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In addition to awesome football viewing, incredible food and the spectacular Kilt girls, there’s often top-notch live music at Tilted Kilt. Click below to learn more. And don’t forget to book your holiday party at Tilted Kilt, one of Joe’s favorite hangouts.
Now Joe knows, and just about every semi-conscious Bucs fan knows, that the Bucs’ pass defense is as wretched as it comes. So much so Joe wouldn’t be shocked if Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik drafts two corners with the first four picks of the draft in April, in addition to grabbing some free-agent corner.
So last night while Joe was researching the Rams, Joe came across an eye-opening stat from one of his old friends, Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Bernie is one of the best football writers in America and is a numbers cruncher. He’s always looking for answers under the hood with rigid research. Well, apparently Bernie was mining for information on the Bucs and came up with a gem claiming the Bucs’ pass defense isn’t as horrid as Joe or most Bucs fans may think it is.
Does this mean [Sam] Bradford will have an easy time or a good day? Nothing is certain. Interestingly, one of Tampa Bay’s strengths has been third-down pass defense. Without going into the numbers, I suspect that’s because of the third-and-longs being set up by all of those runs being slammed by the Tampa Bay rushing defense. But the Bucs have been outstanding on third down, making eight interceptions and allowing a mediocre passer rating of 78.5.
Bradford has struggled on third downs this season; it’s one of the weaker parts of his performance. On third down he’s completed only 55 percent of his passes, with more INTs (4) than TDs (3) and a passer rating of 69.0. A big part of the problem is pass protection; Bradford has been sacked 18 times on third down, the second-highest total among NFL quarterbacks. But his passer rating ranks 23rd among QBs that have attempted at least 100 passes on third downs. So Sunday’s game could be determined by Bradford vs. the Bucs on third down.
Joe nearly fell off his chair reading this. But this is why Bernie is one of the best to dig up information.
So here is a match-up to watch Sunday: How the Bucs work the Rams on third down passing situations. It will also be interesting to see how/if the Bucs shut down Steven Jackson, who is some 91 yards short an eighth straight 1,000-yard season.
With Josh Freeman struggling more each week, with a player going Moe Howard on an assistant, with a player trying to incite a mutiny from afar, it’s easy for a Bucs fan to want to lay prone on a couch begging for the season to come to a close. Soon.
Don’t worry Bucs fans, brighter days are coming. This is the word from noted player personnel man Gil Brandt. The architect of the Dallas Cowboys dynasty of the 1970s believes, via NFL.com, that of all the teams currently out of the playoff hunt, the Bucs will be a force next season.
1) Tampa Bay Buccaneers
After drafting well (as evidenced by rookie running back Doug Martin’s performance) and signing the right free agents (like receiver Vincent Jackson) over the past three years, the Bucs have a good, young roster. We saw things start to click for them during a 6-4 start, though they’ve fallen off since. Greg Schiano has done a terrific job in his debut season. In Year 2, he’ll have a better understanding of the length of the NFL season, and he’ll have a firmer sense of when (and how hard) to push his players.
The Bucs have given up a lot of passing yards (310.6 per game, worst in the NFL), and where they really need help is on the back end. Aqib Talib is gone, having been traded to the New England Patriots. Stalwart Ronde Barber, meanwhile, is 37 and might not come back for a 17th season. So they’ll have some openings to fill. Can they find a way to keep defensive end Michael Bennett, who leads the team with nine sacks, from moving on as a free agent? They also might want to bring in a veteran quarterback (like Kyle Orton, say) to help mentor young signal-caller Josh Freeman, who has talent but has played hot and cold this season. Tampa Bay should have the cap space to do something.
Joe believes Brandt is onto something. The Bucs’ pass defense simply cannot be this bad next year. Just cannot.
The key, again, for a Bucs playoff run, will be for Freeman to be more consistent and to play up to his potential.
For next year, the Bucs will go as far as Freeman can take them.
So what really happened with Josh Freeman’s third interception Sunday in New Orleans?
“Dallas lost it in the lights,” Freeman said tonight on his radio show on WDAE-AM 620.
Freeman called the high-altitude deep ball to Dallas Clark “an opportunity ball” that absolutely was intended for Clark to go up and make a play. But Freeman explained Clark told him he lost the ball early and never found it before Isa Abdul-Quddus picked it off.
Freeman went on to say it was an “everything-that-could-go-wrong” day and his confidence is not shaken in the slightest.
