JoeBucsFan.com photo by Kyra Hallett

Joe enjoyed the chats about special teams he had recently with new Bucs special teams ace Jon Alston and departed Bucs special teams stud Will Allen.

These guys are in love with Rich Bisaccia.

USA Today scribe Skip Wood ventured out to One Buc Palace and captured a Bisaccia moment that Joe recommends you read in it’s entirety.

“Yes — I like that tribe mentality,” Bisaccia says.

The Bucs might not have won a game last year, if not for their special teams play. Even new kicker Connor Barth got into the act with clutch kicks and three 50-yard field goals in Miami to help keep the Bucs in that game until the final seconds.

If the defense can improve slightly on the Raheem The Dream version of itself unveiled late in the season last year, and special teams doesn’t hiccup …

One of the areas of concern for the Bucs, in Joe’s eyes, is the receiving corps. The Bucs are counting on a lot of young guys, rookies, to make an immediate impact and that rarely happens in the NFL.

Comrades Stephen Holder and the Mad Twitterer discuss the Bucs receivers in this St. Petersburg Times video.

If one were to select a Buccaneer most likely to misinterpret something, fly off the handle and then do something regrettable, the choice would be simple.

It’s Aqib Talib, hands down.

Talib inappropriately lost his temper three times last season, twice leading to violence. First, Talib attempted to maim Donald Penn with his helmet but missed and belted Torrie Cox in the face instead. Next, an August incident in a taxi cab led to the State Attorney putting Talib in anger management sessions as a part of a diversion program. That came after Talib went wild on a defenseless cab driver from the backseat of a taxi while it cruised down the Interstate.

And Talib followed that up by cursing out Raheem The Dream in October in a heated hotel lobby confrontation in England.

It is because of these facts that Joe thinks Raheem The Dream is wrong and downright reckless for making fun of Talib’s Mike Tysonesque voice in front of reporters.

Raheem The Dream has done it twice now since training camp started. It’s there for all to watch on video on Buccaneers.com.

In the news conference videos, Raheem The Dream is all smiles and giddy imitating Talib’s high-pitched voice and getting chuckles from the media throng.

Joe is sickened by this behavior from the head coach.

Hey coach, you’re playing with fire.  Find someone else — anyone else — to poke fun at.

The harsh reality is that it would be very easy for Talib to get second-hand word of the head coach making fun of him publicly, misinterpret Raheem The Dream’s motives and comments, and then absolutely do something dangerous, stupid or illegal.

Raheem The Dream himself, if he stopped and actually thought before he spoke, should know better.

Be your best self, Rah. Be smart. Don’t poke fun at the team pit bull and not expect trouble.

Talib needs all the help he can get to get through a full year without problems so the state will drop the charges against him in the cab driver case. That’s not over. One more legal problem and Talib could be bounced from the diversion program and land in court, so the State Attorney told Joe months ago in an exclusive interview.

Joe writes this in hopes of stimulating change, because Joe cares about the state of the Bucs and thinks Talib deserves better.

Joe sincerely hopes that Bucs new media relations guru Jonathan Grella, a man extremely savvy and intelligent, has already addressed this with the head coach.

If this football thing doesn’t work out for Raheem the Dream, the man has a brighter than bright future in politics if he so chooses.

Joe got a brief chance to chat with Raheem the Dream today at Bucs training camp and Joe can see why the players love him. Raheem the Dream has an absolute infectious personality and some serious magnetism, not unlike Dick Vitale.

Besides, Raheem the Dream is totally high on life. Always pumped up. A boundless bundle of energy.

Consider this small exchange between Joe and Raheem the Dream:

Joe: Having fun?

Raheem the Dream: I’m having fun. The team is having fun. The fans are having fun. We’re all having fun.

Joe: You looking forward to Saturday (night practice at the CITS)?

Raheem the Dream:  We’re looking forward to it. Are you going to be there?

Joe: Of course. You ready for all the activities Saturday?

Raheem the Dream: We’re ready. We’re ready. Are you going to be ready?

Joe: Sure:

Raheem the Dream: No, are you going to be ready?

Joe: Of course I’m ready!

