Joe has been riddled with annoyance — still to this day — ever since reading the slanted people-are-outraged takes from the St. Pete Times and Tampa Tribune regarding local government footing the $18.7 million bill for improvements to the Community Investment Tax Stadium on Dale Mabry Highway, aka Raymond James Stadium.

Is Joe the only media type that realizes the Bucs’ stadium came pretty darn cheap ($168 million) and these latest improvements are peanuts when considering they’re necessary to keep the Super Bowl coming to Tampa?

Sorry to the Super Bowl naysayers, but Joe likes Super Bowls and thinks they’re great for the locals. Plus it’s pretty darn cool to live in a Super Bowl town. And who could argue with a mass influx of strippers invading the region to satisfy demand?

The Dolphins are begging local governments for $225 million to renovate whatever the hell they call their stadium these days and keep the Super Bowl coming.

In San Diego, NFL hatchetman Roger Goodell told San Diego recently that they’re off the Super Bowl list until they build a new stadium. Their $78 million upgrade in 1997 is old news.

The Bucs and the Bay area are trying to nail down another Super Bowl for 2015, and most of the $18.7 million improvement job is coming from tourist-specific taxes and going toward replacing the ancient TV sets in the end zones with fancy HD jobs, plus suite and media-area improvements that are keys to a Super Bowl bid.

It’s a freakin’ no-brainer. But Stephen Holder of the Times wrote, “This sort of thing isn’t going to go over well,” referring to taxes paying to upgrade the stadium as voters approved. Yeah, Joe’s still holding his breath for an angry mob to emerge, or even one dude holding a sign.

Sitting in the C.I.T.S. last week watching his country get embarassed by a sissy-diving Panamanian soccer team, Joe looked closely at the grainy replay screens and was motivated to do some digging. Nearly two-thirds of NFL teams have HD screens in their stadiums, but the Bucs are trying to lure fans with 1998 TVs. Heck, Joe doesn’t have a fancy TV, but it’s a lot newer than that.

Also, Joe found that the C.I.T.S. appears to be second least expensive NFL stadium built in the last 29 years. So it’s not like the taxpayers got screwed in the value of the thing.

Joe just had to get all this off his chest.

Having tourists pay a mere pittance to keep the C.I.T.S. Super Bowl-ready and not let an eyesore develop is something worth celebrating. Good luck Miami and San Diego. You’ll need it. 

Regular readers of Joe know he would rather swallow a six-pack of warm Old Style beer (which if you are fortunate enough to never have sampled this product, it is so miserable Joe has to think it is akin to deer urine) than give up his hard-earned cash to the vile four-letter network.

But Joe can cobble together a post here despite the bulk of information coming from behind a BSPN paywall.

BSPN recently conducted a survey of the best teams for fans in all the four major sports. The rankings were based on several factors including ownership, coaching, players, fan relations, affordability, stadium experience and “bang for the buck.”

Local sports fans have likely heard that the Lightning were ranked No. 2 overall in all sports, second only to the Packers.

The Bucs were ranked No. 59 overall and No. 11 in the NFL. The following is the overall rankings in each criteria used to determine the Bucs’ final score.

Title Track: 27
Ownership: 77
Coaching: 39
Players: 54
Fan Relations: 104
Affordability: 76
Stadium Experience: 40
Bang for the Buck: 57

The Bucs were ranked just below the Philadelphia Eagles and just ahead of the Seattle Seahawks.

As for as the area’s third team, the Rays, BSPN rated the Rays at No. 25 for the best team in America for fans.

Do smarts matter?

Bucs fans will find out, in part, when the lockout ends and Mark Dominik decides whether to open the company checkbook for Barrett Ruud, “the quarterback” of the defense, so Raheem Morris calls him.

Yes, Dale Mabry could become a riot scene if Ruud is granted more years to patrol the middle of the Bucs defense. But there might be celebrations inside One Buc Palace.

Ruud is a leader and the defense stands behind him, says Roy Miller. Speaking on Internet radio last week with Old School of WhattheBuc.net, Miller also said — twice — that Ruud has standout intellect.

Miller was asked to name the leaders on defense.

“I would say Ronde and Ruud,” Miller said. “I would say those two guys. Everbody has a lot of respect for them. Of course, Ronde, he’s been in the league forever and he’s been playing at the same level ever since he got in. We all got every bit of respect for those two guys. You know, Ruud is such a smart guy and just plays well. Those guys, he’s so smart too, as well, I mean Ruud. Those guys, you know, have been our big leaders this year and we stand behind those guys.” 