Stuff happens, but Joe’s confident a jump ball to Clark is not a wise idea even if he can see it.
Derrick Brooks talked about emerging quitters and Eric Wright’s recent Twittering
There’s no doubt the New Schiano Order will be looking to sniff out loafers over the final 11 days of the season, guys who aren’t behaving like “Buccaneer men” in practice or in games.
Bucs icon Derrick Brooks acknowledged some players adopt a quitters mentality when things go south in December, especially when it’s a new regime. “If there are some weeds in the roses, they’re not going to come up on Day 1,” Brooks said on The Steve Duemig Show yesterday on WDAE-AM 620.
Brooks said he experienced that quickly in the NFL.
“I’ll never forget that in 1995. That type of talk was going on,” Brooks said of players having a quitters mentality.
“Here we were 6-7, had a chance to win out here and at least go 8-8 and guys are talking about vacation. I’m like, ‘what are they here talking about, in practice!” shouted Brooks, who went on to say he was stunned by players chatting about U-Hauls and more.
Speaking of hidden weeds, Brooks also was flabbergasted by Eric Wright Twittering about going on a weekend spa vacation in California on Saturday, a day before the Bucs were in New Orleans.
“Why? Even if you are doing it why? The season’s going on,” Brooks said of Wright’s Twittering. “Why? You know, a little bird on your shoulder. Why? As Coach Edwards [would say], ‘think before you hit Tweet or send.'”
Brooks said Wright should have kept his private business to himself. “Your team is out there. You know, your team is trying to keep the ship, you know, straight. They’re fighting.”
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In somewhat of a fitting end to a season that has imploded on and off the field the past month, the Bucs’ final home game against the Rams Sunday will be blacked out in the Tampa and Orlando TV markets.
Tickets for the game are still available.
As Bucs fans are probably used to by now, the team needed to sell 85 percent of non-premium seats 72 hours prior to kickoff to have the NFL lift the blackout for the game to be televised locally.
The Bucs’ run defense in New Orleans evoked memories of the gutting and gashing that was commonplace during and since the December collapse of 2008, and the entire Raheem Morris era.
The “negative runs,” aka tackles for loss, the trademark of the New Schiano Order defense, weren’t there. And Lavonte David had an off day, though he still ranks second in the NFL in solo tackles (98 total) behind a guy the Bucs will see Sunday, the Rams’ James Laurinitis (104).
So what must the Bucs do to get back to get back to their run defense that was suffocating teams all season long before Sunday? Greg Schiano gave a take on that to the St. Louis media yesterday; TurfShowTimes.com offered a transcription.
“I think guys, when they play together, and they strain their guts out, do whatever they can to maintain their gap integrity and then being able to tackle well; it gives you a chance to play run defense,” Schiano said. “Unfortunately, this past weekend was the first time in a while we didn’t play very good run defense. We didn’t really play very well pass defense, either. So, we had a tough outing last week and now we’re up against one of the better running teams in the National Football League. So, it’s going to be quite a challenge. We talk about we want to get back to playing great run defense, but this is going to be a tough opponent to do it against.”
Joe loved the “strain their guts out” line. It really speaks to the want-to involved when it comes to stopping the run.
Even more than a Josh Freeman revival, Joe wants to see the Bucs’ run defense bounce back against the Rams. The Bucs are healthy along the front-7, and there’s no reason they can’t go out and do what they’ve done all season — stuff the run better than every team in the league. Holding on to their No. 1 ranking against the run should be a huge building block for the Bucs defense this offseason.
Joe often delivers readers data from the popular ProFootballFocus.com, which provides detailed grades for all players after every NFL game.
But make no mistake, Joe does not consider the ProFootballFocus stuff to be gospel. Yes, Joe realizes a handful of NFL teams pay for the data and consider it strongly, as Peter King of Sports Illustrated has reported, but logic tells Joe the data is extraordinarily subjective and Joe’s skeptical of the credentials of the evaluators.
League stats issued by the Buccaneers this week on pass blocking, however, are not debatable.
The Bucs’ offensive line is allowing sacks on only 4.2 percent of pass plays, tied for sixth-best in the NFL. The Bucs finished last season ranked 11th in the league in that category.
This is darn impressive, especially considering the injuries along the offensive line, and the fact that Josh Freeman isn’t known for his quick release and fast decision-making.
The numbers also add some fuel to the Josh Freeman doubters, who can add strong pass blocking to the list of offensive riches that surround Freeman.