Raheem the Dream: We need to get you on the field.

It’s hard not to root for a guy who wants Joe to suit up. Of course, a stunt like that would be one way to get rid of Joe for good.

"Dear Lord, if I get one final chance, I shall block, sing and dance."

It was a simple question posed to Raheem The Dream today, asking him if he liked what he saw out of Maurice Stovall.

In a beautiful display of Dreamspeak, the head coach gave an, uh, in depth answer about his receiving corps.

“We’re platooning those receivers, and we’re getting a lot out of all of them. We’re getting, you know, particularly a lot of Mike Williams, a lot out of Stovall, a lot out of Sammie. Mike Clayton had a day today. And all those guys they’re platooning, and they’re fighting for jobs, and they’re fighting for what they’re trying to do, which is really good. And the competition over there is growing, is getting better,” Raheem The Dream said. “More people are trying to get into it. The young man Preston Parker, you know, coming out there providing a little bit of fire. I don’t know if he’s picking on the right people on defense, but he’s providing fire. I don’t know if you want to go in there and pick on Quincy Black too much. But you do have to love the young man’s mojo. You gotta love his fire. You gotta love his nasty he comes to the game with. And those guys are pushing each other and they’re becoming stronger.”

(Translation: Stovall is standing out along with a bunch of receivers, including the blocking icon. And Parker brings attitude.)

Joe’s glad to hear all this, except the part about Clayton. Just the thought of him sucking reps from the Bucs young receivers is enough to give Joe flashbacks to Leftwich and McCown eating up Freeman’s valuable prep time last summer.

As usual, Joe brings you the video clip from Derek “Old School” Fournier, of WhatTheBuc.net, who sums up the sixth day of Bucs training camp.

One thing Joe does know is that, barring injury, Josh Freeman is  your Bucs starting quarterback and Josh Johnson is the No. 2 quarterback.

Currently, Rudy Carpenter is a distant No. 3.

Now Joe has nothing against the guy at all, but it sure seems like Carpenter is either a nervous fellow or totally unsure of himself in the pocket.

Every time Carpenter goes back to pass, he double-pumps. Sometimes that’s after he pats the ball a few times like Joe Namath did.

Carpenter is no Namath.

His play decisions? Well, it appears those need some polish, as well.

During practice this afternoon at One Buc Palace, Joe watched Carpenter throw to Kareem Huggins in the left flat. Huggins was open, but the problem was there were three Bucs defenders bearing down on him like hungry sharks after a steak.

The moment Huggins touched the ball he was destroyed. In short, Carpenter hung Huggins out to dry.

If Joe saw those three Bucs defenders making a beeline towards Huggins before Carpenter released the ball, how come Carpenter couldn’t? Huggins seemed fortunate to get up under his own power.

If Carpenter is pressed into duty early in the season, the Bucs are in deep trouble.

Like most NFL fans, when Joe thinks of middle linebackers, Ray Nitschke, Dick Butkus, Jack Lambert, Ray Lewis spring to mind. Bigger than life figures! Guys who were like stalking tigers, guys who personified punishing, intimidating, take-no-prisoners defense.

Sadly, that’s not Barrett Ruud. The Bucs middle linebacker is not that type of guy. He’s not going to grab a running back in mid-air and toss him backwards like a child. Ruud is not going to grind an offensive lineman into the mud, poke a finger in his face and dare the man to try to get up off the ground.

Ruud just isn’t a splash player. That really isn’t what the Tampa-2 defense calls for from a middle linebacker, though it’s welcome.

This doesn’t mean Ruud cannot make big plays. His interception against Matt Forte in the 2008 season at Chicago was one of the most stunning plays by a linebacker in pass defense Joe has ever seen. Joe remembers his mouth just dropping watching that play.

Ruud proved again he can make a big play today at Bucs training camp. In a scrimmage with Josh Johnson calling plays, Johnson tried a pass to his right that Ruud knocked down at the line of scrimmage.

Ruud spun around and hopped up and down, believing he let an interception hit the ground.

It’s those kind of plays that were missing from Ruud last year. It’s those kind of plays that he will need to make this season to get the fans off his case.

