What the Lions did in the first half to the Bucs defense was nothing less than frightening.

Joe looked at the box score at halftime and couldn’t believe his eyes. The Lions racked up 16 first downs — 16!!!

Now the Bucs defense tightened up in the second half, limited the Lions to just nine first downs. But this is a near repeat of last year. The Bucs defense would be soft in first half only to get better in the second half.

On face value this is a good thing but in reality it is not. If the first-half defense gets roasted as it did today, then the Bucs have to play catch up and hope for miracles. Miracles don’t always happen.

This is a good thing that Bucs defensive coordinator and head coach Raheem Morris can clean things up on the fly. But Joe asked this once last year and is inclined to ask again.

“Does Raheem need another coach to help him gameplan during the week?” There is no shame in this. A head coach has a ton of responsibilities each week, other than running a defense.

Why? Why? Why?

Joe can’t thrust more agony upon himself by watching the videotape on this one. It was too bizarre and too poor of a poor choice by Quincy Black, and Joe doesn’t have any new expletives to spew.

During what turned out to be the Lions’ winning drive today, when Detroit went up 27-13 in the third quarter, Sean Jones forced a fumble in Lions territory and Quincy Black caught the bouncing ball with his feet IN BOUNDS, and as he fell out of bounds he proceeded to hurl the ball back into the field of play, as if he was Dennis Rodman diving into the front row seats for a loose rebound.

A Lions player fell on the ball.

Then Detroit proceeded to toss a first down pass to Maurice Stovall, rip off four consecutive runs for 31 yards, and then two passes for a touchdown.

Joe can’t imagine what Black was thinking. This isn’t basketball. Maybe Black’s covered too many kicks and punts and thought he was saving a ball from a touchback?

Regardless, it was a back-breaking screwup by a man Joe believes is the most overpaid linebacker in football.

Bucs safety Cody Grimm shared candid takes with Joe for a few minutes after the Bucs-Lions game. Grimm talked about what went wrong, slow starts, his health, and more.

JoeBucsFan.com: Can you offer perspective on what wasn’t working today on defense or what the Lions were doing well?

Cody Grimm: They were just doing a good job, you know, taking what we gave them. Stafford was doing a good job making the short reads and checking the ball down and they were just slowly kind of just chipping away at us on defense. And then when we had the opportunity to make some plays we didn’t make them. We had a couple of missed tackles. We just didn’t execute to tell you the truth.

Joe: Raheem Morris has said starting fast was a key for the Bucs. Was that a major focus coming in today?

Grimm: Definitely. We didn’t start fast in most preseason games either. I’m sure that will be a major point this week. We’ve got to come out of the gates faster.

Joe: Coming off the injury last year, did you feel 100 percent coming in today? Also, you didn’t have your trademark crushing hits and weren’t in the box as much today. Was that just how the game went for you?

Grimm: I felt good out there. I didn’t have very many opportunities to tell you the truth. We were not in the box very much. We were mostly helping out with Calvin [Johnson] and stuff like that. So I felt good, but we didn’t execute when we had to and came out slow.

Joe: How much did helping on Johnson take away from the run defense?

Grimm: It takes away from the run defense a little bit, but I don’t think they ran the ball that very well on us. I don’t know what the yardage was. (Detroit finished with 126 yards on 35 carries, a 3.6 yards per carry average)

If Joe were Rachel Watson, he (she?) might say the Bucs let Detroit receivers run as free as antelope on a wilderness preserve in the first half because they were caught up emotions of the pregame ceremonies.

First, there was the moment of silence for the passing of “The Original Buccaneer,” Lee Roy Selmon. Then there was the moving tribute to the victims of the animals who flew planes into buildings on 9/11.

Even Joe was stirred by the display.

But Mason Foster was not. The Bucs rookie linebacker was impressed by the pregame displays but he admitted he was in football mode at that time.

“I was thinking about personal, I was thinking about what to do,” Foster said after the Bucs season-opening loss to the Lions. “It was a great little ceremony remembering 9/11, but I was running through my progressions. I was thinking about what I had to do and what [Detroit] had to do.”

Foster didn’t think Detroit quarterback Matt Stafford tried to expose the rookie starting his first NFL game.

“I can’t say off the top of my head,” Foster said. “I just know I was out there playing as hard as I could and we were playing as hard as we could.

“I felt like I did a good job. But getting a win is a goal, that’s all I want. I wan tot win, no matter how I do it.”

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The wings at 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 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, college football and NFL games.

