Cris Carter and Alex Loeb break down the Bucs loss to the Saints in this BSPN video.

In addition to calling out the Bucs' drafts under Mark Dominik, Shaun King says "Josh Freeman stinks right now."

Rockstar general manager Mark Dominik isn’t a rockstar GM, so says former Bucs quarterback Shaun King.

In a passionate segment today on The King David Show on WQYK-AM 1010, co-host King read the name of every player in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Bucs drafts in an attempt to reveal a list that doesn’t make the grade, and King said the Bucs’ picks have to be held to a higher scrutiny because of the Bucs’ build-through-the-draft philosophy.

King also commented that “Josh Freeman stinks right now” in many facets of the game.

“If you’re going to tell you’re fan base you’re going to build through the draft, then you have to have more names doing something,” King said. “And it has to happen quick or it’s going to come down on Raheem.”

King went on to say he can tell Freeman is being affected by the negative media coming his way, and King told a caller angry at Greg Olson to point a finger at Freeman for missing “wide open” Kregg Lumpkin and Erik Lorig on “wheel routes” that “should have been touchdowns.”

King said Freeman isn’t playing aggressively and wonders whether he can deal with criticism.

After yesterday’s game, Joe’s as angry and disappointed as the next fan, but Joe’s hardly ready to criticize Dominik’s three drafts. It’s too early to grade them completely and so far they stack up well against the league. Again, as Joe wrote earlier, the Bucs had enough talent to win 10 games last year and beat the Saints and Falcons this year.

It’s up to the coaches to figure out how to get the most out of the players on the roster. That’s the essence of coaching, and the coaches aren’t getting it done in 2011. 

Raheem confirmed Gerald McCoy is done for the season with a torn bicep.

There was no lack of effort or drive from the Bucs’ defensive line yesterday, says Raheem Morris. It was just a matter of the Saints’ Pro Bowl guards dominating and the Bucs losing the battles in the trenches at defensive tackle and defensive end.

Morris shared his thoughts at his news conference today after getting a chance to watch the Bucs-Saints mess.

“We got flat out outphysicaled,” Raheem said of the DT and DE positions.

Raheem went on to say the ineffectiveness along the defensive line was not youth or inexperience. But he cited a great loss of Gerald McCoy in the run defense and confirmed that McCoy will go on injured reserve with a torn bicep (not the one he tore last year).

Raheem said he’s hopeful of a speedy return of Frank Okam, who missed yesterday’s game with a calf injury. As for adding help inside, Raheem said Da’Quan Bowers is not comfortable playing tackle and the Bucs would look to sign a player and have DE’s George Johnson and Michael Bennett available to play tackle.

Former Bucs guard Ian Beckles (1990-1996) didn’t hold back his disgust with the Buccaneers this morning on the WDAE-AM 620 airwaves.

In no particular order:

*Beckles went off on the Bucs running a “counter” play on 4th-and-1 in the first quarter, in disbelief that the Bucs are inept in short yardage.

*Quincy Black is a “terrible football player,” Beckles said, calling Black worse than former Beckles punching bag Barrett Ruud. Black is worse, per Beckles, because “Ruud tackled.” Beckles implored Black to void his $11 million guaranteed contract he scored in the offseason. “You need to give the money back. You suck.”

*Beckles blasted the Bucs heirarchy saying, “We’re just saving money. That’s all we’re doing.”

*The Bucs don’t fly to the ball at all, evident on Saints successful screens.

*Beckles struggled to define yungry. “200 yards [allowed on the ground. That’s not yungry,” Beckles said. “Punching someone in the face on a dead ball. I guess that’s yungry.”

*LeGarrette Blount running out of bounds to finish a long run with a defensive back to beat left Beckles in disbelief.

*As usual, Beckles was flummoxed figuring out why the Bucs don’t run more.

It’s a broken record. Yeah, Joe admits it. But it’s a glaring issue and trying to look the other way is irresponsible.

Now getting off to a slow start against the Saints doesn’t sting as much as doing the same against the Bears or the woebegone Dolts. Yet it is still an irritant.

