Joe spoke with five prospects last week at the East-West Shrine practices and game that could be targets of the Bucs, three cornerbacks, one safety and one linebacker. The Bucs have a pattern for prospects: multiple years as a starter, played for a big-time program or conference, and served as a team captain. The Bucs rarely deviate from this pattern. Some have met all three qualifications for a Bucs draftee, some have not.

Name: Demontre Hurst
School: Oklahoma
Position: Cornerback
Size: 5-10, 183
Started: Three years
Captain: Yes
Have Bucs representatives spoken to him? Yes.
Background: Three-year starter, two-time second team All-Big XII. Hurst was fourth on the Sooners in tackles. In a loss to Notre Dame, which eventually played for the national title, Hurst had seven tackles, a sack and two pass break-ups. Finished senior season with 51 tackles, 43 of which were solo tackles.

Sales pitch to Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik:  I bring a lot of discipline and a lot of effort to the game. I really trust my ability to make plays. wherever the coaches put me at corner. I do my best to try to make the play. I may not be the biggest guy but I use my size to my advantage. I just try to make plays all over the field.

Profile: Hurst is strong against the run and can deliver a lick, traits that make Bucs coach Greg Schiano smile. Hurst has done his homework and knows the Bucs are in a dire need for cornerback depth and has targeted the Bucs as a team he is trying to impress.

Hurst touted his versatility to Joe last week.

“I can play nickel and corner and I am trying to work on those positions out here. I know in the league, you have to be versatile. That is what I am trying to do, use my versatility to my advantage. I played corner all four years in college and some nickel plays every now and then. I have learned that NFL teams are playing three corners a lot and I’m trying to take advantage of that.

“To be in this league, you have to tackle. Being a corner, when guys get to the outside you have to be able to bring them down. I am not the biggest guy in the world but I can tackle in the open field.”

Below is an example of how, as a junior, Hurst put receivers on the ground in a very unwelcome manner.

Saturday, Joe got a chance to talk with NFL Network draft guru and overall exceptional football analyst Mike Mayock after he worked the East-West Shrine game at the Fruitdome in St. Petersburg. Attired in a dapper 1920s Chicago gangster pinstripe suit, Mayock touched upon a few hot-button Bucs issues.

JoeBucsFan: What are your thoughts on the job done by Greg Schiano in his first year with the Bucs?

Mike Mayock: Coach Schiano, to me, did a nice job of changing the culture in that building. I think that is what had to happen. Now in Year-2, you have to build on some of that success and go from there.

Joe: Locally, a lot of fans and some radio types have been hounding Gerald McCoy as being soft, injury-prone and grossly overrated. This year, his first full year, he makes the Pro Bowl. Is this the type of player Bucs fans can expect to see or was this a fluke for McCoy?

Mayock: I had him rated ahead of [Detroit tackle Ndamukong] Suh because I thought he was a better pass rusher coming out of college — I thought they were the two best players that year. I think what you saw this past year is what he can be when healthy: dominant in both the run game and the pass game.

Joe: Josh Freeman is really catching heat locally for his meltdown the final month of the season when the Bucs had a clear shot at a playoff berth. When he is off he is really off. When he is on he is dynamite. Will Freeman ever be a top-tier quarterback that can lead the Bucs to the playoffs?

Mayock: I think you just said it. His inconsistencies are frustrating. When you get to the NFL level, inconsistencies cost you football games. With a good run game like they have with Doug Martin, with Vincent Jackson in town, I think they have to augment that offensive line to protect him. But he has to be a more consistent football player to win more games.

Joe: Freeman has had a rotating set of coaches with both his position coaches and offensive coordinators in his four years with the Bucs. Shouldn’t it be expected that he will be more consistent, more comfortable having a full offseason, and a second football season, to work with Mike Sullivan?

