “Bring it on.”

Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik didn’t draft Banks to be a wallflower and just a special teams guy. And as one of Joe’s commenters noted earlier today, every quarterback picks on the weakest link of a defense’s backfield.

Look, everyone knows a good chuck of the Bucs’ success this year (or failure) rides on the shoulders of No. 5, Josh Freeman. The Bucs quarterback is at the crossroads of his career.

If he puts together a good season, he will return to the Bucs in 2014, likely a much, much, wealthier man and the Bucs will have a winning record and might be playoff tested.

While just about every football analyst points to Freeman as the linchpin to the season, Gregg Rosenthal sees the Bucs’ season through a different prism. The head honcho of NFL.com’s highly underrated “Around the League” blog, Rosenthal believes the Bucs’ fortunes do not center around Freeman but backup quarterback Mike Glennon, as he told his colleague Dan Hanzus in a recent NFL.com podcast.

“I think it is all about Mike Glennon. This is a rookie quarterback that has a chance to play this year. And I don’t mean Week 1. But I mean Week 12 if the Bucs are sitting there at 5-7 or maybe even Week 8 if they are at 3-5, something like that,” Rosenthal said. “I don’t think the preseason matters for many people, but it matters for rookie quarterbacks because that is all the coaches are going to see of Mike Glennon. So I am looking to see how he does in the preseason.

“I can’t decide if the Bucs are the cool team on the rise or the cool tam on the rise that everybody likes that will, well, just stink.”

Joe knows there are regular readers who are riding shotgun on the Mike Glennon bandwagon, but there simply is not enough alcohol for Joe to guzzle to connect dots that put Glennon starting at quarterback this season. That wouldn’t be for the Bucs in 2013.

If, as Rosenthal hinted, Glennon is starting, that means either Freeman is hurt or he is crapping the bed so awfully that Bucs coach Greg Schiano has benched him. There simply is no way — this season — that Glennon provides the Bucs with a better chance to win games than Freeman.

Is Glennon is starting, then it’s time to begin researching the draft.

Since the end of last season, former Bucs scout, Jets linebackers coach (under Monte Kiffin) and front office man Pat Kirwan has been banging the drum for Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik to sign free agent sackmeister John Abraham.

But it isn’t just the Bucs’ pass rush, largely unproven Kirwan believes, that has Kirwan suspicious.

He applauds Dominik for upgrading the secondary with Batman and Robin, but Kirwan is worried because the Bucs have, essentially, two starting strong safeties with Mark Barron and Batman Dashon Goldson, and the presence of Robin Darrelle Revis means one guy in the defensive backfield will be wearing a bulls-eye for opposing quarterbacks.

That would be cornerback Eric Wright, so Kirwan explained on “Movin’ the Chains,” the NFL-only talk show he co-hosts with Tim Ryan heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio.

“You know that Brees and Matt Ryan are going to throw the ball 35-40 times a game if they feel like it. And how are you going to stop that? They don’t have to throw to Darrelle Revis. They don’t have to go anywhere near him. There is plenty of opportunity to go to the other guys on that team.

“Eric Wright? They are going to work him over. He better be able to respond because they are coming that way. A lot.”

Joe would include rookie corner Johnthan Banks in that group as well. Joe sees where Kirwan is coming from; Whoever plays opposite of Revis — Wright or Banks — NFL quarterbacks, especially Matty Ice and Brees, are going to go after him time and time again until Banks/Wright can prove they can stop the pass.

Unless Revis is not 100 percent recovered from his knee surgery, no quarterback in his right mind will test Revis more than once or twice a game.

In other words, Wright looks to be a busy man this fall.

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Former Bucs guard Ian Beckles says general manager Mark Dominik is on a hotter seat than Greg Schiano, but Beckles says the Bucs taking a step backward in 2013 could sink the entire regime.

Bucs fans have had far too much time on their hands to agonize, analyze and speculate. It’s been a long but fun offseason filled with exciting change and great debates.