It’s also those kind of plays Ruud needs to make in order to collect a nice pay raise.

JoeBucsFan.com photo by Kyra Hallett

Joe was live at One Buc Palace today for the afternoon session.

Check back to JoeBucsFan.com through the evening for all things training camp.

"Stroud, I thought we were BFFs."

Taking a break from breaking new ground on Twitter, Bucs beat writer Rick Stroud, of the St. Pete Times, spoke his mind today on what will constitute a successful season for the Bucs. 

Speaking to The Fabulous Sports Babe on 1040 AM this afternoon, Stroud issued a stern warning to Bucs fans about blacked out home games and proclaimed that six wins is the minimum acceptable performance for 2010.

“You gotta win. And I don’t care. You know I hear about youth movements and I hear about building through the draft and every team wants to do it. But at the end of the day, Raheem Morris and Mark Dominik are 3-13. And that’s their record. And that’s the one that will be attached mostly to the head coach. But you gotta win. And you’ve gotta win now,” Stroud said. “You can’t wait and say, ‘well, you know the third year is really,’ uh, uh.

“I mean, you know, there’s not going to be sellouts this year, Babe. You’re going to have to read the newspaper, which will be good for us, or you’re going to have to go someplace 75 miles away to watch some home games. And that’s not a good thing, and owners know that. And there’s a lot of uncertainty about next year. But I don’t think youth is an excuse for losing in the NFL anymore. And these guys gotta grow up quick. And, you know, they have a chance early in the season to make some hey and get off to a decent start. And they almost have to.

“…The pressure to get the first win is immense for this team. And they need to do it against the Cleveland Browns and get off to a good start. Because then you can breathe a little bit and not be so stressed about when is that first win going to come. And that’s what they need to do. And I think if they do that they have a chance to stay in it for a while. That’s what the league is built to do. And we’ll see. But, I mean look,  they can’t win four or five games this year. That’s just not going to cut it.”

Stroud’s the same guy who told Bucs fans that this year’s team is a “House of Cards.” And now he’s drawn a line in the sand on evaluating the Bucs’ performance.

Joe wonders whether Stroud will stick with this attitude, or just conveniently delete his Tweets change his tune if the Bucs season heads south.

All eyes will be on Bucs offensive coordinator Greg Olson if the Bucs offense sputters this season.

Bucs offensive coordinator Greg Olson is not in an enviable position.

Sure, he has a lot of young toys to play with, specifically a franchise quarterback. But if those toys don’t shine, guess who gets the blame?

Then, there’s this little truth: Boss likes to run the ball. Olson likes to pass. Guess who calls the plays?

Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune discusses the predicament Olson is in this year in a TBO.com Bucs Q&A feature.

Q:  Now that the season is almost among us, how much of a pass to rush ratio do you see the Bucs imploring this season? If the Wildcat is used will will we see Josh Johnson run it? I heard the bucs were using the P-word. Do you see playoffs or not this year?

Andrew Morrison, St. Petersburg

A:  Your first question is an interesting one, because we know the Bucs want to run the ball, but we also know that offensive coordinator Greg Olson is a big fan of throwing it. I think they’re going to lean on the run as much as they can but as the season progresses and the receivers develop and Josh Freeman gets more comfortable you could see the pass-run ration go from 40-60 to 50-50 or even 60-40. Playoffs? You’re taking Playoffs? Yeah, the Bucs have mentioned that, which is no surprise. Is it a realistic possibility? I don’t think so. Not this year.

— Woody Cummings

Joe has an uncomfortable feeling that if the Bucs offense is dreadful this year, it may be Olson’s head. It almost appears that the floor is set to cave in on Olson.

If that happens, that is not a good thing for Josh Freeman.

It was Chucky who successfully tossed Earnest Graham into the fullback position on the fly, and then Raheem The Dream followed that up last year out of necessity.

Now, it’s Graham’s first season where he comes into a training camp as a fullback — and the starter.

Joe’s media partners over at WDAE-AM 620 chatted with Graham yesterday during The Ron and Ian Show. (WDAE is the only sports radio station broadcasting from training camp, therefore they often have players on the air during breaks in practice).

