So what is Josh Freeman doing late on a Friday night?

Well, per Dan Orlovsky’s comments on the Buccaneers Radio Newtwork yesterday, Freeman and Orlovsky sit down with Ron Turner for a weekly test.

Orlovsky said Turner will quiz them on base plays in the Bucs offense, “On this play versus this defense, what are you doing?” Orlovsky explained. Third down and red zone questions are also testing categories, as are alerts and reads installed for a specific game earlier that week.

Joe found this to be interesting insight. Orlovsky didn’t elaborate on how the QBs perform in testing.

After listening to Orlovsky, and knowing of Freeman’s routine, Joe can safely say that work ethic is not an issue with the Bucs’ quarterbacks.

If Joe wrote for the Buccaneers’ official team “Captain’s Blog,” Joe would toss around all kinds of phrases like “internal data.” That sounds awfully cool.

And Scott Smith did just that in an analysis of Donald Penn’s greatness yesterday. Smith dove into Penn’s 2012 season and the performance of the offensive line.

However, according to internal data, Penn has been personally responsible for allowing only 3.5 sacks this season.  That’s a fine number made all the more impressive by the fact that he has faced a killer lineup of pass-rushing ends and 3-4 linebackers this season, from Jared Allen to John Abraham to DeMarcus Ware to Greg Hardy to Von Miller.  Those pass-rushers haven’t come off the left edge on every single snap, but Penn was certainly played a big part in the overall effort to slow them down.

And he’s a big part in the team’s ability to allow just 19 sacks all season while propelling rookie RB Doug Martin to instant superstar status.  The Bucs have not allowed fewer than 30 sacks in a season since 2003, and Martin has already broken the team’s rookie rushing records with 1,234 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Penn also was quoted explaining how offensive line coach Bob Bostand is a technique freak and what that’s meant to the versatility of the offensive line.  Definitely click through above to read more.

It hasn’t been Penn’s finest season, but it’s been another strong one for sure. And Penn hasn’t missed a start since the middle of 2007. Joe thinks Bucs fans should take pause this morning and appreciate how lucky the team is to have Penn. Through all the past years of fat bashing, Penn consistently has been an exceptional, durable player.

In this ESPN video (you’d think Mothership Disney would invest in a better camera), NFC South blogger Pat Yasinskas talks about Sunday’s Bucs-Saints matchup and rolls out scary data about both teams’ YAC (yards after catch) allowed.

It’s amazing that the Bucs are allowing only five fewer yards per game than in 2011. It’s a stat that seems almost impossible given how spectacular the current Bucs are against the run and how the Raheem regime made second rate running backs look like Hall of Famers, from Ryan Torain to Maurice Morris, Jason Snelling and beyond.

But what’s even more sobering is that the Bucs are on pace to have the statistically worst secondary in NFL history, so reports ESPN NFC South blogger Pat Yasinskas.

A record they don’t want: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are allowing 311.6 passing yards per game. At that pace, they would give up 4,986 passing yards by the end of the season, which would be an NFL record. The current record was set last season when the Green Bay Packers gave up 4,796 yards.

Joe’s going to play math geek here and re-arrange the ESPN data. Bucs opponents over the next three games only need an average of 249 passing yards per game to give the Bucs the dubious honor of the most porous secondary in league history.

Ouch!

This mark shouldn’t stain Ronde Barber’s Hall of Fame credentials, but it sure could offer ammunition to a contrary Hall voter when Barber’s name comes before the voting committee one day.

Also, Joe has to believe Bucs’ cornerback play must at least improve soon, otherwise there’s going to be a warm seat under defensive backs coach Ron Cooper come January.

Remember how the Bucs coughed up a lead to the Giants in the fourth quarter? How about the Dixie Chicks? Perhaps the Redskins? Maybe the choke job to the Beagles is still fresh in your memory?

Oh, and didn’t Drew Brees have his way with the awful Bucs secondary in the fourth quarter?

Well, Joe may have some salve for those wounds. In recent weeks, the Saints may be playing worse in the fourth quarter than the Bucs, difficult as that may be to fathom.

This information is sent via the interwebs by Mike Triplett of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. In the past six weeks, the Saints have been outscored 43-6 in the fourth quarter.