One hot topic has been the job security of rockstar general manager Mark Dominik versus Greg Schiano.

Some say Dominik has stocked the shelves for Schiano with gobs of Pro Bowl talent and a blend of young players on the rise and solid veterans in their prime. So Schiano must produce an improved team to survive. But others believe Dominik, not Schiano, is the one on the hot seat because the Bucs must become winners for him to earn a sixth season as GM.

Former Bucs guard Ian Beckles (1990-1996), co-host of Ron and Ian on WDAE-AM 620, said yesterday it is Dominik who owns the hotter seat. “Dominik has to prove himself,” said Beckles, who shared the same thought about Josh Freeman, citing Freeman’s 24-32 record. 

Beckles went on the clarify his position saying Schiano is “safe,” but only if 2013 finishes “headed in the right direction.”

In the coming weeks, Joe expects other media types to declare sides in this Dominik-Schiano debate.

Hot-seat chatter aside, Joe believes it is Schiano who has most to prove. One of the great X-factors of this season is Schiano’s performance as a game manager and a leader. Nobody really knows if Schiano can emerge as a winner in the NFL, whether his defense is the right fit, and whether he can prove better than division rivals Mike Smith or Sean Payton.

(You can catch the entire Beckles rant below) 

On paper, how could one argue the Bucs don’t have a shot to go from worst to first in the secondary?

With the additions of Batman and Robin and Johnthan Banks, the Bucs appear to have the strongest secondary in the NFC.

But as Pat Kirwan and Tim Ryan, co-hosts of “Movin’ the Chains,” heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio, reminded fans yesterday, games are not played on paper.

In fact, both expect the quarterbacks the Bucs will face this season, specifically Drew Brees and Matty Ice twice, to pick on the Bucs safeties time and again.

Last year, Mark Barron, a rookie, played more of a free safety partially because Ronde Barber was more of a run-stopper. But Barron was picked on in deep passes and clearly showed he is more of a bone-rattling hitter in traffic. Ryan and Kirwan believe the Bucs now have two strong safeties and no free safeties as Batman is susceptible to deep passes as well. Both suggested that’s an invitation for opposing quarterbacks to throw deep early and often Bucs.

Tim Ryan: Mark Barron said in a recent interview that he will be playing more in the box, defending the run. A rover style, doing different things. The report also noted that Dashon Goldson would be playing a deep middle player and more as a free safety. Talk about that a little bit because if anything, Dashon Goldson is a box safety. Talk about it.

Pat Kirwan: It’s very hard to play in the NFL game that is in front of us, today, the kind that we currently see on the television screens, with two strong safeties. So that sounds like a description of two strong safeties. Now, if that was because they were limited to those skill sets, then they are in trouble. Who is the deep hole player?

Ryan: Look, Goldson is terrific. He will rock you and will come up and hit it and get tipped balls and get the interceptions. But he is also better six-to-16 yards level one and two in the passing game. Anything deep, he has some challenges there, now.

Kirwan: Well, they have to be careful with how they play this. Now some teams will play this with some kind of a read look with the two safeties playing in a Cover-2 look and then if the flow comes there way they come in late…

Ryan: A late insert.

Kirwan: … so if you want to play that kind of stuff because you want to get aggressive and the other guy is over the top a little bit, OK. But you can’t feature both guys if they are both strong safeties. Someone has to play the deep middle and both of them have to be good half-field players. That is Cover-2 and quarters. We don’t live in a world where you can bring both in the box. Who is bringing a safety into the box on one-man sets?

Ryan: Nobody.