Mayock: Oh, yeah. I am a big believer in continuity. It’s partly about who your coordinators and who your coaches are but it is also about players who you play with and are surrounded with. He’s still a young quarterback. I thought his [first full season as a starter] he looked really good. I thought his second year was rough and this past year, he was both good and bad. We are at the point now where he needs to step up and become a more consistent player.

Late in 2012, Greg Schiano starting wearing a black, rubber-looking bracelet with the word “Family” on it, so it seems fitting that a family tie appears to have brought new Bucs wide receivers coach John Garrett from the Cowboys to Tampa Bay.

Charean Williams, of the Fort-Worth Star Telegram, caught up to Garrett, who explained that the leader of the New Schiano Order had a relationship with his dad.

Garrett’s tie to Schiano is his father. Jim Garrett was a long-time NFL scout whose path crossed several times with Schiano while Schiano was in the college ranks.

Interestingly, it seems Vincent Jackson was involved in the interview process.

“Vincent Jackson is a fantastic player and from what I hear and what I saw when I had the interview, he is arguably a better person,” Garrett said. “All the coaches there think he’s an outstanding leader, a fantastic worker. He loves to be coached and loves football. They had a lot of comparisons to this is our [Jason] Witten, how he just loves it and as a star player sets the tone and pace for how to work and prepare. I got a chance to visit with him in the course of the interview and that’s exactly the case. I developed a good rapport, and I’m looking forward to working with such a talented guy.”

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Joe chatted with former successful Falcons head coach and not-so-successful Bucs head coach Leeman Bennett yesterday and asked him to go out on a limb and pick standouts from the East-West Shrine practices and game last week. Bennett coached the West squad.

Linebacker Keith Pough (6-2, 241) was the only name Bennett spit out. He said Pough is a complete, physical player who quickly showed he was a leader on the field and in the locker room.

Pough is projected to be a strong-side linebacker in the NFL but not a first- or second-round pick, likely because he played college ball for Howard University in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference against the likes of Morgan State, Savannah State and Delaware State.

Joe also learned that Pough seems to have the makings of the proverbial “Buccaneer Man.” He was a two-year captain at Howard and is the son of a high school football coach. He also was shorter in high school, a late physical bloomer, which factored into his college options.

Perhaps Pough could be a replacement for Quincy Black?

Bennett also weighed in on Steve Young’s days with the Bucs and the team’s decision to get rid of Young. Bennett said Young was not ready to be a professional quarterback and pointed to Young’s early days in San Francisco as evidence that he needed more time to mature.

Of course, Young was dreadful leading the ’86 Bucs to a 2-14 record, and talent in San Francisco was a massive upgrade.

Joe has been fascinated by the Aqib Talib enablers. To hear some of Talib’s supporters talk, he is the be-all, end-all for NFL defensive backs and in his spare time, is a virtual Green Lantern, saving damsels in distress and performs surgery on children in the Philippines.

Yet when Talib was unavailable while a member of the Bucs, the team had a winning record, if you can imagine such a thing.

In his last few years, Talib was hardly dependable, and Joe isn’t speaking of pistol-whipping ways or Adderall-popping. Talib was often injured, nicked up, simply unavailable.

This continued at the worst possible time yesterday with his new/old team, the Patriots. Just days after his coach Bill Belicheat all but proclaimed Talib to be the next “Night Train” Lane, Talib, in the AFC Championship yesterday, came up lame and was unavailable in the second half while the Baltimore Crows rallied to beat the Patriots and advance to the Super Bowl.

Joe was happy that Talib and his perpetual soap opera left for New England, and will likely arrive at some other city later this year, all but certain to be another place other than Tampa Bay.

Running back Frank Gore is now making plans for the Super Bowl, and that means the Muscle Hampster, rookie Doug Martin, will take his place at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii.

That makes three Bucs who will feast on pineapple next Sunday. Martin joins Vincent Jackson, who also got the call for the roster as an alternate, and Gerald McCoy, who was selected via the initial process via fans’, coaches’ and players’ votes.