The great Mike Florio
Consider it a promise.
Earlier this week, Mike Florio, the creator, curator and overall guru of ProFootballTalk.com had a “private communication” with a Bucs player in the waning hours after the shutout debacle in New Orleans where some player, who refused to be identified, claimed the Bucs college coaches should go back to college.
Yesterday, Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune asked Bucs great Ronde Barber about Florio’s report and Barber dropped a naughty word he was so adamant Florio’s report was fabricated.
Not so fast, says Florio, who responded to Barber’s response last night.
I promise you that someone did, Ronde.
Who’s in a position to be more sure? The guy to whom it was told, or the guy who has no idea what his teammates have said in the hours after a frustrating shutout loss to one of their biggest rivals? That’s why we opted not to go with the same-old “we stand by our report” when asked for a response by the Tribune, choosing instead something far more pragmatic: “If Ronde is aware of every private communication in which his 52 teammates engage, that’s even more impressive than his Hall of Fame playing career.”
Our guess is that Ronde opted to react strongly due to speculation in the local media that he was the source. As his career in Tampa likely winds to a conclusion, it wouldn’t be the ideal way to make his exit. Regardless, we won’t say who said it. But I promise you that someone did.
As Joe wrote last night, Florio works for himself and NBC Sports, and that outfit frowns heavily on somebody inventing a quote. Florio’s a smart guy. He knows all too well his empire would quickly crumble (as well as his NBC contract, as well as possibly his law career) if he started manufacturing quotes just for a few clicks on his site.
Even the biggest fans of Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman must admit the fourth-year Bucs signal-caller has had a lousy last four weeks.
Freeman went from average (with a couple of major misses) to shaky to bad to wretched in consecutive games.
Bucs fans, seeing younger quarterbacks on other teams drafted in later rounds having more recent success than Freeman, have grown impatient by the week and have reached full throat in their anger after Freeman’s four-interception game to one of the NFL’s worst defenses, the Saints last Sunday.
Each week, Freeman explained some of his misses and interceptions were “miscommucications.” This just added to the fire fans who wondered aloud how, through 15 weeks of an NFL season, the quarterback cannot be in synch with his receivers.
In ways, Freeman’s use of the term “miscommunication” seemed to infer to some that he was pointing fingers at his teammates and blaming others for the errors.
Joe had a chance to ask Bucs offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan Wednesday to explain how there can be so much miscommunication with the end of the season just 11 days away.
“Whether it is an incompletion or an interception, there are a wide variety of reasons why [miscommunicatoin] can come into play. It could be a breakdown in protection. It could be a poor execution of a route. It could be a poor throw. Not to get into any of the specifics, there is always a reason. I think with a lot of things we try to do, at least offensively in the passing game, which we have had some success with certainly, is an ability to be on the same page, to read and adjust to a coverage. Any one particular pass could have a number of options off of it, not just a merely an ability to step inside or outside. There are some subtleties with that combined with protection standpoint whether there is – again, not to get into too many specifics – there are enough variables there that while this is not what we want to have happening now. In my estimation we’d like to be further along. I can certainly see along with the growing pains that it is part of the process within the system that sometimes you have those [miscommunications].
“The key thing is when they do happen they end up being, ideally, incompletions or having to punt the football on third down, both of which we don’t like but they are far better than turning the ball over. It is something that we are continuing to deal with but we are excited about.”
To break down what Sullivan is explaining sort of requires a dip into football history. The Bucs offense, a branch off the Giants offensive limb, has some hints of the run-and-shoot, which is a nod to Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Grilbride’s history with the old Houston Oilers where he ran a version of the run-and-shoot as the team’s offensive coordinator.
For wide receivers in the old run-and-shoot, it was sort of the “run to daylight” concept, freelancing. Not unlike what Vince Lombardi created with running backs in the 1950s when he was an offensive coordinator at West Point and later, the Giants. At the time, it was revolutionary, the running back didn’t just run through the hole — open or not — he was assigned on a play to freelance and “run to daylight.”
But Sullivan’s offense isn’t that exotic in that the wide receivers can just run wherever they choose and hope the quarterback reads their mind. On every route there are several options depending on where the receiver breaks, what play the defense is in, down-and-distance, any number of factors.
And when receivers break, there could be as many as five or seven different options per route on how to break off, again, based on many factors and what Sullivan terms “variables.” Think of it as each route a receiver runs has its own individual route tree.