Like it or not, Ruud’s leadership is just more fodder for the Yes column when it comes to deciding on his future in Tampa.

Chris McKendry, Marcellus Wiley and Herm Edwards discuss who was the best quarterback drafted in 2009 in this BSPN video.

"Did we remember to mail Dan Snyder that cheesecake?"

In a move that could bring a swift end to The Blackout Tour, it’s been reported in Jacksonville that NFL owners will vote tomorrow on whether to allow teams to decrease the total number of seats that must be sold in order to avoid a blackout by 15 percent.

Joe’s going to assume the owners of Team Blackout will be flashing thumbs-ups and toothy grins to their constituents when the agenda reaches that topic.

So what does this mean? Essentially, the Bucs’ home at the C.I.T.S. seats roughly 65,000, and about 53,000 of those seats are NOT club seats. All non-premium seats must be sold to avoid a blackout under current rules.

Take the Bucs’ December home games in 2010 and assume for a moment the Bucs sold half of their club seats for those games. That means the Bucs would have had to sell roughly 53,000 regular-guy seats plus the 6,000 club seats to get the games on TV.

Here’s the official attendance for those games:

53,955 vs. Atlanta
47,692 vs. Detroit
46,576 vs. Seattle

Unfortunately, if the new blackout rule takes effect, the Bucs would still have to increase attendance by some huge percentages to get all games televised.

Joe wonders whether Team Glazer is lining up corporations now to gobble up remaining tickets if the Bucs find themselves, say, 2,000 shy of a “sellout” under the proposed new blackout rules.

There’s a lot to like about Josh Freeman. Dude is big, works hard, and is the Bucs unquestioned team leader.

But “The Professor,” John Clayton of BSPN, suggests there is something else to like about Freeman. It’s his fourth quarter savvy.

In this case, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers hit it big. Freeman was the 17th pick in the 2009 draft. Expectations weren’t as high. Wisely, the Bucs didn’t rush him into a starting job. They waited until the ninth week of the 2009 season to make him a starter and made the transition in a bye week.

Like most rookies, he struggled. He completed 54.5 percent of his throws, a typical percentage for a first-year starter. But he had a flair for picking up his game in the fourth quarter. By his second season, he was a master of fourth-quarter passing.

His 97.4 quarterback rating in fourth quarters was the seventh-best in the league. He completed 62.6 percent of his fourth-quarter throws. Top NFL quarterbacks earn their money with their ability to move an offense in the fourth quarter. Freeman has that.

This is all really good to read but Joe just wonders how much better both Freeman and the Bucs would be in 2011 with a full offseason program. Bucs coach Raheem Morris stated that the transition from a rookie to a second-year player is so critical and the Bucs sure had their share of stud rookies.

Damn this asinine lockout!

Joe tries to immerse himself this time of the year in baseball. More so this year.

Baseball actually helps Joe keep his mind off the asinine lockout forced upon the innocent American society by NFL strongman Roger Goodell.

Joe understands that late-June is often the small dead period for NFL news, and this year is no different.

What is different is that no one knows if anyone will hear the crack of pads when training camp starts in July because it very well may not happen. This has Joe lying awake at night with the shakes, not unlike what happens to Joe if he goes for a prolonged period of time without a cold adult beverage.

It seems Bucs receiver Arrelious Benn is of the same mindframe. All his life he had spring football of some sort until this asinine lockout happened. Now, just like Joe, he has no idea if there will be a training camp next month, so he Twittered over the weekend.

#Lockout please be over! I think I’m going insane!

Yes, Arrelious, please, please, please let this asinine lockout be over. For the sake of humanity, sanity and all that is right about America, NFL training camps need to be open or NFL cities may become Vancouver!

Get the job done Goodell!

St. Pete Times columnist Gary Shelton apparently had a crappy lunch last week and penned a very negative column about the NFL that appears in today’s newspaper.

Shelton takes a page from THE PESSIMIST and rambles about how fans he knows don’t care about the NFL and carries on that we’re all doomed to watch second-rate football because teams have missed OTA days and minicamps.