Martin racked up 1,454 rushing yards and is very deserving. Martin had just one official fumble at Carolina, and that should have been ruled a touchdown. He’s the first Bucs rookie to eat pineapple since Clifton “Peanut” Smith in 2008.

Yes, Joe will watch this year’s Pro Bowl. The beer already is on ice.

Another Bucs hire is in the books this evening, per NFL.com.

John Garrett, most recently the Cowboys tight ends coach (2007-2012), and the brother of Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett, is the new Bucs wide receivers coach. He replaces the departed and popular P.J. Fleck, who is now the youngest head coach in major college football at Western Michigan.

Reports earlier this month said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was squeezing Jason Garrett to fire his brother, and that John Garrett was not well liked by his co-workers.

Garrett is an Ivy League guy and has been coaching since leaving the NFL after brief career with the Cowboys, Bengals and Bills, ending in 1991.

Joe’s pleased to see Garrett has experience and played in the league.

Former Bucs tight end Kellen Winslow was an incredible talent. He also had an incredible ego.

Always demanding the ball, pouting when he wasn’t targeted, even if the Bucs scored a touchdown, it was all about K2 when he was here. Practice? Nah, gotta spin some discs poolside in Vegas, man.

So the Bucs sign Vincent Jackson and jettisoned K2, the Bucs’ passing offense — for fantasy football types — blew up like never before.

So, unlike K2, who is still unemployed and quit on the Patriots — yeah, Winslow couldn’t be bothered by winning because he would have had to have played for a hardarse, not a enabler — and went on a famous “toes on the line” screed, Vincent Jackson lauds Bucs coach Greg Schiano and wants to be his best recruiter, so he told Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times.

“I couldn’t be more impressed with Schiano and his staff, the way they were able to come in here in one year, coming from the collegiate level to dealing with professionals,” Jackson said. “I know (Schiano) has some background in the NFL. But as a head coach, to take the reins the way he did, get his message across, get guys to buy in the way he did under totally different circumstances from years prior, he did an excellent job with that. He’s a lot of fun to play for. He’s a competitive guy, and he’s going to make sure you’re as well prepared as you can possibly be.

“I would tell (free agents) it’s a top-notch organization; it’s a top-notch structure. We have a great coaching staff here. They’ve built a system and a feeling of family and continuity, not only with the team itself, but I think they’ve done a great job in the community as well.”

Now this is what Joe calls a class act. It appears, thanks in part to Jackson reworking his contract, that Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik will have some monopoly money to play with in order to entice free agents to Tampa Bay (a cornerback or two?).

With a guy like Jackson, and Joe is sure Gerald McCoy as well, talking up the Bucs in Hawaii among the game’s elite, this cannot be a bad thing.

Meanwhile, Joe guesses while taking a break from watching football on this Championship Sunday, K2 is grumbling at his dog for not getting him the ball.

“C’mon, Free. It’s force it to Winslow in coverage, then Blount up the middle, then the Benn’d around. I’m telling you. We’re going to start fast this week.”

A couple of former subpar Bucs offensive coordinators found jobs yesterday leading NFL offenses.

Joe is almost speechless.

Run-up-the-gut-for-three-yards Mike Shula has been tasked with destroying enhancing Cam Newton’s development, replacing departed offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski. This is great news for Bucs fans!

Also, the sadist behind the dreadful and infamous Benn’d Around play, Greg Olson, will take Chucky’s old playbook to Oakland. Joe wonders how far Olson threw Raheem Morris under the bus during the interview process when asked what happened during the 2011 season in Tampa.

Joe commends the salesmanship of Shula and Olson.

There has been some movement among Bucs coaches, some guessed at, some real. This is not uncommon within the NFL.