While the headline of this post might arouse women across the Bay area, its meaning was a bad omen for Josh Freeman.

On his nasty third-quarter cramp that caused him to leave the game, Freeman said it surprised him because he began his “hydration [process] three days ago.”

Freeman explained he’s a “heavy sweater” and it just got the best of him after he got all amped up after being hit and minimally hurting has ankle. Apparently, per Freeman, the cramping ran up one side of his body.

No sweat, though. Freeman’s healthy. He went on to say he’s proud of the team’s fight to the final play.

Yeah, until late in the fourth quarter, the Bucs offense was pretty much dismal.

At one point in the second half, the Bucs had a second-and-one situation and after two runs, couldn’t get a first down.

Sure could have used a third down back.

In the offseason, Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik, when given a chance, hyped Kregg Lumpkin as the Bucs answer to the void left by Cadillac Williams leaving the Bucs for the Rams and tried to soothe frayed nerves that Lumpkin would get the job done.

This is the same Kregg Lumpkin that Packers general manager Ted Thompson, widely regarded as one of the best talent evaluators in the NFL, let walk despite having a shallow corps of running backs.

So let’s look at what happened today:

Lumpkin had one catch for nine yards — not bad — but zero carries.

Williams, in a 31-13 St. Louis loss to Philadelphia, had 19 carries for 91 yards and five catches for 41 yards.

Was letting Williams walk to St. Louis being penny-wise and pound foolish?

Let’s ease the panic here a bit.

In his postgame news conference, Josh Freeman just talked about how Ronde Barber told the team after the game about how the 2002 Super Bowl winning Buccaneers lost their home opener in overtime to the New Orleans Saints.

So all’s good.

The Bucs are on the same path as their championship brethren.

Joe just made the rounds around the Bucs locker room and the unanimous consensus among the defense, including iconic elder Ronde Barber, was that the Bucs knew exactly what was coming from the Lions but couldn’t stop it.

The Bucs were completely ready. Matthew Stafford was just more ready, hitting deep seam routes and getting the ball out quickly, plus missed tackles and given away fumble recoveries — more on Quincy Black later — and too-good Calvin Johnson did the Bucs in.

“We gotta get off the field,” Barber said. “It wasn’t even a case of winning on third down. We have to win on first and second down. … We tried to limit [Stafford’s] sideline throws, what he does a lot. He beat us underneath. I give him credit. … It took us three quarters before we really reigned it back in.

“We knew what they were doing. And that’s the thing. We felt like we had their gameplan down. We knew it was going to be a lot of shotgun-quicks, a lot of counter-pass seams. We saw all that. We just didn’t execute.”

Joe’s not sure these were soothing words from Barber. The Bucs defense was ready, and that’s great. They just weren’t good enough.

Simply put, the Bucs defense, specifically against the pass in the first half, was unacceptable.

Matt Stafford had damned near a career year, all in the span of 30 minutes on the field of The CITS. He looked like a high school quarterback in a seven-on-seven summer passing league.

“Unacceptable: is not coming from Joe’s fingers, that’s from Bucs rookie defensive end Adrian Clayborn.

Clayborn is a proud man from a proud, successful football program where losing is, in the words of George S. Patton, “hateful.”

Clayborn, was not calling out his own teammates, but critiquing his own play.

Whether it was Nate Burleson or Calvin Johnson or Brandon Pettigrew, Stafford looked like he was playing catch with Lions receivers in a back yard.

At that point in the game, it seemed about the only guy playing well for the Bucs was Clayborn. He got pressure on Stafford a few times — the few times the Bucs ever got heat on Stafford — and Clayborn was strong against the run.

Not good enough, Clayborn said after the game.

“I did alright man, but I missed too many tackles,” Clayborn said. “I missed four or five tackles which is unacceptable. But I’m going to learn from this tape; we’re all going to learn from this tape and we are going to get after it next week.”

One of the reasons Stafford was carving up the Bucs secondary was that he had many two- and three-step drops where Bucs defenders never had a prayer of breathing on Stafford because there was no chance for coverage sacks due to the fact receivers were running Scot free in the secondary. Even Clayborn noted his frustration at the two-step drops by the Lions third-year quarterback.

“Everything is for real now, everything is for Ws,” Clayborn said. “I think we were well-prepared. I think we had a good game plan.”

Look, Joe knows the Bucs established a whole lot of nothing today on offense when it counted, but there’s something dreadfully wrong when LeGarrette Blount ends up with five carries in a game that was close on the scoreboard for quite a while.

The Bucs didn’t even dare to throw the ball to Blount where he could find some space.