Quarterback Drew Brees has particularly struggled late in games. His fourth-quarter passer rating of 66.6 ranks 33rd in the NFL among all quarterbacks with at least 34 passing attempts.

Brees has completed 54 percent of his passes in the fourth quarter with four touchdowns and six interceptions.

Of course, those numbers are skewed by the fact that Brees has been playing catch-up in a lot of fourth quarters, throwing several desperation interceptions. Regardless, the performance hasn’t been anywhere near his usual standard.

Joe wants to be confident, wants to believe that with the Bucs’ potent offense (provided quarterback Josh Freeman is having a “good-Josh” day) and the rotten Saints defense and the trend the Saints have established, that the Bucs can win if they need a couple of scores late in the game. And maybe even keep whatever faint hopes of a playoff berth alive.

Then Joe quickly flashes back to a Bucs’ pass defense that that has played so terribly of late it would have a struggle stopping Robinson High School’s passing attack.

In his weekly exclusive video for JoeBucsFan.com readers, veteran Ch. 10 sportscaster Dave Wirth wants fans to keep their perspective on this Bucs season, and he talks about how the New Schiano Order needs to avoid “limping” against the Saints and into 2013.

On two key 3rd-and-long scenarios in the Bucs’ tight loss to New Orleans in October, Tampa Bay threw three-man rushes at Drew Brees and were carved up by the immortal Saints wide receiver Lance Moore. And there were other occasions that day when the three-man rush didn’t work

The Brees three-man rush was only slightly less heinous than the two-man rush rolled out against Atlanta, which led to Matt Ryan comfortably tossing a 20-yard pass for a first down.

Greg Schiano said he has learned a lesson when it comes to the Saints.

“[Brees] is so good at seeing what you’re doing. We’re going to have disguise better than we did. And, you know, one thing he did is when we gave him a three-man rush, he held the football. And you know, young guys maybe sometimes don’t get that, but obviously this guy, he’s as experienced and as good as there is. And you know, third down, he just, that was a real weakness in the first game,” Schiano said on the Buccaneers Radio Network on Monday.

That sure sounds like Schiano knows his coaching missed the mark in the last Saints game. Joe severely doubts there wasn’t a truckload of film available entering that game showing how Brees reacted to a three-man rush.

Schiano went on to say his primary concern for Sunday is the Bucs’ red zone defense and third-down success. The Saints converted 60 percent of third downs in Tampa.

Tired of being a football loser? Looking for entertaining and educational fun? Joe’s got just the afternoon for you.

Circle your calendar. The classy Tradewinds Cruise Lines and The Big Dog, Steve Duemig, of WDAE-AM 620, are hosting super handicapper Todd Fuhrman, the former oddsmaker at renowned Caesars Palace, on Saturday, December 15. Fans can enjoy Fuhrman’s handicapping seminar where he will break down EVERY bowl game, the next day’s NFL games, and much more. The ship sails from John’s Pass Village in Madeira Beach into international waters, where you can wager legally in the sports book on board!!!

The cost is only $10 for the cruise and seminar! A sweet buffet lunch is just an extra 10 bucks.

Reservations are required. Multiple parking options are available. Click above or call (727)-394-1000 today.

The Tradewinds ship also boasts an exciting array of Vegas-Style table games, including slots, Blackjack, Roulette and poker.

Veteran Tampa Tribune scribe Woody Cummings has uncovered that Michael Bennett is sending messages via hula dance. Rather than pull a pineapple from his pants after a sack, Bennett decided that a quick hula following one of his two sacks Sunday against Philadephia was the best way to help him get a ticket to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl.

Bennett told Cummings he deserves to be mentioned among the elite defensive ends and offseason work helped him get there.

“I worked on a lot of little things,” Bennett said. “I did a lot of yoga and some boxing to help get a little leaner and just worked on my pass rush skills a lot, anything to get that extra edge.”

Pro Bowl voting ends Monday for fans, and players and coaches vote next week. It’s one of the NFL’s stupidest policies, to have the Pro Bowl chosen with two games remaining.

Joe doubts Bennett will make it, unless he can crank out another big game Sunday in New Orleans. There’s so much political BS and popularity-contest nonsense associated with a Pro Bowl nod, Joe doubts Bennett has caught enough attention — even with the dance.