Graham talked about his roll, and Joe’s got an excerpt for you:

Co-host Ian Beckles: Did you learn the fullback role in training camp [in previous years]?

Graham: I’ve always stayed mindful of it. I’ve always played it over the years. Just as a football player. I knew the halfback [position], so I listened what was going on at the fullback position and stayed mindful of it. I’m naturally built to play the position, as well, so it was not a big adjustment for me.

Co-host Ron Diaz: Did you put on some weight?

Graham: Yeah. I’m about 234 right now. Last year I was about 225. Before that I was about 220. …I’m going to get the job done.

Beckles: When Mike Alstott was put at fullback he should have given the ball more, personally. I think that would be great if we split out the running back now that we’ve still got a running back type guy at fullback.

Graham: Definitely, I think I’ll get some definite looks in short yardage. We flirted with a little bit last year when I was the one back and got some carries and was able to break some runs in there. So I think we’re definitely going to be able to develop it.

You can catch the entire interview here.

Graham went on to say that stability at offensive coordinator is “going to make all the difference.”

Recently, former Bucs defensive end Steve White wrote on JoeBucsFan.com about his observations of a Bucs training camps practice.

White wasn’t overly impressed as he believed there wasn’t enough intensity overall, that he didn’t believe the practices were uptempo enough.

Yesterday, Anwar Richardson of the Tampa Tribune wrote a feature story on second-year defensive end Kyle Moore. In the article, Richardson notes how Moore “coasts sometimes” and that Bucs coaches believe if Moore can practice and play at a consistent pace, he should be fine.

This brought out the ire of White on his blog.

Now talk is talk and I have no idea if Moore actually “coasts” in practice or not. But I have to say that just the thought that a guy COULD coast in practice is mind boggling to me. Back when I was playing from Warren Sapp all the way down to the lowest guy on the totem pole, when you hit the practice field you were busting your butt. It wasn’t even a question of whether you could coast or not because if you tried to you could forget about somebody “pushing your buttons”. Instead Rod Marinelli would be down your throat with his foot in your ass. And if it happened enough times you just wouldn’t be around anymore. If there was one thing our coaches didn’t put up with it was a lack of effort.

I know it takes awhile for guys to transition from college to the pros and I know that not everyone has the same work ethic at first. But its just weird to me that it seems to be an open secret that Moore’s effort is inconsistent and yet he has been handing a starting position. Think about this, when was the last time you heard about a starting NFL player who had to have their button’s pushed?

I’m not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill but the hallmark of our defense has always been playing hard and fast with an emphasis on both. You can’t practice soft and play hard, it just doesn’t work that way. I realize that comparing what we did 10 years ago to what the Bucs are doing today might be a little unfair, but by the same token I don’t think the need practice hard is a principle of football that has changed over the last decade. And maybe it’s impolite to point this out but the guy didn’t exactly tear it up last year once he finally got some playing time. I realize he had gained too much weight to fit into Jim Bates’ scheme but the fact remains that nobody has seen him be dominant in a game thus far which for me would make his inconsistency of effort even more inexcusable.

Joe remembers hearing Warren Sapp talk on the Bucs America’s Game segment on NFL Network that the hallmark of the team was its worth ethic. And that was what drove a wedge between Sapp and Meshawn Johnson, because Johnson seemed allergic to working out with the Bucs in the offseason.

Joe hopes guys like Roy Miller, Brian Price, Gerald McCoy and Arrelious Benn, all with reputations for being workhorses, can return that work ethic trait to the Bucs and that it will rub off on the rest of the team.

Comrades Stephen Holder and the Mad Twitterer discuss Day 5 of Bucs training camp and in particular wonder aloud if newcomer Keydrick Vincent will supplant Jeremy Zuttah at left guard in this St. Petersburg Times video.

Joe’s had about enough with all the over-the-top love flowing for Kareem Huggins.

Looks great in practice? Yes. Exciting speed? Yes. Great work ethic? Check.  Savior? No.

Look, Joe sees Huggins’ flash and gets his potential, but the kid hasn’t done anything yet. Nothing. Last year he injured his knee in the second preseason game after 10 carries and 31 yards and didn’t get another carry.