Then there’s Blount on the sidelines in the fourth quarter when the Bucs handoff to Earnest Graham on the Lions’ 10 yard line — and not even a play that had Graham pound it into the line. No gain. Graham LOST the short-yardage job last year, and he was the best the Bucs had to offer today?

The Bucs have to put the damn ball in Blount’s hands. There’s a reason he’s on the side of the stadium, and there’s a reason no team shut him down last year in games he started.

Sadly, Aqib Talib was the Bucs offense through three quarters.

When the Bucs got clobbered by New England at home during the preseason, many thought that was a great thing for the young Bucs, an embarrassing wake-up call of sorts.

Well, the Bucs apparently haven’t awakened. They got annhilated today by the Lions. Shredded up and down their home turf until the game was almost out of reach.

The Bucs offered little outside of a handful of splash plays on defense and they ate the yardage the Lions’ prevent defense gave them late in the game, culminating in a gorgeous touchdown catch by Mike Williams. Even mighty Josh Freeman even looked dreadfully flat for much of the game — getting intercepted on a poor throw and cramping up and leaving the game (in the third quarter), possibly from stiffening up from standing on the sidelines so much. (He did return).

Joe’s not sure what to say about the first half. The Lions didn’t gut and gash the Bucs with the run, but the Lions took what the Bucs gave them, which was MASSIVE chunks of yardage through the air.

Joe can’t even remember a Jim Bates Experiment defense looking so porous. The Bucs allowed 324 yards and 16 first downs in the first 30 minutes. The Lions had 429 yards overall.

Ugly, embarrassing stuff, and Luke Stocker evoked memories of Michael Clayton. The Bucs needed this game and they didn’t get it. At least the Falcons got clobbered. … Stay with Joe through the day and night for so much more.

You won’t see these Bucs on the field today. They are inactive for the Bucs-Lions game.

The Bucs have all their six of their receivers ready to go.

Allen Bradford
Larry Asante
Myron Lewis
Anthony Gaitor
Demar Dotson
Derek Hardman
Zach Pianalto

Feel free to comment throughout the game as the Bucs host the Lions in the NFL’s Opening Weekend game.

Caution: Do not post, or try to post the URLs of any pirated Bucs video feeds of the game. Not even using spaces. Any and all persons who violate this rule will be subject to immediate banishment without warning. You may e-mail URLs between yourselves but they are not to be posted on this site. They are illegal feeds and Joe does not need the hassle of getting a knock on his door from the FBI in the middle of the night.

Thank you, and go Bucs! Happy Football Sunday!

For those relatively new to JoeBucsFan.com (and Joe knows there are loads of you), Joe takes great pride in his postgame coverage.

Joe is sitting with media types at the Bucs-Lions game and will be rapid-firing out commentary, quotes and more after the game and through the night (maybe even during the game if there’s something hot). Joe will will be in the locker room, in addition to monitoring the Buccaneers Radio Network, local mainstream media, Buccaneers news conferences, Detroit media and more.

Joe can promise you won’t find more or faster postgame coverage.

Go Bucs!

Week 1
Lions at Bucs
Kickoff: 1 p.m.
TV: Blacked out locally. Those living outside the Tampa/Orlando TV markets can watch the game on DirecTV 711. The game can be viewed for free on NFL.com at midnight via Game Rewind (free registration required), and is available after midnight via NFL Sunday Ticket’s “Short Cuts” after midnight.
Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network (in Tampa WFUS-FM, 103.5 and WDAE-AM, 620); Sirius Channel 94.
Weather: Per Accuweather.com, thunderstorms are expected at kickoff with the temperate at 89. The rains will dissipate quickly and will be partly sunny the rest of the game with temperatures holding steady at 90.
Odds: Per Bodog.com, Bucs -1.
Outlook: Ah, for a while there this summer, Joe never thought this day would happen. The asinine lockout is in the rear view mirror. Happy Opening Day. … But this day won’t exactly be happy. Somber, more like it. There will be remembrances of 9/11 which happened 10 years ago today when animals hijacked and kamikazed passenger jets into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a cornfield in Pennsylvania, murdering and maiming thousands. Throw in the a memorial of sorts for the passing of “The Original Buccaneer,” Lee Roy Selmon, and it’s kinda of hard to believe it is a day of celebration, pounding beer and yelling at people who can”t hear you. … Key to this game is to play keep-away. The Bucs have to control the clock so that Matt Stafford and Calvin Johnson can’t burn the Bucs. So the key to that key is the Bucs offensive line. Simply put, if the Bucs control the trenches — no small feat — look for a Bucs win.
Linkage: Albert Breer of the NFL Network says this game is too close to call. … Mitch Albom says Stafford is ready. … Woody Cummings believes the pass rush is a priority for Bucs management.