Dallas Clark has been a big part of the Bucs passing game the past month.

In recent years, the tight end position was too much of a target for the Bucs and quarterback Josh Freeman. With selfish Kellen Winslow always barking for the ball, Freeman telegraphed passes to him on virtually every other pass play worse than Samuel Morse.

This became a problem for several reasons. One, the zebras were always looking for Winslow to push off with his fading skills and, sometimes, there were phantom calls. Second, Freeman was forcing passes to Winslow when he was double-covered if not triple-covered.

Third, Joe remembers Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik saying in Greg Schiano’s interview with Dominik and Team Glazer the very first words out of the coach’s mouth were that Freeman was forcing way too many passes to Winslow.

If a college coach could see this, so to did the most inept of defensive coordinators.

So when Winslow was jettisoned, Freeman all but was forced to wean himself from throwing to the tight end. But that has changed recently, so writes Nathan Jahnke of ProFootballFocus.com.

Over the past four weeks, the Buccaneers have worked on making the tight end a bigger part of their offense. Over the first nine games the Tampa Bay tight ends averaged 3.9 targets per game, but over the past four that has increased to 7.8. In fact, 46% of Dallas Clark’s targets and 53.8% of Luke Stocker’s targets have come in the past four weeks.

Now this is good and this is bad. The good comes in when Clark is targeted. In recent weeks, Clark has shown he still has the goods to be an effective receiver. The bad is Stocker. Now Joe has nothing against Stocker in any way shape or form. It just seems as if Stocker will always struggle to be an average tight end. He has a bad case of the dropsies at the very wrong times (is there a right time to have the dropsies?) and seems to be more of a blocker than a receiver.

Joe wouldn’t be surprised if the Bucs go after a tight end with, oh, say their third-round pick in April.

Joe has a hunch just about every Bucs fan knows what position Dominik will draft with his first round pick.

Saints interim coach Joe Vitt suggests his team look to the Bucs as a model team that has adjusted in the face of adversity.

Even with all the drama of bountygate, which bored Joe about three hours after the furor started last offseason, Joe was certain the Saints would make a run at the Super Bowl.

With all the weapons Drew Brees has, how could they not be a contender? Well, they have become a has-been, out of the playoffs even as December approached.

Saints interim coach Joe Vitt won’t put up with any excuse-making for his Saints and gave the Tampa Bay pen and mic club an earful yesterday when it was suggested all the bountygate nonsense doomed the club.

Vitt went on a wonderful rant and invoked the Bucs as a standard for his team to look up to in adversity.

“You are right; I’m not going to make excuses. We have to play the hand we are dealt. We have known since April exactly what the hand is, hey listen, we had a tough offseason. Drew’s not in training camp, Sean is not here. The early suspension of myself and Mickey [Loomis], it was one of those years.

“You guys know this as much as I do; you have been around a while. If you lean on excuses for failure, you are not long for this league. This league is what you have done for me lately. The fact of the matter is we are not protecting the ball like we need to protect the ball. We are not taking away big plays on defense like we need to take big plays away on defense right now.

“Instead of worrying about the things that you can’t control, you better start worrying about the things you can control and you better protect the football and better stop giving up big plays on defense. And we better start doing a better job on our coverage units. At the end of the day, listen, these excuses will not come into effect but we will be held accountable. No one is getting a mulligan around here including myself. I have to do a better job and I will be held accountable.

“Hey, we are getting ready to play an improved football team this week in Tampa Bay. They run the ball well. They play great run defense. They are doing a great job of protecting their young quarterback. Nobody is giving Tampa Bay a mulligan for losing a couple of starters on their offensive line. Listen, it is what it is.”

The way Joe sees this game, the Bucs must run the ball at the Saints. Given the Saints less than stout rush defense, this is tailor-made for a big game from the Muscle Hamster. Huge day.

And when the Bucs run the ball, that means Drew Brees isn’t slicing up the Bucs’ embattled secondary.

From Preston Parker in preseason, to Michael Smith on opening day, to Arrelious Benn (remember him?) to LeQuan Lewis, and Tiquan Underwood last week, it’s been a long and subpar season of returning kicks for the Bucs.

