Veteran sports columnist Gary Shelton suggests the Bucs win over the Panthers Sunday may have been the greatest comeback in team history. And, in this Tampa Bay Times video, Shelton explains it was because of the play of one player.

Today’s heinous two interceptions tossed by Josh Freeman, one a pick-6, definitely stunned Joe, as Joe swilled beer and bonded with fellow Bucs fans and staff at Tilted Kilt in Clearwater.

All Joe could think about was doom and gloom. Freeman had gotten so out of sync in between the early and late minutes of the comeback win against Carolina, Joe began to wonder whether the 2011 Freeman had returned from the dead.

While no elite quarterback throws a senseless pick-6 like Freeman’s was, the most comforting part of this game for Joe was Freeman’s ability to bounce back and play with elite confidence and precision to force overtime and win.

Ironically, Freeman had company today from Matt Ryan, who tossed five interceptions in the Falcons victory.

The Falcons and Bucs, who square off in Tampa next Sunday, both looked very beatable for much of today. Yes, good teams overcome shaky performances, but Freeman (and/or Ryan) likely will have to do so much better next week to score a W.

Joe did have issues today with the Bucs’ conservative playcalling at times and the Bucs’ continued obsession with using D.J. Ware so much on third down.

(Last Joe checked Doug Martin was heralded by Bucs brass before and after the draft as “a versatile, three-down back.”)

But that written, today’s game definitely was yet another big positive for offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan. You can’t hang Josh Freeman’s ugly interceptions and Doug Martin’s costly goal-line cough-up on Sullivan. And “Sully,” as he’s called, had his offense and playcalling raring and ready to open the game, ready when the game was on the line, and ready for the kill in overtime.

The man knows how to make adjustments, and clearly the Bucs are very well prepared on offense.

As Joe’s written previously, Joe’s not sure how Sullivan won’t be in consideration for a head coaching gig after this season, assuming the Bucs offense keeps rolling. He’s got rings. He’s coached under disciplinarians. He’s got a military-officer background. He’s molded quarterbacks. And he’ll have playcalling prowess on his resume.

No, the Stinkin’ Panthers did not win, Chris Myers.

Joe’s not sure how many Bucs fans heard this — Joe didn’t — but it was amazing that Chris Myers, who was calling the Bucs game on FOX with Joe’s favorite, Tim Ryan, declared the Stinkin’ Panthers a winner the moment Dallas Clark got two feet down in overtime for — all together now — a Bucs win.

Joe’s good friend Jason McIntyre of TheBigLead.com has the video of Myers’ terrible gaffe.

To use one of Greg Schiano’s favorite phrases, the Bucs’ defense “bowed their necks” late in the thrilling win against the Panthers today.

The Panthers got the ball back with an eight-point lead and 4:03 left on the clock. But the Bucs dug in and forced a punt with a minute left to set up Josh Freeman’s aerial heroics.

Gerald McCoy, speaking in the Bucs locker room on FOX-13 after the game, gave a loud hat tip to Bucs strength coach Jay Butler, a guy who spent 11 seasons at Rutgers in the same role before Greg Schiano brought him to Tampa. McCoy said the Bucs’ fast and hard training “three or four days a week” left them very ready to be strong in the closing minutes and dominate overtime.

“In the end, we got that extra edge,” McCoy said.

Interestingly, during a separate interview on FOX, Michael Bennett said the Bucs being “one of the most well conditioned teams in the league” was key to the victory.

Before the season, the leader of the New Schiano Order made it clear the Rutgers way was coming to Tampa. In the realm of fitness, it seems the Rutgers model is doing just fine.

Bucs stud running back Doug Martin seemed a tad relieved with the Bucs win as even he offered that his fumble on the goal line could have doomed the team. Like the rest of the Bucs, he was on Cloud-9 after the come-from-behind win.

“It was a grind for four quarters and overtime. We had to fight and grind till the end. It was not a pretty game but we stayed through it and ground it out.”

On game-tying drive and overtime: “Just like practice. Situation practice. Everybody was calm and collected and had their minds right and we took off from there.”

On OT: “Awesome for this team. Man, everybody was just zoned in and the line did a good job of staying on blocks. Even though I had a fumble earlier, I had to place that out of my mind.”

On the game-winning catch by Dallas Clark: “ Relief. Awesome catch and throw by Dallas and Josh. Relief. Thrilling victory.”

On Vincent Jackson: “Vincent had a fabulous game.”

On what the win means for the season: “We just go week by week. Preparing is the main thing. Preparing for the game and it shows.”

After the Bucs rallied from the dead to beat the Stinkin’ Panthers in overtime today, Bucs player after Bucs player on radio and on TV talked about how Bucs coach Greg Schiano has the team prepared for just about anything. Daily the team goes over various scenarios whether it is a four-minute drill or a two-minute drill, they said.