It isn’t just the quarterback that has to read the defense. So too must the receiver. The quarterback and the receiver must meld together. Any slight deviation and it could look like an ugly incompletion, or worse, a pick-six.
This is why Freeman always talks about “miscommunications.” He may be reading one thing, a receiver might (incorrectly) be reading something totally different (or vice-versa) and the receiver will turn a route into something foreign to Freeman. In other words, quarterback and receiver are not melding, or “not on the same page,” an oft-used phrase.
Of course, opposing defensive coordinators know this and might try to deploy junk defenses or a confusing defensive look at the Bucs for the purpose not only of stopping a pass, but confusing Freeman or his receivers. It’s a giant (no pun intended) cat-and-mouse game.
It is for that reason that miscommunications can happen each game between Freeman and his intended targets. It’s also why Freeman’s teammates (receiver Mike Williams in particular) came out swinging in Freeman’s defense as the uproar from the fans grew loud and testy.
“I wouldn’t say there is too much thinking going on,” receiver Tiquan Underwood said about the miscommunications of late. “We have shown we can handle it. It’s not so much too much on our plate, it’s getting on the same page. At the end of the day, the receivers have to be on the same page as the quarterback. When that goes well, we have shown we can play well.
“It takes a smart guy to play in this system. We are all smart here and we can handle it and it’s our job. We just have to keep repping it in practice and get things right.”
In a perverse way, the current state of the Bucs is a dream for a tabloid columnist. It’s almost like walking into a trendy South Tampa hotspot on a steamy summer Friday night with a club full of nubile young lasses in various states of midriff baring, thinking to yourself, “Where do you start?”
This is what Alan Dell has done, sans the lasses, in documenting the craziness that has become the Bucs in recent days.
Dell, a columnist for the Bradenton Herald, points a finger at Bucs head coach Greg Schiano’s ironclad ways as the kindling that has turned into a blaze.
Fires seemed to be breaking out everywhere.
There was a spat between a player and coach on the sideline that resembled a scene from Jerry Springer, and an anonymous Tampa Bay player quoted on ProFootballTalk.com said his coaches should go back to college.
The Bucs defensive backs continue to look like chestnuts roasted on an open fire, and the quarterback has played like burnt toast for three straight games.
(Before Joe goes further, Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune spoke with Bucs legend and current safety Ronde Barber who claims the quote in question used by Florio was fabricated by someone.)
As Dell points out later in his column, winning cures all ills. There was no grumbling in the Bucs’ locker room when the Bucs were winning.
Win Sunday, and fans will begin to forget a backup linebacker and “captain” going all Moe Howard on an assistant coach on the sidelines, and they’ll call off the wolves at Josh Freeman’s front door (for the moment) and get in a warm and fuzzy mood for Christmas.
Whoa! Ronde Barber has all but accused Mike Florio, the creator, curator and overall guru a ProFootballTalk.com, of fabricating an anonymous source.
For those who missed it, Florio reported Monday that an unnamed Buccaneer voiced frustration following the Bucs-Saints game and said, “Can we send these coaches back to college?”
Well, Tampa Tribune beat writer Roy Cummings asked Barber and other Bucs about it today, and Barber told Cummings, “That’s a (expletive) made up quote. No one said that. I can promise you that.’’
Florio delivered a classic comeback, “If Ronde is aware of every private communication in which his 52 teammates engage, that’s even more impressive than his Hall of Fame playing career.”
For years, Joe has regularly communicated with Florio on a variety of topics, and Joe must side with Florio — if there is a “side” in this squabble. Florio takes his credibility very seriously and has absolutely no incentive to make stuff up.
So Joe’s taking note of the Bucs’ postgame concert Sunday by a popular, Grammy-nominated Christian rock band. It’s being billed as Tampa Bay’s inaugural “Faith and Football” event. There’s additional music, motivational speakers, including Gerald McCoy, and Father Dungy is promoting the event on the Buccaneers website.
Don’t get too excited, Joe still expects the Rams-Bucs game to be blacked out on local television, but surely Team Glazer will be able to guage the concert’s impact on attendance.
If there’s a significant bump from Sunday’s event, Joe wouldn’t be surprised to see Team Glazer have more postgame concerts next season, one’s that could deliver a bigger impact to attendance, lift blackouts and deliver greater value to season ticket holders. Considering reports in the sports business community that described major upgrades to concession areas and new concession providers/management coming soon to Raymond James Stadium, Joe definitely expects Team Glazer to get more creative to put butts in the seats.
