As much as Greg Schiano talked all offseason about how he wanted to run the football, it surprised Joe a bit that the Bucs seemed content to hand the starting fullback gig to Erik Lorig, a converted defensive end with limited experience in the backfield.

Then as it became clear that the Bucs’ new offense would actually use the fullback more than most, Joe had his fingers and toes crossed that Lorig could deliver.

To date, Joe thinks Lorig has been better than expected. His blocking appears to have improved — he threw key blocks on three of four Doug Martin touchdown runs Sunday — and Lorig has been sure-handed and quick out of the backfield all season.

Last night, the leader of the New Schiano Order took to the WDAE-AM 620 airwaves and enthusiastically heaped hefty praise on his fullback.

“Erik Lorig has done a great job. I mean, being a lead fullback, catching the ball when we throw it to him,” Schiano said.

Joe’s got a lot of faith in Lorig’s ability to improve. Former Bucs defensive end Steve White documented one of Lorig’s blocking shortcomings weeks ago, which Joe has kept an eye on since. Joe has seen improvement. Plus, Joe got to chat with former Bucs FB/RB Earnest Graham about Lorig, and Graham asssured Joe that Lorig is an extraordinary athlete and has the work ethic to develop into a top fullback.

If Lorig keeps catching balls and lead-blocking Martin to a great season, he could end up being the first Mark Dominik draft pick to start a Pro Bowl, aka eat pineapple.

The amazing new ESPN AT SEA has great “Big Game” cruises out of Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale in 2013. Yeah, Super Bowl time.

All kinds of former NFL greats are accessible on the cruises, as well as stars from the soccer world, cruise cheerleaders and much more. There are so many options to choose, plus parties, and a discount for JoeBucsFan.com readers. Click on through below to sniff all the deals and check out the Royal Caribbean ships.

Oh, no. Here comes the hate mail to Joe’s inbox, as Joe dares to write something political. Joe can already smell the venom.

Today is Election Day, and Joe is not here to endorse candidates or cheerleaders. But Joe does want everyone to vote, and Joe is here to ask his fellow citizens to do a little research on the various candidates and amendments up and down the ballot before heading out to vote. In other words, try to have a clue on who/what you’re voting for.

You invest hours every week on football-related fun — a glorious freedom — at least give your community the gift of an informed vote a couple of times a year, or at least one that’s more informed than the last time you voted.

Good things usually happen when people care.

Ahmad Black doesn’t play a lot, but the guy makes plays.

He did his thing this preseason, snatched a key interception on opening day, and Black has pressed on in ways big and small.

Against the Raiders, Black had a touchdown-saving, open-field tackle. He made an athletic leap and catch to snag a good Raiders onsides kick. That was tremendous awareness and instincts. And he had a late interception to all but put the game away.

Black has not only made rockstar general manager Mark Dominik proud as a blossoming fifth-round pick from the 2011 draft, the leader of the New Schiano Order has taken notice.

“At the beginning, ‘Oh, he got lucky.’ But when you do it over and over and over again. It isn’t luck,” Greg Schiano said last night on WDAE-AM 620 of Ahmad Black making plays. “It’s instinct and it’s a feel for that kind of thing. Ahmad is getting better and better in our scheme, and he as a great guy to learn behind in Ronde Barber.”

Joe feels best about Black’s game as it relates to the Bucs potentially moving Ronde Barber to cornerback, full-time or part-time. Clearly, Black has earned playing time, and as much as Schiano has talked about getting the best players on the field, one could think a Barber move is more likely than unlikely.

“Demar, you are a Buccaneer Man.”

As Joe wrote yesterday, and will write about in more detail later today, Bucs offensive line coach Bob Bostad shouldn’t have to buy a drink or a dinner the rest of the football season given the job he has done with the Bucs.

Joe cannot remember, this side of Pittsburgh, an NFL team whose offensive line has been ravaged by injuries to star personnel, only to have the NFL equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape repair the holes and still shut down a talented opponent.

But that was the case Sunday when the Bucs offensive line all but shut down a talented foe like the Raiders, allowing Doug Martin to go all Gayle Sayers.

Apparently, it wasn’t just Bostad’s magic touch, but a mindset the Bucs line. They were going into the game with a street fight mentality that apparently paid off, so Demar Dotson said yesterday afternoon at One Buc Palace.

“It is the NFL; next man up,” Dotson said. “You are going to have to play different positions and when your number is up you are going to do what is the best for the team. That’s why Jeremy Zuttah is so unselfish in going from center to left guard. He didn’t even complain about it. He just went out there and locked down [Raiders defensive tackle Richard] Seymour. That’s what kind of player he is.