Huggins was out of football in 2008, after not sticking with the Jets following his career at 1-AA Hofstra, and then he became a practice squad icon with the Bucs in ’09.

Joe interviewed Huggins’ college coach last year, and Joe talked to Huggins for a feature Joe wrote for Huggins’ hometown newspaper, the Daily Record in Jersey. So Joe gets how hard a worker Huggins is.

But Joe nearly drove off the road today when he heard Scott Reynolds, the high priest of the cancelled hand held magazine turned Web-only Pewter Report, tell J.P. Peterson that Huggins very well could beat out Derrick Ward and win the backup running back job behind Cadillac Williams.

Has the world gone mad?

Joe wants to see Huggins get a shot in preseason, but Jimminy Christmas, let the man do something first before there’s talk of him beating out a healthy, talented 1,000-yard rusher that the front office wants to see succeed.

Through 4 1/2 days of practice, Bucs beat writer Woody Cummings, of The Tampa Tribune, is not doing cartwheels over the performance of Josh Freeman.

Cummings, speaking today on The King David Show, on WQYK-AM, said Freeman has been inconsistent and “I’d give him a 75 percent grade” for training camp.

Cummings went on to say Freeman has been battling young receivers running “wrong routes” and “dropped passes” in addition to his own struggles.

Joe thinks Freeman has looked slightly uncomfortable and he definitely was off target today in a downfield throwing drill. But Joe, as stated previously, is going to withhold any real judgement on Freeman until next Saturday against the Dolphins.

Derek “Old School” Fournier of WhatTheBuc.net and fill-in host on WQYK-AM 1010 reports on the fourth day of Bucs training camp.

Just getting to his notes on the Bucs full-speed, goal-line drill, Joe sees on the Interwebs that the beat scribes are all giddy about Roy Miller getting a look at fullback.

Yawn.

But it was good fun to watch the handful of goal line sets. Raheem The Dream was all fired up bopping around with his men in their big boy pads putting their face on people. Kareem Huggins scored, and the defense stood up Earnest Graham and Derrick Ward. Hard to tell who was at fault on a fumbled snap and am offensive penalty (though it wasn’t Trueblood).

With all the running plays the Bucs appeared to be installing for quite a while today, Joe wonders whether that could have led to the less than stellar performance by the offense there.

Joe was far more geeked by a play much earlier when Cadillac Williams busted out wide right on a run and turned the corner untouched.

Explosive!

Joe thought it was mighty nice for Bucs personnel czar Mark Dominik to spend a fair amount of time mingling with the fans sitting in the disabled persons section this morning.

Not knowing Joe was watching, Dominik was introducing himself, shaking hands and just talking football with these folks.

Later, Dominik was engaged in what looked like a serious on-field chat with beat writer Chris Harry, of FanHouse.com, but quickly peeled away when he saw a contingent of men from MacDill Air Force Base leaving the practice.

Dominik seemed to just want to thank them for coming.

Joe thought those things were pretty cool.

Joe likes Kareem Huggins. What’s not to like? Everybody loves the underdog, and this small, undrafted 1-AA running back, who was out of football in 2008 and was on the Bucs’ practice squad in 2009, is the textbook longshot.

He’s fast. He showed flashes of greatness in the preseason last year before hurting his knee before the season started. And Raheem The Dream called him “the driving force of our football team,” for what he brings to practice. Joe, like everyone else, can see that Huggins looks sharp in training camp.

Joe, however, needs to see Huggins get it done on the field in games and stay healthy.

One interesting new nugget on Huggins came from Woody Cummings, of The Tampa Tribune. Speaking after today’s practice on The King David Show, on WQYK-AM 1010, Cummings said fans should look for Huggins possibly becoming a more well rounded threat.

“I think they’re going to use him as a receiver on the outside,” Cummings said of Huggins.

Last year, it was Josh Johnson as the possible secret receiving weapon. And the Bucs even used Earnest Graham out wide a few times during the season without success. Perhaps Huggins can make something happen there.

Joe’s not seeing it, though. Greg Olson needs to figure out how to use the proven weapons he has before he starts trying to get cute.