Of course, a great football team would eliminate the need for, say, ZZ Top to take an end zone stage after a Bucs game. Though it would be fun to see Mike Williams regrow his beard and join them.
The Bucs are out of the playoff hunt and their bellcow rookie running back has plenty of early mileage on him, but don’t look for Martin to get any rest until January.
Greg Schiano made it clear today that the New Schiano Order is, well, too new for Martin to sit down and rest a bit. Schiano said the same holds true for all his top players as the Buccaneers figure out how to win games.
Schiano said backups likely would see more action if the Bucs were, say, an established playoff team that merely missed the postseason this year.
Of course, Schiano’s perspective could change after Sunday’s game against the Rams, especially if the Bucs win, and especially if guys get banged up.
Joe is impressed. Josh Freeman’s coaches and teammates have rallied to his defense better than Bucs corners have covered opposing wide receivers all season.
In particular, wide receiver Mike Williams was almost angry and certainly disgusted how a large number of Bucs fans have turned on Freeman after he has circled the drain regressing each of the past four weeks.
Williams had an interesting nuggett that sort of put Freeman’s recent struggles into perspective.
“We run a certain team’s offense,” Williams said, referring to the Giants offense brought from New York by former Giants quarterback coach and current Bucs offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan. “The quarterback of that offense [Eli Manning] said it took him six years before he fully understood the offense. That quarterback now has two rings.”
Very early this season, Bucs fans had the inclination that Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik should draft West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith in the first round in April.
Joe noted at the time that quarterbacks often have to be deprogrammed and reprogrammed to learn a new offense (and perhaps, the stain of Greg Olson’s offensive offense needed further purging).
Given Manning’s information, via Williams, perhaps Sullivan’s offense is so complex and perhaps he is adding new dimensions to the offense so much that maybe it does take some time before Freeman, or any quarterback, fully grasps all the nuances.
Joe cannot sugarcoat it. When the Bucs needed quarterback Josh Freeman the most, when the team was on the cusp of a postseason run, Freeman not only didn’t show up in three of the last four games, he has regressed each week the past month.
As a result, a great many Bucs fans have turned on Freeman, wanting Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik to begin shopping for a new quarterback yesterday.
This morning during a conference call with the Tampa Bay pen and mic club, Rams coach Jeff Fisher, learning Bucs fans impatience with Freeman, reacted with frustration and suggested Bucs fans need to chill out.
“Oh, of course,” Fisher harrumphed, when asked if Bucs fans were out of line in turning on Freeman. “He has all the tools. It is not easy to play the position week in and week out. You face some defenses you are not used to seeing. He is a very talented athlete and quarterback and makes good decisions. There is no need for frustration. There should be nothing but optimism with Josh. He has a tremendous future.”
It is interesting to Joe how the NFL establishment has rallied to Freeman’s defense in light of his downward spiral the past four weeks. Wide receiver Mike Williams was almost angry if not disgusted by fans’ reaction to Freeman on Buccaneer Total Access Monday evening ,and Joe will have another intersting nugget from Williams later.
Doug Martin’s bad day Sunday likely cost him a trip to Hawaii
Ronde Barber explained the players’ third of the Pro Bowl selection process last night on his radio show. Joe found that to be pretty cool, as Joe had no clue how players pick who eats pineapple in late January.
Fan voting for the Pro Bowl ended Monday. Coaches pick this week. And via a unique, collaborative process, players submit votes over the next couple of days. Joe assumed ballots were passed out to players and everyone turned one in, but that’s not the case.
Barber said defensive teammates get together and submit one ballot for opposing offensive players by position. Defensive players can only vote for offensive players in their own conference, Barber said, and the team-ballot method is traditionally how it’s been done across the NFL. It’s a reverse process for offensive players, and special teamers vote on their counterparts.
Barber said the collaborative approach is the most fair. The example he gave was that he has no business assessing and voting for offensive linemen.
As for what Buccaneers actually get to this season’s Pro Bowl, Joe thinks Vincent Jackson is the only true “lock.”
Sadly, Doug Martin’s lousy day against the Saints on Sunday surely cost him a bid. Adrian Peterson, Marshawn Lynch and Alfred Morris all have more yards and more yards per carry than Martin.