What ought to alarm the players, and what ought to scare the dickens out of the owners, is the growing apathy. That’s the real cost of this wasted offseason. Every time a fan turns his head, the Benjamin Franklins in his wallet do the same.

And so it does not go. Bounce around the Internet and you can find dozens of NFL headlines a day, and not one of them says anything new. Secret meetings? Positive signs? Someone else arrested? Both sides are talking, neither side is listening, and what else is new.

You know what ought to be new?

By now, someone — anyone — should be concerned about how good the football will be when the NFL comes back.

The quality cannot be the same, you know. A league cannot sacrifice all the organized team activities and offseason workouts and minicamps without losing chemistry and cohesiveness. The result is bound to be a lessened product on the field.

Joe must disagree with Shelton — at least right now.

First, Joe knows Bucs fans are aching for football and there is no real loss of interest yet in the NFL. Shelton’s off the mark. The non-hardcore Bucs fan, which is the vast majority of fans, hasn’t missed a damn thing yet. These people don’t care about OTAs. They have rippin’ Super Bowl parties, keep their eye on on the Bucs’ draft, and circle their calendars for opening day of training camp.

Second, the hardcore fans may be a bitter bunch right now, but Joe doesn’t know any that are ready to write off their passion — notyet anyway. (Joe also looks at the traffic numbers here and isn’t seeing a dropoff.) If hatchetman Roger Goodell screws up and lets training camp and preseason to get screwed up, sure. But it’s not there yet.

As for the crappy football Shelton claims is a given in 2011, Joe’s not buying that the best football coaches in the world, along with the best players, can’t figure out how to execute on Sundays without OTAs. As Bucs linebacker Scot Brantley always said, the core of football is still  “blockin’ and tacklin,'” which isn’t about to change.

Of course, more practice time is a good thing, but Joe thinks coaches and players can adjust seamlessly as long as they don’t miss training camp.

Joe’s choosing to be optimistic about all-things lockout today. Just get the damn thing done in the next two or three weeks. It’s important to note that the $700 million of expected revenue from preseason games primarily all falls in the owners’ pockets, as players are only paid a small stipend — not salary — for those games.

Joe continues to hope that $700 million is enough motivation to get 24 of the 32 billionaires to end this asinine mess.

Joe knows a lot about food, and Joe is proud to say that Mugs Grill & Bar in Clearwater serves up some of the finest quality and value in the Tampa Bay area.

Mugs Grill & Bar wings have won more awards than Derrick Brooks, and everything on the menu is extraordinarily fresh and homemade. And if you find a colder draft beer, you’re lying.

Joe loves the wings, of course, but often grabs Mugs’ phenomenal filet mignon tips, real grouper sandwich, or chili cheese fries with bacon.

Don’t forget to join the Mugs E-Club for free nachos for 2 (click above), plus great discounts and deals all year long. You’ll be glad you did.

Mugs also is a dynamite spot to watch all MLB games.

Last year Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman put up some sick statistics, specifically his touchdown-to-interception ratio (25 to 6), which was crazy.

Still, many in the NFL pen and mic club elite are not moved. Given the choice of Matty Ice of the Dixie Chicks or Freeman, many will choose Matty Ice, like Steve Wyche who bared his soul recently on an NFL.com chat.

jeffrey, clearwater beach
steve, in your opinion how is better right now matt ryan or josh freeman? personally freeman is one of a kind to me.

Steve Wyche, NFL.com
Jeffrey, Right now, Matt Ryan. A year or two from now, it could very well be Josh Freeman. Josh is making some major gains and making them quickly. Ryan was more Pro ready and has played like it. He’s also had a better team to work with. Freeman and the Bucs are on the rise, though. The NFC South could turn out to be the best division in the NFL for a second straight year. Yeah, I said it.

While Joe is not anti-Matty Ice, Freeman is easily in his league now. Joe suspects that people in general will continue to think Matty Ice is better unless or until Freeman can guide the Bucs to a playoff win.

Like the rest of the 2009 Bucs defensive linemen, Roy Miller got the edict from Jim Bates, and presumably the rest of the Bucs staff, to fatten up. Gain weight.

Bates needed/wanted big bodies to play his heinous two-gap system, even if the bodies on his roster couldn’t be their best selves with all that extra beef. It was an embarassing miscalculation by Raheem Morris, which led to Rock Riley chasing down Bates at a fast food joint after he was defrocked by the Bucs midseason.