This has gone from a nuisance to a menace for Raheem Morris and his coaching staff, as documented by eye-RAH! Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune, Twittering on the TBO Bucs Twitter feed yesterday.

The Bucs are halfway home. Through 8 games, they have not scored an offensive TD in the opening quarter. … That also makes it 62 consecutive games that the Bucs offense has scored 7 points or less in the first quarter.

Now Joe is aware that 62 games dates back to when Chucky was coach. Morris has been the Bucs coach for 40 games now.

But guess what, Chucky isn’t here any longer.

Joe has stated this before and will state it again: Morris is both defensive coordinator and head coach. That’s a helluva lot of responsibilities for one guy; that’s not just a full plate, that’s having vittles falling off the sides of the dish like a Thanksgiving buffet.

What would be the harm in hiring a consultant, say Brian Billick or Bill Cowher or Jimmy Johnson — hell, even George Siefert — to come in for two weeks and have access to every nook and cranny of football coaching elements at One Buc Palace and have them give their two cents worth as to what may be the root cause of this slow start malady?

Joe doesn’t think it’s out of bounds to suggest that there is some fly in the ointment of weekly preparation. Steady slow starts through 40 games, what else could it be?

NFL teams often hire outside consultants. At this point, what’s there to lose in trying this route to resolve this issue?

Joe doesn’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that when Morris sits down with Bucs executives after the season, this will be issue No. 1.

Geno Hayes may have been immune to the effects of a good ol’ fashioned tasering, but the realities of the NFL struck him down yesterday.

He got benched, off a bye week no less. Quincy Black played for Hayes and Adam Hayward started at strong side linebacker. TampaBay.com beat writer Stephen Holder confirmed Hayes was sat down for performance reasons.

“We needed some better play out of the (weak-side) linebacker position,” Morris said.

Hayes conceded, “I just have to be more consistent. Got to keep it moving.”

This surely doesn’t bode well for Hayes’ future with the Bucs. He’s only 24, but a fourth-year veteran that will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. The benching, combined with Hayes’ past off-field incidents and rockstar general manager Mark Dominik professing a love of big physical players, sure makes it seem like Hayes has a foot out the door.

Remember, Raheem Morris said he expected “absolute dominance” from Hayes this season.

Lost a bit in the Bucs’ third clunker in four games yesterday was the return of LeGarrette Blount.

He didn’t look at all like a guy coming off a knee injury. He was fresh. He was punishing. He even took the air like only he can. The grand unveiling of Blount as a busy third-down back never happened, something Joe can’t explain. (The Bucs of very old found ways to throw Mike Alstott the ball with some real estate ahead of him. Somebody needs to pull up that mid-90s film.)

Regardless, the Bucs even seemed willing to pound Blount at times, handing off to him three times to open their second series of the game, a sequence that saw Blount run for two first downs and 31 yards. On the next series he disappeard as the Bucs hung themselves with a 12-men-on-the-field penatly and pass interference calls on Arrellious Benn and Kellen Winslow.

Yeah, Joe knows Blount ran up the gut early in the third quarter and got up and slugged a Saints player in the helmet, prompting a personal foul and John Lynch to bring up Blount’s infamous college punch that kept him undrafted.

But Joe didn’t pay much attention to that. Given the endless stream of Bucs with stupid penalties, that 15-yard loss sort of fit right in to the Bucs’ course of play.

To quote the immortal Herm Edwards, “you play to win the game.” At the end of the season, you hope either you have enough wins to make the playoffs or, this season, you have enough losses to qualify for Suck for Luck and draft Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck in next spring’s draft.

This season, it appears the Bucs will be in neither category. Veteran Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber went so far as to call the Bucs “average” while trying to explain how the team has found itself in it’s current predicament, per quotes obtained via the Bucs media relations staff.

When speaking of the perpetual slow starts, Barber hinted he doesn’t see the Bucs breaking out of this habit any time soon.

“It’s not a problem you correct in two weeks,” Barber said. “That has to be a mentality. We know what our issues are. They affect the outcome of the game, and they did today. It’s not like we don’t know what they are. We know what they are. We just have to get better at it.”