On defense, Joe would give Barber a strong shot, given his name recognition, a solid season, and the fact he was leading fan voting at last check. Joe would give a lesser but good chance to Lavonte David, plus an outside shot to Gerald McCoy. David has the tackling numbers and the respect of being the Bucs’ defensive playcaller, and peers and coaches might consider McCoy elite.
After four straight weeks of declining productivity, largely turning the Bucs from a team with a clear shot at a postseason berth to a team that will watch the playoffs on the couch, Josh Freeman has become sort of a pinata for Bucs fans. They’re impatient with Freeman’s lack of progress, especially in important games, and pine for the team’s first playoff win in a decade.
Joe can sense the tidal wave that has turned on Freeman believes the Bucs never will play in mid-January with him as a starter.
It has gotten so bad that Freeman’s teammates and even coach Greg Schiano have been quick to defend Freeman and be outspoken that the problems with the offense aren’t just Freeman’s and that he is working overtime in an effort to right his wrongs.
“He is the most focused on the team,” Bucs wide receiver Mike Williams said on Buccaneers Total Access Monday, heard locally on WDAE-AM 620. Freeman is “first one in here and last to leave with the coaches, I don’t see any other quarterback doing that. I know it sounds cliché but it is true. He tries to get better every day. He always knows what mistakes he has made and how to get better from his mistakes.
“Basically, he is a fighter. He will keep fighting. He is the ultimate competitor. He wants to win. That’s where he got his nickname from, the comeback kid. If we are in the game in the fourth quarter, I will give [the ball] to Josh every time. He is trying to do all the right things. People see a couple of mistakes and think it is his mistake and it isn’t even his, sometimes it’s the receiver didn’t see the read or we didn’t see the high and supposed to break off the route or sometimes it is the line. He is going to make mistakes as a young quarterback but he is going to get better too.
“That’s what people have to realize that it’s not always the quarterback’s fault and a lot of times it is not his fault. A lot of times it is just a communication issue.”
Williams wasn’t the first to come to Freeman’s back. So too did tight end Dallas Clark after the game, so reported NFL freelance writer Dory LeBlanc.
“It’s definitely not just one person,” Clark said. “[We] got a lot of things we have to iron out as an offense. Unfortunately in this league the quarterback, head coach, and other guys are always the first ones to throw under the bus, but I’ll be the first one to say it’s me, it’s everyone. We all have to play better and I think we have people here that will make it happen. But certainly no one should take the brunt of any of this. It’s a team thing right now and we have to get it fixed.”
When pressed about Freeman’s, which came at the worst possible time for the Bucs when they were 6-4, Schiano shrugged his shoulders and was confident Freeman will eventually come out on top, so he said in his day-after press conference Monday.
“If Josh Freeman wasn’t coming in and spending all kinds of time here and I wasn’t getting texts and our coaches weren’t getting asked questions at 10 p.m. at night about coverages and things like that, then yeah, I’d have reasons to be concerned,” Schiano said. “But I know everybody goes through better times and lesser times. I also know those who persevere, who tend to their work, they will be fine and Josh [tends to his work]. He will be fine. Sometimes if you get into a swell or a slump, you have to fight your way out.”
Even Bucs icon Ronde Barber got into the act last night on the Buccaneers Radio Network, specifically calling the 2010 and 2012 editions of Freeman– not 2011 — among the most detailed, hardest-working guys he’s ever been around. Barber said Freeman always has notes with him, is constantly talking Xs and Os, and only Brad Johnson might have been a more obsessed quarterback, which Barber says led to Johnson lasting 17 years in the NFL.
Vincent Jackson had the most yards of any Bucs player not named “Josh Freeman” in a record-setting day for the offense.
Well, there was at least something positive to come out of that debacle in New Orleans Sunday.
How many Bucs fans thought the Bucs offense was garbage, that Josh Freeman couldn’t do squat with the ball? Well, the good people of the NFL have news for you. It was a record-setting day for the Bucs offense, but not one Bucs fans will brag about too often at their local watering hole.
The Bucs set a record for offensive yardage by a team that was shutout, breaking a 43-year old mark set by the Dolphins. The Bucs racked up 386 yards; those Dolphins gained 383 when they were blanked.
Here are the dubious all-time five:
1. Bucs, 386, 12/16/12
2. Dolphins, 383, 11/1/70
3. Chargers, 374, 10/7/79
4. Bills, 364, 11/7/71
5. Jets, 360, 10/31/10
And yes, this surprised Joe as well.