It’s been about 20 months since Bates was put out to pasture, but the edicts of that woeful era are still haunting Miller, so he told “Old School” of WhatTheBuc.net, during the website’s online radio show Thursday night.

Old School: In some ways, you’re kind of lost in the shuffle in the middle there with this revamped D-line. Where can you stand out?

Roy Miller: What I’ve been doing this offseason is losing a bunch of weight. I really, I’ve been playing at a weight that I never really played at, and even in college I always stayed around 290, 285. When I first came into Tampa, my coach, we were kind of more in a 4-3, two-gap type defense and I gained that weight because they told me to gain, and I never really could shake it, man. I mean, I got down. My first year I was like 325, and coming from 285 was crazy. Last year I was down to 316. I just want to keep getting back down. I want to just get off the ball and get back to what I’m used to and just do my thing. You’re right. You could say I’m, whatever, ‘lost in the shuffle.’ That’s fine with me. I just working to do what I got to do … and produce.”

Obviously, from Miller’s comments, he felt he was lacking burst last year and was perhaps a step slow. Very telling considering he started every game and was up the gut in the Bucs’ porous run defense and weak pass rush.

In addition to losing weight, Miller said he’s still bench pressing 540 pounds and has been focusing a lot this offseason on building his hand and forearm strength, areas he said he’s never focused on previously.

Still 23 years old, there’s no reason to think Miller can’t take his game up a couple of notches. He might have to if Brian Price’s unique injury isn’t ready for the rigors of the NFL.

NFL Draft guru Justin Pawlowski, The Commish of WDAE-AM 620, is back today with his award-winning sometimes Saturday show, The Blitz, thanks to the good radio gods of the Clear Channel family.

Pawlowski gets behind the microphone at 1 p.m. and drives The Sports Animal bus up to 3:30 p.m. Father Dungy will have a revealing chat with The Commish at 2 p.m. Did you miss the excerpt on CommishOnline.com?

Also, Joe is confident The Commish will bring Rays news, fantasy baseball insight and, of course, there will be plenty of Bucs talk and perhaps some college football talk as well.

Those chained to a computer can listen online at 620wdae.com.

In between telling readers during a BSPN live chat that Ronde Barber wouldn”t make the Hall of Fame, Aqib Talib should be cut and the Bucs won’t sign Reggie Bush, NFC South blogger Pat Yasinskas offered up some thoughts on the Bucs’ next Ring of Honor inductee.

Perhaps with inside information from a key source connected to One Buc Place or a local barber shop, Yasinskas suggested the Bucs might get away from the old school inductees for 2011 and take someone from a more recent era.

Greg (Tampa):  Any word who the bucs will put into the ring of fame this year?

Pat Yasinskas: Have not heard anything yet. Going to be interesting. Obviously, I don’t think Doug Williams and the franchise are real friendly right now, so they may skip over him. Do they skip all the way up to Brooks? Or do they go with someone like Paul Gruber or Hardy Nickerson?

The idea of Gruber or Nickerson is interesting. Call Joe misguided, but Joe thinks Nickerson is a no-brainer when compared to Gruber.

Sure, Gruber was a beast of a left tackle for a dozen years on a ton of bad teams. But unlike Gruber, who didn’t get the national recognition, Nickerson bruised his way to five Pro Bowls with the Bucs and was sort of the godfather of the Bucs’ legendary defense, serving as a mentor to guys like Derrick Brooks while being a dominant fixture in the heart of it.

While Joe would love to see the Bucs give Doug Williams his rightful place, Nickerson would be a hell of a choice.

Checking in with the Ron and Ian Show on WDAE-AM 620 this morning, “Insurance Graham,” as Raheem Morris likes to call him, talked about life during the lockout and the Bucs.

Among the highlights, Graham said among NFL quarterbacks Josh Freeman ranks behind Drew Brees and Peyton Manning, only because of his lack of experience. Graham lauded Freeman’s football knowledge and preparation and said, “Josh is really a guy who’s ahead of his time as far as age is concerned.”

Graham issued a major hat tip to Chucky and explained Chucky helped mold him as a man.

Graham talked about the impact Chucky had after he was signed when he told Graham, “You can be one of the top players in this league” and laid out a plan for Graham to succeed in the NFL. Graham said Chucky’s work ethic and high expectations helped form “Earnest Graham the man.”