It seems the BSPN crowd isn’t the only ones down on LeGarrette Blount. Gregg Rosenthall of NBCSports.com isn’t the president of the LeGarrette Blount fan club either, so he tells the lovely Tiffany Simons in this NBCSports.com video.

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

Tough day for Joe, even with it being the glorious start of the Bucs season.  

The “Joe ” writing this can’t forget seeing his cousin Lenny on television and reading him quoted in the newspaper in the days following the heinous Sept. 11, 2011 attacks.

Lenny, then a very energetic dude in his 60s, was at the scene of the World Trade Center in New York helping look for his son, Marc, who had been working in a World Trade Center tower. Marc was a year older than Joe with two young sons. He was a super hardcore sports fan — like many in Joe’s family. (Yes, Joe’s quite certain Marc would have had NFL Network and not been held hostage by a cable company.)

Unfortunately, Marc was a victim of the terrorists and was never found. His memory lives on strong through a foundation and an annual benefit celebration.

An even closer relative to Joe served in combat in Vietnam and will not ever talk about it — never a peep. On that Sept. 11 day, he was in the center of the New York horror but escaped. Joe’s never heard his story. He won’t talk about that either, other than Joe once hearing him say it was worse than anything he saw in Vietnam.

Joe’s been watching various TV reports of people’s reaction to the anniversary of Sept. 11. Some take a political tone. Some don’t. The media has been hyping the day to drive viewers. So it goes across America.

Nearly everyone — including Bucs fans at today’s opening day — will take pause today at some point to remember the events of 9/11.

Joe just asks that you take that time seriously.

Last year Joe remembers interviewing his good friend Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who referred to Bucs cornerback Aqib Talib as “a gambler” and added “we all know what happens to gamblers.

Joe is of the mind that Talib could a Pro Bowler, but he’s not quite there yet. It seems ESPN’s Pat Yasinskas is of the same mind.

In a recent NFC South chat, Yasinskas believes if Talib is going to be an elite corner, he should make a statement tomorrow.

Jesse (Glasgow, KY)

Talib said he is ready for Johnson, your thoughts? Even if fully healthy, what chance does any corner have against megatron?

Pat Yasinskas

When Talib is focused, he can be as good as any CB. He needs to be focused right now and needs to get his season off to a good start.

Talib usually is in position to make plays but there are so many almost-interceptions that Talib doesn’t haul in. The Pittsburgh game last year was Exhibit-A.

If Talib can rack up a few more interceptions of passes that he gets his hands on, he could be an elite cornerback.

Derek “Old School” Fournier of WhatTheBuc.net believes the Bucs can beat the Lions if they control the ball and keep Calvin Johnson off the field. But how exactly can they do this? Let “Old School” explain.

Fairly or unfairly, Bucs defensive tackle Gerald McCoy will always be compared with manbeast Ndamukong Suh, the Lions defensive tackle who comes into The CITS tomorrow to face the Bucs.

Suh and McCoy were selected in consecutive picks; Suh second by the Lions, GMC third by the Bucs.

But so too will Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman be compared with Detroit Lions quarterback Matt Stafford.

Like Freeman, Stafford was drafted in the first round, long before Freeman was, even before the Jets selected Mark Sanchez.

Just like the crazies who try to compare GMC to Suh, it is unfair to compare Stafford to Freeman (or even Sanchez for that matter). Stafford has been hurt his first two years in the NFL and has yet to complete a full season.

Even Freeman is uncomfortable with the comparisons, so writes Anwar Richardson of the Tampa Tribune.

“It’s interesting because a lot of people have been asking me about that,” Freeman said. “I found playing against any good quarterback that you kind of have to take that whole quarterback-versus-quarterback mentality out of your mind because you’re playing against a defense.

“He has to contend with Gerald McCoy and I have to contend with (Detroit defensive tackle) Ndamukong Suh. That’s who I have to worry about – worry about their secondary and their defense. If I get caught up in what Matthew Stafford is doing, it will take a little bit away from what I need to be doing game plan wise.”

Freeman is right. Comparisons are what keeps fans talking and debating during the offseason.

Joe would rather compare W’s. Getting the first one of the 2011 season is foremost in Joe’s thought. Well, foremost after watching a full day of college football and pounding ample adult beverages today.