“[The Bucs] play kind of average to start the game and try to get back in it late. You can’t start slow versus good teams. We know that. We are 4-4. It’s an average record. We played average at times today. It is probably where we should be. You generally get what you deserve in this game. We don’t deserve to be top of the division right now, we aren’t playing like it.”

Props to Barber for keeping it real and not searching for the now tired cliches of how the team is “youngry” or that the coaches will go “back to the lab” and correct everything.

It’s high time for specific players that Joe doesn’t have to name, specifically on defense, to look in the mirror and ask themselves what they need to do in order to help their teammates out.

Mike Triplett and James Varney break down why the Bucs lost in this New Orleans Times-Picayune video.

Back during the heinous Jim Bates Experiment, the Bucs’ run defense was sliced and gashed repeatedly up the gut.

Nothing worked. And Joe trashed numerous remote control devices.

The Bucs then sent Bates packing and went with Raheem Morris’ vision of the Tampa-2 defense. Still nothing worked against the run, with the likes of Ryan Torain, Maurice Morris, Jason Snelling and other future Hall of Famers having career days against the Bucs.

The Bucs showed real flashes of stopping the run this year, but Tampa Bay is now allowing a whopping 4.9 yards per carry in 2011, up from 4.7 yards per carry last year and 4.8 yards in 2009.

For some perspective, over the past 20 years, the worst the Bucs allowed per carry before the Raheem era was 4.3 yards in 1996 and 2008.

During a recent interview, Derrick Brooks talked about the defense needing a mentality of fighting for every last blade of grass. With the lousy tackling the Bucs have shown of late, it’s pretty obvious the Bucs are light years from the good ol’ days to which Brooks was referring.

Joe’s good friend Bobby Fenton of WDAE-AM 620 is frustrated and has had it with the Bucs making excuses for poor play.

Fenton, who hosts a postgame call-in show on Sunday evenings, went off on a mini-tirade and scoffed at Bucs officials, if not players, for making excuses for awful play. He detailed his thoughts in the show’s monologue this evening.

“I’m tired of hearing how they battled, I don’t want to hear that any longer,” Fenton said. “Every team battles. You don’t see players lying down.

“I’m tired of hearing how they rallied. That’s garbage. Did you feel a tinge of excitement when they scored their last touchdown?

“I’m tired of hearing how they came back from this and battled back. Wah, wah, wah. And yet again they started off crappy. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear about the good things because there were not that many.

“OK, Josh Freeman didn’t throw a pick. He didn’t completely melt down. But I don’t think he played well at all. He missed a lot of big throws. I’m not just blaming him.

“The passing game… the hopelessness of anyone making a big play. As a whole, this receiving corps is very mediocre. [The Bucs] have no downfield passing game. They lack explosiveness.”

But Fenton did not devote his wrath to the offense. He saved few, yet choice words about the Bucs’ impotent defensive play Sunday in New Orleans.

“The defensive front was an absolute joke. Nobody can tackle. It was disgraceful.”

Now Joe has no problem with the Bucs trying something novel once in a while to mix things up and catch defenses snoozing.

No, reaching into the Jeff Bowden playbook and calling for an end-around by Arrelious Benn every game is not being creative. It. Does. Not. Work.

Earlier this year against the Dolts, the Bucs brought in backup quarterback Josh Johnson to run an option, which Joe thought was cool. It was very different; had not been seen before and got a first down.

With the Bucs offense trying to swim upstream and down 14-3, the Bucs were deep in Saints territory and had a very makeable third-and-four on the Saints-23 just inside the two-minute warning.

With LeGarrette Blount starting to warm up, with receivers finally getting open, the Bucs brought in Johnson on third down.

WHAT??? Look, even people walking with white canes could see this would be a running play, a run to his right. It’s not like the Saints never saw this play before.

Of course the Saints held him to a one-yard gain, forcing a field goal.

FOX analyst John Lynch immediately said, “I hate to be critical but I don’t know about that play. You take your best player off the field to run a gimmick on a makeable third down.”