“I think after the first couple of series we started to get comfortable. We started to get together as a unit. We knew we were going to go out there and fight. [The Raiders] have a good front seven, especially a good front four. We knew it was going to be a dogfight from start to finish and we knew we were not going to get punked out. We were there to fight all day.”

Hearing this got Joe fired up. That type of mentality is exactly what the New Schiano Order is all about.

And Dotson is right. After a less than stellar start, the line started to own the line of scrimmage.

Impressive stuff.

It was one thing when former quarterback Boomer Esiason accused Josh Freeman of “clubbing” too much and spouted seemingly baseless allegations that Freeman was not properly committed to his job a few weeks ago.

Joe thought that was ugly rumormongering by the CBS Sports analyst. But Esiason, even after Freeman has put up huge numbers the past three games, is continuing to smear the Bucs quarterback.

Esiason joined WEEI-FM sports radio in Boston yesterday and said he hoped Freeman has “turned that corner” and isn’t “running the streets at night.”

“Nobody is talking about is what Greg Schiano is doing down in Tampa. You know, Josh Freeman the last four weeks has all of a sudden become the quarterback that he was two years ago,” Esiason said. “Now all of a sudden, under a significant structural change in that organization with Greg Schiano taking over for Raheem Morris, he’s become the player that he was two years ago, even better than he was two years ago. The only thing I say about him is that if you want to be an elite quarterback, and I said this about Joe Flacco [Sunday] on the NFL today, you gotta make the commitment. You gotta make the commitment mentally. You gotta make the commitment physically. You can’t be out running the streets at night. You gotta make sure that you take care of yourself and that your teammates have to believe that you do really care about what you’re doing on the field, and hopefully he’s turned that corner and he’s going to be serious about it.”

As Joe wrote after Esiason spouted off last time, there’s no evidence to support that Freeman isn’t thoroughly committed to his job; and he has been for a while. Joe even recalls an interview with workhorse and former Bucs captain Barrett Ruud, when Ruud talked about how Freeman was the only guy to ever beat him to One Buc Palace to start the workday.

“Physically, I don’t know if there is a more talented quarterback in the NFL. But as you’ll see, to be the very best quarterback, it’s all the mental things, the preparation,” Ruud said. “The good thing with Josh is he has the attitude and work ethic to get to that level.”

“By 6:15 I’m going to be here alone or he’ll be here …either his car or my car is going to be there first. I take a lot of pride in my preparation, and he does the same thing. He’s just not relying on, you know, the rocket he was touches with when he was a baby. He’s got a lot of natural talent, but he also puts a lot of work in.”

Joe believes it’s high time Freeman’s agent steps in to try and muzzle Esiason and stop him from running around the country questioning Freeman’s commitment without any sources to back it up.

Don’t think Esiason has a big platform audience to worry about? Well, he hosts a daily radio show in New York, does weekly interviews on sports radio in Boston and around the country, broadcasts Monday Night Football on radio, and he’s in the CBS-TV national studio every week.

Joe’s had enough of the Freeman smearing. Esiason should be ashamed.

It seems New Schiano Order fever still has a ways to go to reach the wallets of Bucs fans across the region.

Bucs officials this evening are advising that the Bucs must sell another 9,000 tickets to Sunday’s Chargers-Bucs game by 1 p.m. on Thursday to avoid having the game blacked out on local television. Yes, that 9K is to reach the 85 percent of non-premium tickets sold, the threshold to avoid the blackout.

Joe doesn’t want to be a downer, but that’s a lot of tickets to move with an election tomorrow that’s going to distract a lot of people — and depress about half of them on Wednesday.

Per Ticketmaster.com, $30 seats are available.

Former Bucs defensive tackle Booger McFarland claimed he became ill watching the Bucs pass defense Sunday against the Raiders.

As beautiful as the Bucs offense was yesterday, as exciting as Muscle Hamster Doug Martin was going all Gayle Sayers on the Raiders, the Bucs’ pass defense is equally obscene.

This is nothing new this season. Whenever the Bucs play a decent quarterback (Eli Manning, RGIII, Drew Brees), the secondary is simply scalded for yards at an alarming, frightening rate.

The Bucs’ pass defense was so unnerving, it made former Bucs star Booger McFarland, co-host of “The Booger and Rich Show” with Rich Herrera on WHFS-FM, sick to his stomach.

“All that I ate yesterday I nearly tossed up watching that pass defense,” McFarland said.