As for “Earnest Graham the man,” he said he recently spent time talking to youth at a juvenile detention center as well as at a probation program.

Graham said he’s been working out regularly with Josh Freeman and other Bucs. (Hmmm, a veteran leader with off-the-field interests and a family who finds it valuable to work out with teammates. Whaddya know.).

No. 34 also talked about how Raheem Morris understands the needs of veterans when it comes to maintaining their bodies and the importance, or lack thereof, of practice.

That was good to hear, since Graham is going to get a ton of work this year if the Bucs don’t re-sign Cadillac Williams.

Welcome to the backlogged justice system.

To date, per Aqib Talib’s attorney Frank Perez, the Dallas County prosecutor assigned to Talib’s felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon case hasn’t had time to review the defense’s evidence. Nothing happened during yesterday’s scheduled talks, Perez told JoeBucsFan.com, and there have yet to be any substantive talks towards a reduced charge and plea agreement for Talib.

Perez said this kind of backlog is very typical in Dallas. Talib has not entered a plea.

While the State of Texas may be bogged down, Talib’s lawyers continue to work on Talib’s behalf investigating, and interviewing witnesses and people close to the situation. Perez said his legal team has yet to talk to anyone that says Talib was using a gun at the scene.

Perez said he is very eager for the State to review the defense’s documentation and his confidence has grown with recent information obtained regarding the alleged victim in the case, Shannon Billings, Talib’s sister’s boyfriend/husband.

“At this point, I’d rather go to trial,” Perez said. “But first we have to have substantive talks” regarding a deal or dropping charges.

From Joe’s research, since there apparently were no injuries to the alleged victim, if the State dropped the gun charge it could reduce Talib’s charge to a Class C misdemeanor assault, which carries no jail time and a fine up to $500.

It’s not difficult to see how society is affected by this asinine lockout. People are grumpier, on edge. Pets cower in corners. Bartenders are wont to pour drinks in plastic cups for fear of what patrons can and will do with glasses.

As the days count down to July when training camps would start, NFL fans grow more anxious. Irritated. Angry.

Even with Father’s Day mere hours away, Joe’s good friend Justin Pawlowski can’t forget the asinine lockout. He even spoke about it with Father Dungy yesterday, (Justin will play the interview on his show Saturday in its entirety — wait a minute, the Clear Channel gods have seen fit to clear air time for Justin Saturday? Yes!)

Justin offers an excerpt on his site of the Father Dungy interview.

Commish: “With Father’s Day tomorrow, my dad and I have used Bucs home games as a way to bond over time as he has taken me to games with him since I was 2 years old, and we haven’t missed any in that time. Please tell me that this lockout is not going to hinder that streak.”

Father Dungy: “No, You might miss a preseason game, but you won’t miss a regular game.”

Joe’s not even going to guess when this asinine lockout ends and won’t even try to entertain when it will end. No need for Joe to get his hopes up.

Just wake Joe up when free agency or training camp starts, huh?

If Joe’s heard it once, Joe’s heard it a hundred times: Barrett Ruud is an insult to the greats who once wore a jock strap at linebacker. He’s weak. He tackles seven yards down field. He couldn’t stop a stiff wind. A Tampa Breeze linebacker is more masculine.

But the NFL insiders have a far different opinion of Ruud, the Bucs free agent linebacker. In fact, one NFL insider and former Super Bowl quarterback went so far as to invoke a future Hall of Fame linebacker’s name in the same breath as Ruud.

A Broncos fan called “The Blitz” today, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio, co-hosted by popular sports radio personality Adam Schein and former NFL quarterback Rich Gannon, and pined for the Broncos to sign Ruud, whenever this asinine lockout is over.

Then, both Schein and Gannon began to wax poetic about Ruud in a way that would make most Bucs fans run for a bottle of 151 rum to chug.

Adam Schein: Rich, if Barrett Ruud hits free agency — I don’t mean a pretty good chance, I don’t mean an OK chance — I mean there will be a phenomenal chance he will get paid well.

Rich Gannon: If the Browns sign him, I look for them to use him as a Brian Urlacher-type of player in that defense. Barrett Ruud is a high-energy guy and a high-impact guy. He’s going to make some money for himself. He is one of the top linebackers available. He has been productive since he first got in the league.