But preparing for overtime?

Bucs defensive linemen Gerald McCoy and Michael Bennett both spoke out on WTVT-TV’s Bucs postgame show that for the first time all year, Schiano, Wednesday, gathered the team and explained how the Bucs would go about things if they found themselves in the first overtime game of the season.

Four days later, the Bucs are in overtime. This preparation helped calm the players down, as both GMC and Bennett said they knew what to expect and what to do.

What a change from last year this team is. Imagine, coaching people up, preparing players as opposed to moving to the beat of rap music?

It was obvious the Panthers came into this game looking to run the ball more than they usually do, and again the Bucs’ No. 1 ranked run defense stepped up.

Cam Newton was averaging 5.6 yards a carry before today. The Bucs held him to 40 yards on 11 carries.

Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams combined for just 61 yards on 22 carries.

It’s such a team effort on the Bucs’ run defense. The question is who isn’t making plays, versus who is.

Gary Gibson, Daniel Te’-O Nesheim, Roy Miller and Gerald McCoy were in the backfield, as was Ronde Barber on a savage run blitz, and the linebacker corps was punishing.

Thankfully, a handful of mistakes in the Bucs secondary — a particularly rough day for Mark Barron — weren’t exploited.

Should-be Hall of Famer Ronde Barber, the graybeard of the Bucs, seemed as happy as a high school kid on prom night after the Bucs’ thrilling overtime win as he spoke on the Bucs radio network moments after the game.

“This one is at the top of the list,” Barber said of the win, a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. “We didn’t play well, we had three turnovers and we didn’t match up on defense well, and we win. We put ourselves in a tough situation at the end but we have proved to be a resilient team all year and proved that at the end.”

On the final defensive stand that set up the game-tying drive: “We knew going out there it was our one opportunity to do something right today. Without that (last stop), this game is obviously different.”
On Vincent Jackson: “I tell you what, Vincent Jackson is worth every penny we paid him. And I will give it to [quarterback Josh Freeman]. He will admit he was not at his best but at the end, I will tell you I wouldn’t want anyone else throwing the ball for us.

“We will take the ‘W.’ It was a hard-fought win. Hope we can build on it.

“The confidence has been there. We just have to continue to do our job. Coach Schiano puts a lot of emphasis on doing things right and that paid off at the end.”

How happy was Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman after the Bucs’ thrilling, come-from-behind, overtime win? Just minutes after the game while appearing on the Bucs radio network, Freeman was panting like Joe would just after a sheet-thrashing tryst with Rachel Watson.

“This is a great team win. Just one win, just like any other win. I think we came together as a team. I sure as heck didn’t play my best game, we were struggling but guys sacrificing their bodies, whatever it took to make plays at the end. Defense did the job at the end. Nobody flinched. Everybody kept playing. Tiquan got blasted but held on. Dallas Clark stepped up and make two huge plays for us. We have to learn from our mistakes and learn not to make these games so close.”

On the winning play: “It was a play we put in earlier this week. I had to go to [Clark] earlier than I wanted to but I’m glad I did.”

On the two-point play to send the game into overtime: “It was a run-play option. Initially [the Stinkin’ Panthers] came out in a blitz and we switched to a pass. We didn’t flinch. We didn’t move. Vincent came up big and split a double-team look.”

On the win: “The Carolina Panthers, they are a good football team. You don’t want to give Cam Newton the ball back. Our focus was to run our offense, one play at a time. It was an all-around team effort.

“It’s a big win on an emotional scale, but it’s just one win. We have to go out and execute better.”

Doug Martin has 1,000 yards rushing on the season after today’s 24 carries and 138 yards.

Think about that for a minute. That’s 1,000 yards in 10 games.

TEN GAMES!

There was no LeGarrette Blount sighting today, no pretending that the Bucs aren’t going to ride the Muscle Hampster hard on the march to the playoffs (maybe). Yeah, there’s the lurking rookie wall to look out for, but it seems the New Schiano Order isn’t concerned regardless of what they say.

And Joe’s fine with pounding the Muscle Hampster. Let’s see how much the new bell cow can take and prepare to shut him down if the Bucs fall out of the playoffs, or limit him later in the season if necessary. Right now, this season is about winning. The postseason is in reach. Frankly, the Bucs control their own destiny with six games to play.

Keep milking the bell cow.

Yes, Josh Freeman rose to the challenge at a time when he couldn’t fail, but Joe’s got to hand out a game ball to the Muscle Hampster. And yes, Joe’s convinced Muscle Hampster’s goal line fumble was a lousy call that thieved a touchdown from the Bucs.