Today, Greg Schiano said Underwood will be the guy on Sunday after not much to judge against the Eagles. Underwood’s best effort was a return to the Eagles’ 23 yard line from deep in the end zone.

This isn’t very exciting news, but it does all but ensure that Smith will again captain the inactive list.

Joe was just fine with then-suspended Aqib Talib getting shipped to the Patriots at the trading deadline — even if Shaun King says that meant the Bucs quit on the 2012 season.

But given how desperate the Bucs are at cornerback, and how much crappy cornerback play has kept the Bucs from a winning record, and how tight Greg Schiano and Bill Belichick are, it’s interesting to note Talib’s impact since arriving in New England.

Boston Herald Pats beat writer Jeff Howe dove into the Talib effect in a feature yesterday that focused on Bill Belichick ditching his normal philosophy in order to have Talib shadow Texans receiver Andre Johnson on Monday night.

“The 6-foot-3, 230-pound Johnson still caught four passes for 58 yards while the 6-1, 205-pound Talib was in the game, so it wasn’t close to perfect. But it was about the Patriots’ attitude and aggressiveness, pitting a veteran on a veteran and protecting a 5-10, 200-pound rookie from a difficult matchup. …

“I thought Aqib did a good job,” Belichick said. “I think he’s done a good job for us. He works hard. I really like him. I like the way he prepares. I like the way he competes.

“As far as the (one-on-one) matchups go, we’ve done that from time to time. It depends on what the matchups are, what the game plan is. We can do it or we cannot do it. I don’t think it’s that big of a thing.”

Again, Joe was on board with the Talib trade. It was a sound move. Talib absolutely could not be counted on. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not stomach-churning painful to wonder what Sunday’s outcome against the Eagles would have been if Talib was wearing red.

Count on Josh Freeman being a Buccaneer for many more years, says former Bucs quarterback Shaun King, who now works as an NFL analyst on NBC Sports Network.

One of only three Bucs quarterbacks to lead the team to the NFC Championship, King said on WDAE-AM today that Freeman will score a huge contract extension but played himself out of elite quarterback money with his inconsistency this season.

“He’s placed himself into a more Matt Schaub, Matt Cassel type of a deal,” King said.  

Per BSPN, Schaub signed a four-year contract extension a few months ago with $62 million over four years with $24.7 million guaranteed. In 2009, Cassel robbed the Chiefs for $40.5 millon over the first three years off his deal. Cassel has no more guaranteed money remaining and is expected to be released in 2013.

Joe has no clue how the Bucs will approach Freeman. Rather than extend his contract this offseason, the Bucs could very easily let Freeman play out his final year in 2013, and then either sign him then to a long term deal, or slap him with the franchise tag for the 2014 season.

What Joe is sure of is that Freeman will have a brutally miserable and high-pressure offseason if the Bucs can’t muster one win over these last three games.

Short of sounding like a cranky old man without his morning caffeine waiting for a plane to take off from Tampa International for a cold business trip to the Midwest, one thing Joe misses about the new, homogenized NFL under the watch of warden commissioner Roger Goodell is how the game is going the way of seven-on-seven, summer-league flag football.

The very essence of the game, punishing physicality, Goodell is doing his best to legislate out of the sport.

If Joe — and millions of football fans — wanted to watch ballet, we’d already be at the Straz Center for Performing Arts.

One glaring thing Joe has noticed is Bucs corners let opposing wide receivers run free as an Alaskan antelope from the snap of the ball. Joe so misses the Mel Blount-style of defense that leveled receivers at the line, thus all but rendering them useless for a play.

This very topic has bubbled to the surface in a TBO.com Bucs Q&A.

Q: According to the rules, a cornerback has 5 yards to disrupt the receiver’s rhythm when beginning their route. A CB also can line up 1 yard off the line of scrimmage. Why is it that the Bucs’ corners basically stand close enough to the receiver that they can know what toothpaste he uses, then at the snap of the ball, they open up their hips and let the receiver go? Every receiver gets into his pattern uninterrupted by Bucs corners. Look at the teams with high sack totals. Their corners are basically inside the receiver’s jersey up till and sometimes past the 5-yard mark. Even more annoying, the Bucs corners try to run with the receivers and keep getting torched. If they can’t keep up with the receivers by just running with them, why would they not try and disrupt them? Pass defense is a mixture of pressure up front and coverage on the backside. The guys up front have no shot at getting to the QB, when the corners are taught not to engage the receiver. You can’t play Cover/Tampa 2 if you don’t re-route/disrupt the receiver. It’s a joke when I hear how the Bucs are thin at corner, without Aqib Talib and Eric Wright. They were at their worst when the two played together (Giants game, anyone?) And to think, the Bucs told Jonathan Joseph they weren’t interested in his services. Wow.