Lynch was right. Using Johnson on an option on second down, Joe’s OK with that. But not on a critical third down when you are trailing on the road to the Saints when field goals won’t get the job done.

Wrong place, wrong time for trying to outsmart the Saints.

In what was billed as the deepest draft in the history the modern NFL, the Bucs selected Arrellious Benn early in the second round last year.

Benn has proven he’s dangerous. Mark Dominik said two weeks ago the Bucs need to use Benn more. Last week Raheem Morris said he wants Benn more involved. Is anyone getting these messages to Greg Olson? Somebody send Olson two scantily clad cheerleaders each holding a sign — one that reads “Use,” the other “Benn.”

Benn was thrown to twice today and caught both balls. He runs strong after the catch. What the hell’s going on? If he’s not open, then dial up plays that get him the ball. And the not the stupid end-around that never works.

Crosstrain the guy to be a third down back if you have to. Benn’s been a beast on special teams, and Joe suspects he can block and do more with the checkdown than Kregg Lumpkin. (Of course, Joe’s reaching for effect with that one.)

The Bucs offense isn’t good enough to let a talent like Benn go unused repeatedly.

“We were out there playing fast [when the offense was clicking],” Benn said. “We weren’t executing and that is all on us. The saints did everything we have seen. We knew what we were doing, just simply didn’t execute. 

 

The ugly loss to the Saints just got worse.

Far, far worse.

Per Rick Stroud of the St. Petersburg Times, he has Twittered that the Bucs’ disruptive defensive tackle is lost for the year.

@NFLSTROUD: Bucs DT Gerald McCoy is out for the year with a right arm injury, players say.

This is the second year in a row that GMC has been lost for the season. This being GMC’s second season, it appeared he was going to be a force for the Bucs and did make an impact on the opponents’ rushing attack when he was in the game.

This is just terrible news, and the way the Saints gutted the Bucs on the ground, in particular freight-training Quincy Black more than once, imagine what Adrian Foster will do?

UPDATE: Per Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times, GMC has torn biceps in his right arm.

McCoy, the NFL’s No. 3 overall draft pick in 2010, suffered a torn biceps in his left arm last season, but now is said to have torn the right biceps.

“Hey, stuff like that happens, man,” DT Brian Price said. “I feel bad for him because he had the same injury last year, just on the other arm. My heart goes out to him because I know how hard it is being on I.R. I just hope he gets better.

Joe doesn’t want to hear the argument that the Bucs don’t have enough talent. Joe’s far more concerned with what the coaches are doing with the talent they have.

That’s coaching — getting the most out of your roster.

Joe can’t imagine there are any Bucs fans that think the Bucs are playing their best football, or anywhere close to it. This team is not better than last year’s bunch.

Joe sees Greg Olson unable to get any kind of identity on offense and dial up what’s necessary to get his offense in a rhythm to start a game. Joe would love to get a look at that pregame “script.” (If Joe sees that sinful Arrellious Benn end-around one more time, he’s going to punch a wall.) Olson’s offense was ranked 10th in the NFL for the second half of the 2010 season. Where did it go?

Looking at Raheem Morris, the defensive coordinator, Joe sees a guy that simply hasn’t figured out how to consistently craft a pass rush, stop big plays and get the most out of his emerging stars on defense. The stats are so bad they’re not lying. The Bucs are on pace for fewer sacks than they had last year (24 total), and the team is near the cellar in many defensive categories.

Raheem the head coach has a team committing all kinds penalties. And the guy hasn’t found a way to get his team to play with a sense of urgency from the opening whistle, which, to be perfectly honest, is the head coach’s primary job — to get guys to play for him.

Joe’s seeing a team that has regressed on both sides of the ball, and given the youth on the team and the relative continuity on the roster, Joe’s having a hard time not laying blame on the coaching staff.

Just about the entire ugly loss to the Saints could be summed up in one decision.

For much of the game, the Bucs could generate little offense. It was early in the fourth quarter and the Bucs trailed by three scores, 24-6.

The Bucs took over at their own 25 and drove down the field before a drive stalled at the New Orleans-7. Fourth-and-goal.