In short, McFarland said Bucs coaches are putting the Bucs cornerbacks in no-win situations with too many blitzes and asking the corners to accomplish what they physically cannot do.

“You can’t put these guys out on an island” on so many blitzes, McFarland said.

But the Bucs are in a pickle. Eric Wright likely will be suspended shortly and be gone for four weeks ,so it appears your Bucs starting cornerbacks are E.J. Biggers and Leonard Johnson with — brace yourself — Myron Lewis as your nickel, as Brandon McDonald is getting healthy.

Yes, Joe knows Stanford Routt was released by the Chiefs today. Don’t expect the Bucs to sign him. He has a heavily expensive option in his contract and quite frankly, Joe doesn’t know about a guy getting cut from the worst team in the NFL.

Would Routt be an upgrade (if cash was not a factor) over Lewis? Well, yeah, a $12 lawn chair from Wal-Mart would be an upgrade over Lewis, who looks completely and totally lost in an NFL defensive backfield. At least there would be a remote chance a receiver would trip over a lawn chair.

Joe has been getting a lot of queries as to the status of Bucs backup cornerback Anthony Gaitor. So many, Joe spoke with Bucs media relations personnel today to get to the heart of the matter.

Gaitor is rehabbing at One Buc Palace as he has been nursing a nasty hamstring injury just about all year. Gaitor is seen often in the Bucs locker room (as is, by the way, Adrian Clayborn and periodically, Davin Joseph).

Because of new NFL rules, there are opportunities where a player can be pulled off of the injured reserve list and Gaitor is still eligible for that option. But it is a short option. There is roughly a one-week window where Gaitor can be brought back to the 53-man roster. That would be after the 12th game of the season (Broncos game) and before the 13th game (Eagles).

If Gaitor is not activated prior to the Eagles game, he must remain on the injured reserve list for the remainder of the season. He cannot be activated prior to the Broncos game.

Of course, this is all dependent on whether Gaitor is healthy enough. If he is deemed unhealthy by the training staff, this is all a moot point.

Naturally, there will have to be a roster move in order for Gaitor to be activated. If Gaitor is healthy enough and the option to activate him will be used, Joe’s going to guess (hope) the odd man out is beleaguered cornerback Myron Lewis.

CLARIFICATION: Per NFL rules, Gaitor mostly cannot practice with the team while on the injured reserve list but he can rehab at the team’s facility. Gaitor may, however, practice with the team within two weeks of his eligibility window in which he can be reactivated to the 53-man roster.

It’s one of the more bizarre stats you’ll see; the Bucs have the NFL’s best run defense (77.2 yards allowed per game) and the league’s worst pass defense (321.1 yards per game).

Now Raheem Morris says stats are for losers, but Greg Schiano is a big numbers cruncher and this data is not dismissed by the head coach.

Today before local media, Schiano repeated that his pass defense is getting closer to making more plays, working every week, and it’s evident on film that the Bucs are just a few inches away from a better defense. Call it “a shoe,” if you will.

Will the Bucs make up those inches? Well, Joe’s hardly confident there will be loads of improvement in the secondary, especially if Eric Wright is suspended four games for Adderrall use. However, Joe does expect at least a little improvement from the remaining cornerbacks (hopefully not Myron Lewis), and a little more life to the pass rush as Da’Quan Bowers gets to full strength.

A pass rush is and always will be a secondary’s best friend. And just the slightest uptick from the D-line would make a huge impact on the Bucs’ playoff hopes.

Did LeGarrette Blount fumble yesterday?

TV replays seem to show Josh Freeman fumbling the ball as he stuck it a little high on Blount’s chest during the fourth-quarter handoff that hit the turf and was recovered by Oakland.

Per Freeman, that’s what happened and he took “complete credit for that” almost disastrous miscue. Freeman said in his postgame news conference that the ball was “slick” and he thought he secured it.

Freeman went on to praise Blount for almost recovering the fumble.

Hopefully, Blount’s confidence is in tact. The Bucs will need him going forward.

As Deion Sanders would say, “Slow your roll, Joe. Slow your roll.”

Joe agrees. It is almost heresy to suggest that Bucs rookie outside linebacker Lavonte David is the new Derrick Brooks. There may never been another Derrick Brooks, he was such a stud.

But, man, David is really putting on a show in his first NFL season. Consider David racked up 14 tackles Sunday — 14! Two of those were tackles behind the line of scrimmage, tackles for loss. Those came in the first half for David and the Bucs.

Davis leads the Bucs in tackles for loss with 11, an extraordinary number for a rookie through eight games.