— Sean, Cherry Hill, N.J.

A: Everything depends on the particular coverage that’s chosen for each individual play. The corners will sometimes play tight to the line to give the impression they’re playing man but then back off into a zone. The Bucs use a lot of mixed coverages and in a lot of those cases the corner’s job is to release or let the safeties take over after a few yards. That’s done to protect against a run. I agree that the Bucs would probably help their pass rushers by playing a little more physical, but with the current group’s inexperience and lack of elite size, that may be asking too much of them right now. Something else to consider right now is the fact that the Bucs biggest objective at this point in the secondary is to keep the play in front of them. That’s how you eliminate the big plays and they have cut down on those in recent weeks.

— Woody Cummings

Look, the Bucs secondary is as wretched as wretched can be right now. Why the heck doesn’t Bill Sheridan and Ron Cooper, Bucs defensive coordinator and defensive backs coaches, respectively, try this method?

Better yet: Why the hell hasn’t this been done before now? Joe would hope Sheridan and/or Cooper are at their wits’ end trying anything to help an embattled secondary.

Why not jam the receivers at the line? Then again, the more Joe thinks of this, why in the world wasn’t this done, uh, Joe doesn’t know, three months ago rather than waiting until the team is out of the playoff hunt?

Yeah, believe it or not, Joe went to a Catholic grade school growing up, and that’s where his (nightmarish) experiences with sadistic priests and old nuns getting their sexual tensions released with pointers, fists, et al, came to an end.

Fortunately for Joe, he avoided having to learn Latin, since this was the post-Vatican II era. But Joe’s old man was not as fortunate. He had to take Latin through his college days. The language to Joe’s old man was far more an irritant than Sabby the Goat was for Joe.

Joe brings this up because Joe may have stumbled upon the true meaning of Doug Martin’s moniker, “The Muscle Hamster.” It could mean punishing, or running over defenders.

That’s the hint Joe got from Saints interim head coach Joe Vitt yesterday during a conference call with the Tampa Bay pen and mic club. Vitt was extolling the virtues of Martin when he dropped this gem:

“I told our football team this morning, ‘I haven’t seen a back run over as many people as this back. I mean, he is dropping linebackers and defensive linemen like third period Latin’,” Vitt said.

So Joe believes, based on this information, it would be fair to say that Martin’s mission statement is EGO mos run vos super.

(This means “I will run you over.”)

It’s been just over two years since Gerald McCoy explained that the big D-line coach in the sky directly guided him to two sacks against the Baltimore Ravens.

And now, after his most recent two-sack game against the Eagles on Sunday, McCoy again explained that God drove his stellar performance. A fan to McCoy’s radio show tonight asked him what inspired arguably his career best Sunday.

“We were in chapel the night before. We were challenged by our chaplain. He asked us the question, and he said, ‘Who do you play for? What do you play for?'” McCoy said. “And he told us, he said, ‘The bible says in everything you do, do it wholeheartedly, as if you’re doing it unto the Lord.”

McCoy continued: “So he challenged us, regardless of the outcome of the games from here on out. What would our record be in the wins and losses column when it comes to competin’ for the Lord? And he said, ‘Tomorrow, I’m issuing a challenge to see who could come out with a W,’ and that was just my motivation.”

Jimminy Christmas, McCoy should just hire a sideline preacher to keep him focused in between series. Joe’s not even kidding. Joe often got all fired up for football and life as a kid on Sunday morning’s watching televangelist Jimmy Swaggart get after it on the airwaves, before various hooker scandals took him down.

Joe’s got plenty of respect for men of faith like McCoy. If McCoy can benefit from in-game sermons, it’s worth making it happen.