Kirwan: Zero people. You want to tell me during your dime look one of these guys or both of them are going to play up closer and different kind of guys playing behind them, maybe something creative there. But the world of two strongs, how are you going to line up and match up against guys with empty sets? Those are strong safeties, that’s how you see them? Good. No-back sets, one-back sets? It turns it into a dinosaur position. Nice if someone accommodates you with a two-man set and you want to play that game? Great. When I hear two strong safeties the only way I feel good about it is if the team is a two-back system and the quarterback is not a great thrower. And there’s not a lot of that in the NFL. So, I don’t know. I think Barron can play a little bit of deep stuff and I think Goldson is just going to have to get it. But quarterbacks will figure it out. They will figure out how to get you to fire a guy in the box when they want. I am more inclined the Drew Breeses of the world are going to come out there and play empty sets and one-back sets and isolate these guys.

Now this is a very interesting thought. It’s almost as if the Bucs are going to try to somehow coerce teams to play smashmouth football, and this is the wrong division to do that.

Maybe the Bucs figure Robin will get thrown at so few times, he can help on coverage deep over the middle?

Buccaneers single game tickets went on sale today at 10 a.m. for all games and a somewhat strange alert has popped up on Ticketmaster.com.

A yellow exclamation point appears next to the words “NOT MANY LEFT” directly below listings of games against the Saints, Eagles and Dolphins.

Upon deeper review, tickets are moving significantly for those games. The Saints game is the Sept. 15 home-opener. The Bucs haven’t had one of those televised locally since 2009.

Joe sure hopes it’s Bucs fans doing the buying, versus fans of those hated rivals.

Regardless, it doesn’t matter. Ticket sales are always a good thing, and Joe’s very happy for the local couch potato Bucs fans who shun shady Internet feeds of blacked out games.

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Per the Buccaneers’ official Twitter feed, kicker Conner Barth is out for the year due to a non-football injury.

As a result, the Bucs have signed former Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes.

@TBBuccaneers: Connor Barth will be placed on non-football injury list. Lawrence Tynes was the NFL’s 2nd-leading scorer in 2012 and a Pro Bowl alternate.

Joe also has learned the injury is an Achilles. Apparently, the injury occurred during a charity basketball game.

The signing of Tynes is key. He was absolutely clutch in playoff games during both of the Giants’ Super Bowl-winning seasons under Tom Coughlin. Frankly, for Joe, you likely couldn’t find a better replacement.

UPDATE: Joe is pasting the following paragraphs straight from a press release issued by the Bucs on Barth’s injury. The injury was to Barth’s kicking leg.:

“We are disappointed to lose a productive player like Connor, but are very fortunate to be able to sign an experienced kicker at this time of year,” Buccaneers General Manager Mark Dominik said. “Lawrence and his agent, Ken Harris, had other standing opportunities, but we are pleased that they thought this was the right place for Lawrence to continue his career.”

Barth tore his right Achilles tendon while playing in a charity basketball game with other NFL players on Friday.  The sixth-year veteran had successful surgery to repair the injury on Monday but is not expected to return to the field season.  Barth, who was heading into the second year of a four-year contract extension signed last offseason, has made a team-record 84.3 percent of his field goal attempts since signing with the Buccaneers midway through the 2009 season.  In 2011, he set a single-season franchise record by making 26 of 28 tries for a success rate of 92.9 percent.

Longtime Buccaneer running back Earnest Graham offered strong takes on his former teammate, Josh Freeman.

Some, including Greg Schiano, say quarterbacks get too much credit and/or too much blame.

Some believe quarterbacks are given way too much responsibility for a team’s winning and losing.

Former Bucs running back Earnest Graham isn’t one of those guys.

Speaking on The Sports Page on WDAE-AM 620 yesterday, Graham said because Josh Freeman has so many established, premium weapons around him and a vastly improved defense “we’re all going to be looking at the quarterback and that’s how it should be in this game. The quarterback is the leader of the team.”

Graham said Freeman’s 2013 success will be determined by his mental state and execution.

“In the NFL it’s a game that’s so challenging, that, you know, the thing that we look at that we can’t see is inside somebody’s head,” Graham said. “You know what I mean. You can look at a guy that has all the intangibles, the size, the arm, can move with his feet, but what are the adjustments he makes upstairs? That’s what we gotta find out from Josh.”