David, as Joe wrote about last December, is the personification of a sideline-to-sideline player, just like old No. 55.

And consider what Ronde Barber said about David last week.

“I look at Lavonte David and I see a young Derrick Brooks, not necessarily how he plays, but just like his instincts and just his knack for football,” Barber said. “That was one thing Derrick really had, just kind of a knack for the game. Lavonte’s absolutely shown that in the first part of his career. ”

Is David the next Brooks? Probably not. But he may well be the best Bucs linebacker drafted since Brooks. That’s a fair statement in Joe’s eyes.

Click here or below to find your nearest Original Hooters location. The 2013 calendar is extraordinary on its own, let alone with all the great food offers included.

Not so lost in the glorious win over the Raiders was how the Bucs’ pass defense damn near coughed up yet another fourth-quarter lead.

This is an ugly pattern the Bucs really need to address. Yes, Bucs coach Greg Schiano noted that when the Bucs needed to make a play, they did so. True, but the game was hanging in the balance and it should not have been.

Changing personnel is not the answer. E.J. Biggers haters will just have to find a way to come to grips that he will be a starting cornerback, likely through the end of the season. Joe is still of the mind Biggers did not get “burned” much. Getting burned, in Joe’s mind, is the type of half-arsed defense that Myron Lewis manufactures where a receiver leaves Lewis in the dust and all he can do is turn around and watch a zebra throw his hands in the air signaling “touchdown.”

There were two damned good plays made on Biggers, one where Palmer threw a perfect pass on decent coverage, and another where Darrius Heyward-Bey, arguably the fastest receiver in the NFL, hauled in a one-handed freak catch.

Besides, it was Biggers who made the game-saving pick.

Even Stephen Holder of the Tampa Bay Times types that the current starters for the Bucs at cornerback aren’t going to change, sans Eric Wright’s pending suspension.

And with former first-round pick Aqib Talib now property of the Patriots after Thursday’s trade, it’s a lineup the Bucs are going to have to make the best of.

“There is no excuse,” Biggers said. “We have to play until the clock says zero, no matter how many times we have to cover. They’re going to make plays. But we have to do our jobs and deny our man the ball. They made some plays. They have a great quarterback and some great players at receiver.”

The only personnel move Joe could suggest is the jettisoning of Myron Lewis. You cannot tell Joe there isn’t someone walking the streets who can’t play pitiful defense like Lewis.

Lewis is this year’s Sabby the Goat. Whenever Sabby the Goat was sent in, you just knew he was going to get grilled for six, you just knew it. So too did opposing offensive coordinators, who wasted little time in targeting him.

Lewis has now sunk to that level. Like with Sabby the Goat, Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik finally had his fill and handed Sabby the Goat a pink slip to close that chapter and move on. Joe hopes Dominik has (finally) come to the same realization about Lewis. Just what makes anyone think he will improve after countless chances to do so?

Since personnel, sans perhaps Lewis, isn’t going to change, the schemes the Bucs are using need to be reevaluated.

Surely, putting heat on quarterbacks in the fourth quarter could help out a beleaguered secondary.

After the Vikings-Bucs game, Joe blasted The Roscoe Parrish Experience. It wasn’t pretty and had been getting progressively worse.

But Greg Schiano stood tall last week and gave 30-year-old Parrish a massive vote of confidence.

Well, kudos to Parrish and Schiano, as Parrish was the real deal in Oakland busting out two strong returns, including one of 26 yards that helped set up the Bucs to take a 21-10 lead. 

It would be quite a boost for the already powerful Bucs offense if Parrish can get on a roll.

Popcorn-munching, coffee-slurping, fried-chicken-eating, oatmeal-loving, circle-jerking, beer-chugging Peter King, of Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports fame, has bestowed one of his highest honors to Greg Schiano, via King’s famous Monday Morning Quarterback column.

King lauds for Schiano for his work on and off the field over the past few days and beyond

Coach of the Week

Greg Schiano, head coach, Tampa Bay. At 1-3 in the first quarter of the season, and then having Aqib Talib, his best cover corner, suspended on the eve of the Bucs’ fifth game, Schiano faced the prospect of an embarrassing first season as he tried to transform a soft team into a competitive one. But in the next four weeks, Schiano, with an assist from GM Mark Dominik, continued to remake the team, dumping Talib and a seventh-round pick on New England for a fourth-rounder in 2013 and winning three of four games.