The leader of the New Schiano Order was exceptionally fired up during the 30-minute window given to media to watch the beginning of practice today.

Bucs beat reporter Tom Krasniqi, of WDAE-AM 620, Twittered out the news.

@TKras – Greg Schiano gathered the entire team around and delivered a pep talk before #Bucs practice, saying “If you wanna be elite, work elite” … Schiano to his team: “Let’s focus on our job today, nothing else…100% focus” … The first portion of practice was spirited and Schiano was hands-on, going from group to group, barking orders. He’s intense today

Joe’s not surprised Schiano is bringing extra juice. His team’s on a three-game losing streak and just came out slow for the first time this season.

Joe’s really looking to see how the Bucs respond Sunday. They desperately need to avoid a complete December collapse that has plagued the team two of the past four years.

Schiano said after practice he expects his players to be as disgusted as he is and ready to dig in — perhaps harder than ever — to right the subpar play of last Sunday.

“If you’re not sick, then there’s a problem,” Schiano said, referring to what should be the mentality of all Buccaneers.

An astute JoeBucsFan reader has pointed out that Warren Sapp appears to be wearing his Super Bowl ring in this Lakeland Ledger photo from Sunday’s Bucs-Eagles game. The game celebrated the 10-year reunion of the Bucs’ 2002 Super Bowl champs, and a large percentage of players were flashing their coveted bling.

This is only interesting because Sapp reported the ring lost to Florida courts as part of his high-profile bankruptcy filings.

Of course, Sapp could have had a replica ring made. Or perhaps the real one just turned up under a couch cushion.

The Bucs lost on the final play Sunday, on a ball snapped with two seconds remaining. So it’s natural for fans to obsess about specific plays, from the Bucs botching their first handoff of the day, to cornerback Danny Gorrer’s dropped interception with seconds left, to Greg Schiano’s controversial punt plan on 3rd-and-8 with 2:55 to go.

But Joe also is wondering about how the young Bucs may have been shaken by the wild pregame atmosphere surounding the reunion of the 2002 Super Bowl champs, especially after Mike Williams’ comments on his WDAE-AM 620 radio show Monday.

“It was a crazy atmosphere. You wanted to get their autograph, or you was like, ‘Dang, do I get ready for the game, or [laughs], and them guys walking around. But it was like, I don’t know, like Ronde said, ‘a playoff atmosphere,'” Williams said.

Joe finds it hard to believe that it was merely coincidence that the Bucs’ first true slow start under the New Schiano Order, including preseason games, came down Sunday.

There’s no excuse, if Buccaneers players were distracted by Warren Sapp and other icons yucking it up with them that morning. Joe wonders whether this was a detail the planning-obsessed New Schiano Order had prepped to counter.

Consistent, versatile defensive linemen are worth their weight in gold in the NFL. It’s why Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik has invested such high draft picks for defensive linemen in recent years.

So with defensive end Michael Bennett’s contract being up in just a few weeks, he’s going to look to hit a payday. And given data the thinktank crowd at ProFootballFocus.com has generated, Bennett will nail the lottery shortly. Those numbers geeks have Bennett ranked among the NFL elite at pressuring the quarterback.

Bennett is ranked in a tie at No. 4, ahead of even J.J. Watt and Elvis Dumervil, in pressuring quarterbacks.

As for all-around productivity, the PFF.com crowd has Bennett ranked No. 8 among NFL defenseive linemen, ahead of John Abraham and Kamerion Wimbley.

Now throw in another fact that the PFF folks didn’t touch: Until this year, Gerald McCoy has been hobbled by injuries. Da’Quan Bowers has been hobbled by injuries. Adrian Clayborn is out for the year with a knee injury.

So three of the top five Bucs defensive linemen are injury prone. Bennett is not.

You know what Joe thinks? For every game Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman has like the past two weeks, three if you include his inaccuracy against the Dixie Chicks, cash that could have gone to Freeman will instead be slotted to Bennett.

That is if the Bucs don’t franchise Bennett. Either way, Bennett will hit the lottery in a few weeks. He’s a good guy, a stand-up guy, a productive guy so Joe has no problem if Dominik makes it rain on Bennett.

The Bucs need Bennett to remain in the fold, in no uncertain terms.