Schein: I don’t see our good friends Raheem Morris and Mark Dominik letting him get away. Last year there was a divide as to how much he is worth but at this state with the lockout and a short window to sign free agents, if you let Barrett Ruud go, you can’t replace him.

Gannon: No, you don’t. You develop a guy to be a perfect fit for what you want to do defensively and you don’t reward him? And you lose a significant leader in the locker room? That linebacker corps with Quincy Black and Geno Hayes, that’s a pretty stout group. I don’t think Mason Foster can fill that hole and get the same kind of production. That is an important position in that defense. He makes all the calls, he gets them all lined up in the right position to make a play. That’s a very important role and that’s a big hole to fill. Why take a step back when you have made so much progress?

It’s beginning to become a chorus from NFL insiders and movers and shakers in the NFL: Letting Ruud walk would be a grave error by Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik, despite the Vancouver-like rage in the streets that keeping Ruud may provoke from so many outraged Bucs fans.

Especially in these lockout times, Joe’s always sniffing hard for anything Bucs-related, but Joe also devours all sorts of NFL news and business news.

What struck Joe today was seeing the exploding Groupon craze reach the hallowed halls of the St. Pete Times. You can now have the Sunday Times delivered — and purchased — for roughly about 19 cents a newspaper.

Talk about devaluing the product (or overvaluing it depending on one’s perspective). For those clueless, Groupon offers drastic discounts for all kinds of service businesses and more, and businesses pay Groupon to sell their stuff.  

So essentially, the Times is giving away the newspaper. Man, the media continues to change rapidly. What’s next? The Times paying readers a couple of pennies to read a story online?

But the Groupon craze got Joe wondering when the NFL is going to get into the action, perhaps selling fans a $250 stadium concessions gift card for $125, using that as another method to drive revenue in a down economy and drive interest in attending games.

The Bucs now offer season ticket holders a discount on concessions. It’s not hard to imagine the innovators at One Buc Palace and other teams might find a way to expand on that option for the full fan base.

Don’t get confused here: Bucs icon Derrick Brooks many times has talked about the value of building team camaraderie through OTA days and now via player-only workouts.

Joe’s all on board with that, which is a primary reason Joe didn’t hesitate to hold captain Jeff Faine accountable for saying he didn’t see why he belonged at Josh Freeman’s Tampa workout sessions.

However, Brooks doesn’t want fans to think these player workouts are anything close to a substitute to OTAs even for veterans, so he explained yesterday alongside the dean of Tampa Bay sports radio, Steve Duemig, on WDAE-AM 620, during their weekly “Legends” hour.

It’s an excellent take.

“You can only conditition a certain way when you’re under the microscope, when you’re under the coach’s watch. Your body responds differently; your mind responds differently,” Brooks said. “You can’t [simulate] that. You can do the best you can through the player-only workouts going on right now. And that’s going to have a certain seat at the table. And I respect … each player that’s doing it. But you can’t replace the work that’s going to have to get done under the watch of the coach. You can’t, because your body, everything about you responds differently and the competition level, that picks up. You’re not necessarily competing out there in player only workouts. Who are you competing in front of? Who are you competing for?

Brooks went on to predict more early-season injuries than ever before in 2011 because of players not being as mentally and physically prepared as in previous seasons.

“Your body’s not going to have time to process what it has over months of under being under the microscope [like in previous seasons],” Brooks said.

Brooks makes a great point. Nobody’s competing right now, as they would be in OTAs or even in the One Buc Palace weight room, where the strength coach can deliver feedback to Mark Dominik and Raheem Morris. Only a year ago, the Bucs coaches watched Mike Williams compete in rookie camp and determined he was their No. 1 receiver and groomed him as such.

Time will tell on Brooks’ injury prediction. All the more reason for NFL hatchetman Roger Goodell to ensure football returns by July 4.

A Bucs caller decided to pepper the co-hosts of “The Opening Drive,” Peter King and Ross Tucker, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio this morning about defensive lines, specifically the Bucs’ and the Lions’.

Said caller believed the Lions are getting way too much run for their defensive line when the Bucs could very well have a chance to have a stronger defensive line.

Tucker did not agree in any way and King sort of understood where the caller came from but wasn’t ready to agree.