Rather that being bold and going for a touchdown, someone on the Bucs sideline — offensive coordinator Greg Olson or head coach Raheem Morris — decided the game was over. Time to mail it in.

So Connor Barth was sent out to kick a field goal.

If was the football version of waving the white flag and giving up.

“You can’t kick field goals,” Morris said on the Bucs radio network after the game. “That’s what prevents you from winning ballgames.”

If that is the case, why did Morris — or Olson — decide to kick a field goal when the Bucs were knocking on the door? The drive was the best of the game for the Bucs and the coaching staff decided to hoist the white flag. At least it smelled that way to Joe.

The heinous stench of mediocrity (or worse) now hangs over the 4-4 Bucs, which sit in third place in the NFC South.

Not since 2009 has a Raheem Morris team turned out consecutive clunkers. And that’s what happened today.

It would have been one thing go up to New Orleans and play well and lose, but the Bucs looked inept and lost at times on offense. The painfully dumb penalties continued (nine penalties for 80 yards) and the defensive line was dominated — no pass rush and repeatedly carved up the gut (seven yards per carry). All around the tackling was hardly that of the “yungry” team Raheem talks about.

Adam Hayward apparently starting for Geno Hayes didn’t make a darn difference.

Gerald McCoy got hurt very early in the game. And while some might pile on calling him a bust, Joe thinks that tag, if it’s to be used, is better suited to Roy Miller. The Bucs sure missed Frank Okam, who started the last two times the Bucs beat the Saints.

At least Josh Freeman looked better. Is there so little open downfield? Joe sure can’t figure out the Bucs’ playcalling. So much for LeGarrette Blount on third down.

Stick with Joe through the night for more on this head-shaker of a game.

OK, boys and girls, have at it. Saints hosting the Bucs in the Superdome.

Ready… set… go!

Week 9
Bucs at Saints
Kickoff: 1 p.m.
TV: WTVT-TV Channel 13 locally. The game is also available on DirecTV Channel 708.
Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network (in Tampa WFUS-FM, 103.5 and WDAE-AM, 620); Sirius Channel 136.
Weather: Per Accuweather.com, despite the Bucs and Saints playing in a soulless dome, Bucs fans who traveled to the Big Easy will have a pleasant day. There is simply no better place to tailgate in the NFL than Bourbon Street, none. Those who are cruising the French Quarter this morning are doing so with temperatures in the low 70s. When heading back to the French Quarter after the game, the temperature will be in the mid-70s, all under sunny skies.
Odds: Per SportsBook.com, Bucs +9.
Outlook: Joe can’t quite figure this game out. Last week the Saints got an alley-beating with an ax handle worse than what Sonny Corleone did to Carlo Rizzi. This came at the hands of the lowly Lambs believe it or not. Simply put, the Saints offensive line was an absolute sieve. They couldn’t stop the run on defense and the Saints offensive linemen did their best to impersonate turnstiles while pass blocking. This makes Joe salivate. With LeGarrette Blount returning today, he could feast on the Saints pathetic rush defense, which is giving up an NFL-worst 5.5 yards a carry. Joe, however, isn’t expecting that Saints team to show up today. This is a division game. It should be and likely will be much tougher than a walk-through. Joe’s pretty sure the Saints took the Lambs for granted and were looking past the Lambs to today’s game with the Bucs. Joe expects the Saints to use a lot of two-step drops by Brees to keep the heat off of him. … How important is today’s game? If the Bucs win they not only have a one-game lead in the NFC South, they hold a tiebreaker against the Saints. Given how Detroit is playing and Chicago is playing, and with the Bucs losing to both teams, Joe’s pretty convinced the Bucs will have to win the NFC South to make the playoffs. Today would be a helluva big step towards that goal.

LeGarrette Blount’s going to get plenty of high-pressure work on third down today in New Orleans, and No. 27 says a big part of what got him ready to be a full-time back in the Bucs’ too-complex-for-an-outsider system was his lockout regimen.

“I kind of followed Josh [Freeman] around like a little kid,” Blount said of how he spent his time during the asinine lockout. “Every time he went out to throw passes I was there.”