Graham says he believes Freeman can finish games and be strong mentally. Freeman “was just a cool operator down the stretch [in 2010],” Graham said. “but we were terrible at starting games. That all came down to focus and attention to detail early on.”

For those who like to wager, Graham said he’s confident the Bucs will start 2013 very strong. But he’s most concerned with how Freeman reacts to adjustments made by other teams and how Freeman maintains his focus. “Josh can drift a little bit,” said Graham, who clarified that saying Freeman has “issues with focus at times.” (You can catch the entire Graham interview below.)

When some Buccaneers failed their welcome-to-training-camp conditioning test last year, Greg Schiano said he wasn’t surprised. Stuff like that happens with new expectations from a new regime, Schiano said.

However, Schiano also made it clear that he expected absolutely no failures in future seasons.

That pressure apparently struck fear in the heart and a rumble in the gut of Donald Penn, who isn’t known for being a picture of fitness. Penn took to Twitter yesterday to explain that he was unnerved by the start of training camp but isn’t anymore.

@DPenn70 – I’m so scared of our conditioning test but guess what I just did it n passed it now I ain’t worried bout nothing camp here I come

The Bucs’ conditioning tests — and expected results — vary for different body types. Nobody expects Penn to be Vincent Jackson.

It will be interesting to see how many, if any, returning Bucs fail to hit the New Schiano Order fitness standards. That might be tolerated from a rookie or someone new to the organization, but not from anyone else.

eye-RAH! Kaufman of The Tampa Tribune senses Bucs fans will not be outraged by missing the playoffs this season.

In some NFL cities excellence is not a hope; it’s demanded by the local fanbase.

Though Joe thinks the NFC East is annually the most overrated, overhyped division, Joe has heard the saying that teams in those divisions cannot undergo rebuilding phases because an outraged fanbase would not tolerate such a move. And it was tried, that team’s front office types would not be able to walk the streets without being ringed by armed bodyguards.

The great eye-RAH! Kaufman of The Tampa Tribune seemed to imply that because Bucs fans are more laid back than those in other cities that have had NFL teams for nearly a century, a sense of urgency to win in Tampa is not as heightened, so he said Tuesday while appearing on “The Opening Drive” co-hosted by Bob Papa and Amani Toomer and heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio.

“I think they can win 10 games and not make the playoffs. They play in such a tough division. And you know what? There’s not a Bucs fan in the world that’s going to complain,” Kaufman said. “Expectations tend to be low here. They haven’t won a playoff game since they won the Super Bowl. I mean, that’s a long time. They haven’t been in a playoff game in five years, so, you know, most people would say, ‘Eh, 8-8 is a good season.’

“This is not New York with the Giants or in New England where you go 9-7 and it’s a horrible season. So, you know, Bucs fans are cautiously optimistic.”

Good, bad or indifferent, it does seem as if Bucs fans don’t have that burning anger in them that some fanbases have. In other words, they are more civilized.

Years ago Joe watched a Steelers game at the old Three Rivers Stadium and witnessed two Pittsburgh fans getting into a fistfight over Jerome Bettis (the fracas was partially ignited when Steelers fan-A inadvertently whipped Steelers fan-B in the face with a swinging Terrible Towel).

Can you imagine two Bucs fans getting into a fistfight over Mike Alstott? Of course not.

Does Kaufman have a point that the Bucs may have double-digit wins and not make the playoffs? Joe has written that countless times. Is the Bucs fanbase so passive they don’t pressure the Bucs to change their ways? Joe’s not ready to go there.

Team Glazer fired Chucky after back-to-back winning seasons citing fans not feeling good about the team. And just looking at how Bucs fans wanted Raheem Morris incarcerated showed Joe the impatience Bucs fans have for ineptitude.