This Carolina stinker turned into one glorious rose. 

The Bucs left no room for error in the fourth quarter, and it turned out they didn’t need any against the stinkin’ Panthers. Vincent Jackson earned his $11 million and change, and Josh Freeman channeled his 2010 wonderboy magic to pull a great finish and overtime dominance out of an otherwise ugly performance — and a horrendous theft job by the zebras.

Now 6-4, the Bucs are legitimately in the playoff hunt and conversation.

And that guy Doug Martin, well, by Joe’s math, the kid’s now a 1,000 yard rusher in just 10 games.

Stick with Joe through the night for so much more on this wild game.

All right Bucs fans, time to get your Gene Deckerhoff on. It’s the Bucs at the Stinkin’ Panthers and the Bucs are do to deliver a beatdown on an inferior opponent.

If the Bucs are truly a good team and are trying to make a run at the playoffs, this is the kind of game you win. Show the Stinkin’ Panthers who their daddy is. Make Cam Newton bury his head in a towel and bawl.

If the Bucs can pull off a win today, they will be 6-4 for Thanksgiving. Who here would have guessed that in August?

Week 11
Bucs at Panthers
Kickoff: 1 p.m.
TV: Locally, WTVT-TV Channel 13. DirecTV Channel 705.
Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network (in Tampa WFUS-FM, 103.5 and WDAE-AM, 620); SiriusXM Channel 136.
Weather: Per AccuWeather.com, it will be chilly but not too awful. Kickoff temperature is expected to be 54 with winds around 10 mph under mostly cloudy skies. It won’t warm up much after that as the temperature near the end of the game will climb to 56.
Odds: Per Sportsbook.com, Bucs -1.5
Outlook: OK, so the Bucs are in a playoff run. Logically speaking, that means the Bucs are a good football team, no?? If one believes in this premise, then the Bucs should knock off the Stinkin’ Panthers. Good teams beat the teams they are supposed to beat. The Stinkin’ Panthers are lousy. Superman has ingested quite a bit of kryptonite. Cam Newton, though dangerous, has proved to be mortal. Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or Eli Manning or Ben Roethlisberger he is not. Oh, the Panthers have some talent on the field. Steve Smith is as dangerous as any receiver in the NFL and we all know just how stout the Bucs pass defense is (cough, cough). Then there are the Panthers linebackers who who are as good as any linebacker unit in the NFL. This, Joe believes, will be the key to the game. The Bucs’ offensive line has been ripped to shreds by injuries and now backup Jamon Meredith is a monster question mark. The Panthers linebackers have to be licking their chops at the chance to face such a depleted offensive line. Panthers stud rookie linebacker Luke Kuechly all but said as much, stating this week the Panthers’ objective was to try to stop Doug Martin and make the Bucs a one-dimensional team. They know the Bucs, to be polite, are thin up front.
The enemy speaks: Below are some quotes from Panthers coach Ron Rivera and Kuechly about the Bucs-Panthers matchup today.
Kuechly: “We have to finish games, that’s been a trend. We play well at first but haven’t been able to finish a team at the end. We need to play well all four quarters. … [The Bucs] are clicking right now. They are running the ball extremely well right now and when you run the ball, your offense jumps. … [Moving from Will linebacker to the middle] I have become more comfortable as the season has progressed and the more reps I get, the more comfortable I get. I’m still not 100 percent comfortable. … We have to make a team one-dimensional and stop the run. So we have to take care our gaps.”
Rivera: “[The Bucs] offense is on track. Their quarterback is playing extremely well right now. He is limiting his mistakes and making great decisions. Doug Martin is becoming the running back that I think Coach Schiano envisioned him to be. I think [the Bucs] receivers are in sync. Their offensive line, despite injuries, have solidified themselves and look good. … Doug Martin is playing the way a lot of people thought he would be. He doesn’t play like a rookie. He makes a lot of good decisions. He is the complete running back.”

It was interesting to Joe to hear various Bucs defenders talk about Carolina quarterback Cam Newton. The feedback to Joe spanned from indifference to awe.

The awe factor came from Bucs defensive end Michael Bennett, who dismissed Newton’s struggles through his sophomore season in the NFL.

“Nothing against the cam newton, we just want to beat the Panthers.

“I don’t know that if he is struggling,” Bennett said. “His yards are still good. You don’t win the Player of the Year if you are not a great player. He has just made a few mistakes. He is an explosive player and at any time, he can be explosive.

“But I’m not worried about what he is doing wrong. No offense to Cam, but I want to beat the Panthers.”

Adam Hayward didn’t really want to talk about Newton and he admitted he wasn’t laying awake at night worrying about what Newton is doing wrong.

“I know we just have to stop the whole team,” Hayward said. Newton “is turning the ball over, that is a big part of why they are not playing well. We just have to do our job and not worry about that.