Kudos to Blount for taking his craft seriously. He opened up Friday night on Total Access on WDAE-AM 620.

Blount said he could have played against Chicago but ultimately believes it was wise for him to sit out because he’s now “100 percent.”

As for learning the Bucs system early in his Tampa Bay career, Blount said a big part of challenge was clearing his head of what he had learned in Tennessee Titans camp.

On a lighter note, Blount said that during the bye week he went “all-in” on a massive family soul food feast including his mother’s sweet potato pie and red velvet cake. He also challenged Mike Williams to put up his mother’s “Buffalo soul food” versus Florida soul food.

Blount admitted he was a huge Dolphins fans growing up and claimed bobody on the Bucs will dare to play him on Madden. While playing Madden, Blount said he runs the ball 80 percent of the time, largely handing the ball off to himself and throwing himself screens.

Ex-Bucs QB Jeff Carlson

Former Bucs quarterback Jeff Carlson (1990 & 1991) writes The QB Blast column here at JoeBucsFan.com. Joe is ecstatic to have him firing away. Carlson is often seen as a color analyst on Bright House Sports Network, and he trains quarterbacks of all ages locally via his company, America’s Best Quarterback. Plus, he’s a really cool dude.

By JEFF CARLSON
JoeBucsFan.com analyst

It’s been two weeks since their last game, with a bye week to get healthy and assess their proficiencies and deficiencies. And perhaps most important, time for the Bucs to make the kind of mid-season adjustments that they have been making at halftime of most of their games because of the awfully slow starts on both sides of the ball.

I fully supported the decision to go to London early, but now understand that at least some of the “youngry” Bucs treated it more like a Las Vegas vacation (what happens in London stays in London) than the successful business trip that the older and wiser Bears went on. 

A micro look so far says there are issues for both coordinators and the head coach to address. A macro look says they are 4-3 and playing for the division lead at the halfway point, and I don’t think anyone can be unhappy about that. Any disappointment means the overall expectations for this team have grown and that’s a tribute to those same coaches. There’s also been loads of inconsistent football throughout the league.

I don’t believe that overconfidence is Josh Freeman’s problem for his early season passing woes, but rather simply slow, poor decision-making and some simply poor throws.

His receiving corps has lacked explosive play-making all season, with Mike Williams reminding me of Michael Clayton’s sophomore campaign following their rookie breakout seasons. I just hope he doesn’t continue to follow Clayton’s career trend, and I don’t think he will, but he needs help from a slot receiver that can occupy the safety, so that he can get one-on-one and let Josh Freeman have the confidence to let it rip to the No. 1 guy.

I don’t believe the argument that the rest of the receiving corps is capable enough to compete at the highest level of the NFL is correct. They do need to be faster, tougher and better across the board.

Freeman needs to be able to just drop back and throw the deep ball (man-to-man coverage on the outside) with confidence that his guy will either catch it or make sure the other guy doesn’t. I haven’t seen him try it all year. They need more YAC from everyone! 

I won’t make a big deal about it, but I would like to see them have another wideout with speed and get Winslow off the field on 3rd and 7+. He has made a few noteworthy plays, but I think they would create more big play opportunities matching speed with the “nickel” corner that defenses substitute in these situations and maybe “5” won’t get stuck on “82”.

Generally, the Bucs are not catching the ball on the move enough, which is partly the play design and partly the execution. 

I have been disappointed that LeGarrette Blount wasn’t ready to help on third downs to start the season, but took half of his second year to get the protections down (attribute that to the lockout, but I thought he should have taken it upon himself to get that worked out before the end of training camp). The NFL has become a shotgun league on 3rd and 2+, but now with Blount available the Bucs can stay in “regular” people and have more options to pick up first downs, keep drives alive and out of the hands of Drew Brees and company.

Maybe it is just his flowing mane that catches my eye, but as the Bucs finish up their mid-season bye week, I think the most impactful player on the team is Adrian Clayborn. His constant effort and pressure on the backside make him the MVP at the halfway point.

 If the rest of the team took his example into their play, this team would be off-the-charts and all those slow starts wouldn’t be a topic of conversation.