Ross Tucker: Yeah, the Bucs have invested a lot of resources over the years but none of the guys have really done much. Brian Price was hurt. Gerald McCoy had an avearage year. Adrian Clayborn and Da’Quan Bowers, the jury is still out. Now Detroit, Ndamukong Suh was a dominant force as was Kyle Vanden Bosch, he was solid. Cliff Avril is one of the mos underrated defensive ends and Nick Fairley some thought he was a top-five or a top-eight pick.

Peter King: Imagine a trio, a rotation trio at defensive tackle, with Corey Williams who is an above average nose guy, Ndamukong Suh and Fairley with Suh and Fairley in there on passing downs. I don’t know you will block those two with two or even three players. The Lions will be a load. I’m not saying the caller was wrong. The Bucs have a chance to be a load too. Both play in a tough division. I can see the Saints or the Falcons going deep in the playoffs just like I can see the Bears or the Packers going deep into the playoffs. I think the Lions have a chance to make a lot of noise. If Matt Stafford is healthy, they have a chance to do some very surprising things.

The key with the Bucs will be how quickly Bowers and Clayborn develop. If those guys are able to bring heat from the edge, that takes pressure off the Bucs defensive tackles. It would be a domino effect.

If Bowers and/or Clayborn are able to bring it, GMC will blow up.

Kellen Winslow has Luke Stocker firmly under his wing, says James Lee.

Hard-working NFL.com Bucs blogger/reporter Jenna Laine has served up some intriguing slices of can’t-miss Bucs news in her latest effort.

Among them, per guard James Lee, the Bucs are still training regularly together at USF and some real leadership is playing out. Kellen Winslow has been tutoring Luke Stocker, Lee said, and Lee and Jeremy Zuttah are grabbing the reigns as well.

“Right now basically me and Zuttah -– we’re the guys who are basically running it for the O-line,” Lee said. “And we do our different drills and we go work on our snaps with Josh [Freeman] and Josh [Johnson].”

Meanwhile the receivers, which include Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn, spend about an hour or so with Freeman, with the defensive backs and linebackers lining up for seven-on-seven-type drills.

Two guys that have stepped up and impressed Lee the most have been fellow offensive linemen Ted Larsen and Will Barker.”

“When I saw him and we did some running and stuff, he looked pretty good –- in his O-line drills and everything,” Lee said of Larsen. “And Barker, he looks pretty good. He looks in shape. He looks like if it’s time to go (now), he’ll be ready.”

Joe’s glad to hear of Zuttah being willing to snap the ball to Freeman and block air.

Of course, the real value of these workouts is open for debate, but there’s no questioning that real leaders can emerge from this kind of environment.

Before he was a rock star, current Bucs general manager Mark Dominik was a mere rookie learning the ropes as an NFL team’s top executive short of ownership.

Perhaps looking to make a splash or trying to find someone more suited for the heinous Jim Bates Experiment, Dominik made a run for malcontent defensive tackle Facestomper Haynesworth.

Reportedly, Dominik offered Facestomper more cash than any other team, but Facestomper passed on the Bucs and signed with Washington.

Since, Facestomper has been a colossal bust and a gargantuan waste of millions of dollars from Danny Snyder. Rather than sacking quarterbacks or stuffing the run, Haynesworth is more interested in pouting and reportedly tanking practices and games and whining how he would have to play in a 34 defense despite being paid more money than most humans will ever see in their lifetimes.

In short, Dominik’s whiff on acquiring Facestomper is among the greatest keys in molding his image as a rockstar.But, if good guy Maoist Michael Silver is correct, Dominik still hasn’t lost his infatuation with Facestomper.

While Allen sounds as though he hasn’t given up on Haynesworth – “When the Redskins signed him he was a dominant football player in this league, and there’s no reason to believe he can’t be again” – trading or even releasing the disgruntled defensive tackle may prove to be the team’s best option. During last season, Tennessee made a run at reacquiring Haynesworth but was rebuffed after offering only a fourth-round draft choice. It’s believed that the Titans, Detroit Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Eagles would be the teams most interested in Haynesworth.

Joe just cannot believe this is accurate, unless Silver is on to something no one else outside of One Buc Palace is aware of. With all of Dominik’s drafts the past three years on the defensive line, why on earth would he want Facestomper unless Dominik can get Facestomper for next to nothing? Perhaps Dominik and the Bucs are not all that sold that Brian Price will recover from his messed up pelvis injury.

Still, as much of a malcontent Facestomper is, it’s difficult for Joe to believe he will be wearing a Bucs uniform this season.

If there is a season.