The 42-32 victory in Oakland continued to show that Schiano’s way on offense can work. He’s determined to be able to run the ball for big chunks in a league where offense seems to be increasingly measured by how gaudy their passing numbers can be. After half a season, Schiano has made his mark in a way the Bucs could have only dreamed of when they made him their surprising hire to replace Raheem Morris last winter.

Interesting thought by King that Schiano has reached or exceeded (to date) the dreams the Bucs had for him when they hired him, but Joe wouldn’t go that far.

Joe suspects Team Glazer has gotten just what it expected when it hired Schiano: a competitive play-for-60-minutes team on the rise.

Joe can just guess when readers noticed the headline, a few asked themselves, possibly out loud, “Who?”

Bob Bostad would be your Bucs offensive line coach and it’s time to start giving him props. Let’s look at what the Bucs offensive line has gone through since August.

1) Right guard David Joseph goes down with a knee injury ending his season.

2) Right tackle Jeremy Trueblood gets hurt and is Wally Pipped, losing his starting gig to Demar Dotson.

3) Ted Larsen, who started at right guard after Joseph went down, is benched and replaced by Jamon Meredith.

4) Left guard Carl Nicks does down for the season with an ugly toe injury, and is replaced by Jeremy Zuttah, who moves from starting center to left guard.

5) With a center position open, Larsen, who played some center at North Carolina State, moves in to fill the void left by Zuttah at center.

This is just nuts and normally, just Joseph’s injury could collapse an offensive line. The other elements would normally cripple any other line.

But somehow, some way, Bostad has found a way to get the Bucs to play effectively up front, enough to have Doug Martin go all Gayle Sayers on the Raiders yesterday, a defensive front with some damn tough hombres.

Now college football geeks like Joe know that traditionally, Wisconsin year in and year out had one of the nation’s top offensive lines, and produced studs like Browns left tackle Joe Thomas and Bears right tackle Gabe Carimi.

It’s no coincidence that Wisconsin, to be polite, has struggled with their offensive line in the first year after Bostad left, and already fired Bostad’s immediate successor.

Right now if someone can inform Joe of an NFL offensive line coach who is doing a better job than Bostad under the worst of possible conditions, Joe is all ears.

In his weekly take on the Bucs, veteran columnist Gary Shelton confesses he is actually looking forward to the Chargers game next week, a far cry from last year, when all people looked forward to was the end of the season  to stop the weekly misery. Share your thoughts on Shelton’s words by watching this Tampa Bay Times video.

Joe is going to touch on this a bit more first thing in the morning, but it is mind-boggling how Doug Martin is getting better and better when, from a rational, objective viewpoint, the offensive line is getting worse.

Earlier in the year, All-Pro guard Carl Nicks confessed to Joe that all the lineup juggling on the right side of the line was indirectly affecting the left side of the line because the line as a whole had to play on one page, had to be cohesive.

Well, since, Doug Martin has gotten better and better every week and saved his best for today when the offensive line was in a complete shambles after losing Nicks for the season.

No problem for Martin who went all Gayle Sayers on the Raiders today.

Bucs left tackle Donald Penn, the lone member of the Bucs’ offensive line to be starting at his normal position, was and is blown away by Martin’s skills, as he detailed on the Bucs radio network.

“We must be doing something right; that’s two weeks in a row. We started out rusty but finished the game,” Penn said. “I think that dude is getting better and better every week. He is getting a better feel for our blocks and we are getting a better feel for him. Only a running back like Doug Martin can do that. He is pushing this offense for us and making Josh’s job easy.

“We have to keep building, can’t get complacent, keep building, keep working. We are at .500 now but we have to keep working.”

Pass rushers get paid handsomely in the NFL.

Pass rushers who play the run well get paid even better.

And 27-year-old pass rushers who enter free agency with double-digit sacks in a contract year hit the jackpot.

Michael Bennett, with a sack today and six sacks at the halfway point of the season, continues to look like the total package. Joe’s not a big fan of the various stats-tracking geeks on the Internet, such as Pro Football Focus, but these guys also repeatedly say Bennett tracks as a stud.

Sure, Bennett is prone to getting dinged up and there’s half a season to go. But with the interior of the Bucs defensive line playing well and very little slowing Bennett down, it seems he’s on the way to a massive payday. Bennett turns 27 next week.

A waiver wire theft by rockstar general manager Mark Dominik three years ago, it’ll be interesting to see if the Bucs make a move on extending Bennett’s contract in the coming weeks. Joe can’t think of a reason Tampa Bay would want to risk exposing Bennett in free agency, especially with Adrian Clayborn on the shelf with a serious knee injury.

Joe firmly believes the risk of signing Bennett now is well worth it.