“The way we look at it is, Cam Newton is just another quarterback and if we keep him from getting on a roll, we will be taking care of business.”

What could be more fun that watching the Bucs-Panthers game tomorrow with fello Bucs fans and the Kilt girls!

Joe’s got plenty of jerseys and hats to give away, and the Kilt’s food is awesome. Click through above or below to learn more. There’s indoor and outdoor seating, plus WiFi access, easy parking and great game viewing. Tilted Kilt also has the Sunday Ticket so you can keep track of all your fantasies that aren’t wearing skirts.

The Bucs, not satisfied standing pat, decided to try to beef up their interior defensive line as they signed Matthew Masifilo to the 53-man roster today.

Previously, Masifilo was on San Francisco’s practice squad. He was signed by the Niners as an undrafted free agent out of Stanford this spring. He has been on the Niners practice squad all season.

In the preseason, Masifilo had seven tackles and a fumble recovery.

The way Bucs running back Doug Martin has burst onto the scene in recent weeks has Bucs fans giddy with excitement, not just the present but what the future holds for the Bucs’ running game.

Bucs fans are so happy with Martin, they are launching a futile effort, trying to label Martin with gloss other than the outstanding moniker Martin carried with him from college, “The Muscle Hamster.”

(Doug, embrace it, man. It has caught the nation. You can make loads of cash off this. Imagine the gear you could sell. Hamster T-shirts, hamster headgear, hamster coolies, hamster figurines. The list is endless.)

Joe isn’t quite ready to label Martin the best in the NFL, but he’s damned close. Of course, Adrian Peterson lead the NFL in rushing and Martin is fifth.

This does not matter to former Bucs stud, all-around good guy and fan favorite Earnest Graham. The former Bucs all-purpose running back took to Twitter and proclaimed Martin to be the NFL’s best.

@EarnestGraham: There is one RB in the league that is in better shape than Adrian Peterson…..That is Doug Martin. His conditioning is second to none.

This is interesting to Joe, the conditioning. Now, Peterson is famous for his conditioning but if the Bucs are going to make a run at the postseason, they will need Martin at full speed.

Sooner or later, Martin (and Lavonte David and Mark Barron) are going to hit that rookie wall. Even Bucs coach Greg Schiano has mentioned he is monitoring Martin for this as this is the time of the year the wall hits.

Schiano said part of being able to deal with that wall is conditioning. If, what Graham writes, is true about Martin, it will go a long way to help Martin manage both the mental and physical fatigue that comes along with that nasty wall.

Does any Bucs fan feel like a loss is coming in Carolina on Sunday?

Joe doesn’t know one, other than Josh Freeman-basher Boomer Esiason calling a Panthers upset on CBS Radio this week. And that fact alone is evidence just how far the Bucs have come.

A year removed from a total collapse fans expect a third consecutive road win against a division rival. Even Ronde Barber says he’s a total believer.

“Here we are three weeks in a row feeling pretty good about ourselves. It’s one of those things where a team starts getting some confidence and, you know, you feel like you’re going to win every week,” Barber said on the Buccaneers Radio Network. “I don’t know if you ask everyone else that they believe that, but for me these past couple of weeks have really felt like this is the week where we’re going to just keep rolling regardless of what happens in the game. And that was the really the case [against the Chargers.]”

Joe has to imagine Barber has plenty of equally confident company in the locker room.

The Bucs don’t yet have a championship swagger about them on the field like the glory-years teams did. Maybe a great team doesn’t need one. But Joe suspects the Bucs just might start showing some of that swagger in Carolina.

Joe’s not big on most postseason awards, but Joe knows Lavonte David has to be in contention for something as the tackling machine on the Bucs’ top-ranked run defense.

David is fifth in the NFL in tackles (81), pretty amazing for a rookie. But then it feels a little less special because rookie Luke Kuechly of Carolina is third in the league with 87 tackles. Kuechly was the can’t-miss 21-year-old middle linebacker in the NFL draft out of Boston College. He started the season as an outside linebacker but has gone wild since moving to the middle of the Panthers defense.

Speaking on 98.7 FM yesterday, Charlotte Observer Panthers beat writer Joe Person was gushing about Kuechly but said he does have a weakness.

“He’s averaging 15 tackles a game since taking over the middle for Jon Beason. He doesn’t miss tackles,” Person said.

Kuechly has proven “vulnerable to play-action,” Person said, and has yet to show the same prowess in coverage has he has in other phases of the game.

Joe found this to be an interesting nugget, and one that leads Joe to believe the Bucs will try to exploit Kuechly over the middle early and keep him playing a little less downhill.

Definitely something to watch for on Sunday.