But for some Bucs fans, this is cause for alarm. That was one subject explored during a recent ESPN NFC South chat.

redzone jones (NY)

I feel its a little strange that 4 coaches have left the Bucs after 1 season of being on the staff. 2 got hired to Head Coaches but why would a 7-9 team get poached? Cooper left to be the same position somewhere else. Thoughts?

Pat Yasinskas

Two guys with some college background got head coaching jobs in college. On Cooper, somebody had to take the fall for the horrible pass defense, so i don’t think that one was poaching. On the D-line coach, I don’t know.

Well, let’s think about this a moment: P.J. Fleck, who Bucs receivers loved and who guided the group to the best results in Bucs history, got offered a head coaching gig at 32 years old. How is this a bad thing? Why would anyone try to pin this as a negative on the Bucs much less Greg Schiano? Geez. Is a guy not allowed to seek career advancement?

As for Ron Turner, Joe only wished he could have bought him a farewell beer from a local craft brewery. Turner’s resume is less than spectacular and Joe isn’t shedding tears that he got a head coaching gig in South Florida. Look, “this Joe” is from the cornfields of Illinois but one would have to be brain damaged to prefer a gig in Champaign than Miami.

And yes, the Bucs are not changing defensive line coaches.

So in Joe’s eyes, thus far, only one transaction among coaches has been made from the pen of Schiano, and to suggest a guy in charge of a unit that nearly set an NFL record for most yards allowed should have been granted job security, Joe believes said person has been ordering too many double-Captains.

There is no conspiracy here.

The Bucs hired decorated NFL wide receivers coach John McNulty, the former Rutgers offensive coordinator, to be their quarterbacks coach today. He was a receivers coach for years under Tom Coughlin in Jacksonville and under Ken Whisenhunt in Arizona, where Larry Fitzgerald loved him so much he flew him to a Pro Bowl. McNulty also worked for Bill Parcells.

But Joe can’t say he likes this hire.

Josh Freeman could have used a QB coach who is a true quarterbacks guru, preferably one who played the position and who could really go deep on Freeman with his mechanics. In other words, the best QB coach — or team of QB coaches — on the market.

McNulty was a defensive back at Penn State in the 1980s. He volunteered to be Arizona’s QB coach last season, and Arizona’s quarterbacks situation was ugly.

Isn’t it allegedly all about No. 5?

And if competition is supposedly coming for Freeman, perhaps from a rookie, Joe really thinks the Bucs have shortchanged themselves with this hire.

Joe sincerely hopes the Bucs plan to hire a QB mechanics maven as a consultant to work with McNulty and Freeman during the offseason.

“Randy, if you can mold Gerald McCoy into a Pro Bowler, you are my man.”

Despite a PewterReport.com report this week that claimed the Bucs had parted ways with defensive line coach Randy Melvin, the Bucs plan on retaining him at his same position.

Both Joe, confirming independently through a trusted Bucs front office source, and Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune, are reporting Melvin has not been fired.

In fact, Melvin, unless he seeks employment elsewhere, will be coaching the Bucs defensive line in 2013.

Additionally, there are several reports that confirm longtime Schiano confidant John McNulty has been hired to replace the void left by Ron Turner as the Bucs quarterback coach, a move that had been speculated.

The Bucs’ sack total from the defensive line this year was, again, miserable, and pretty much has been since Simeon Rice left the Bucs. That’s five years the Bucs have searched for a pass rusher that makes quarterbacks buy Pampers?

Draft pick after draft pick and the Bucs still don’t have a scary pass rush. The subpar 2012 season again cost the Bucs a defensive line coach for lack of sack production.

In 2010, Adrian Clayborn seemed showed talent and had splashes where he reminded Bucs fans of Rice, especially when he planted Matty Ice into the turf of the Stadium on Dale Mabry Highway.

The defense suffered a blow when Clayborn blew out a knee early this season. But it appears Clayborn has a clean bill of health to continue his rehab, so he Twittered this morning.

@AJaClay: Bout to see my doc…hopefully I get some good news and I can start running.

(An hour later… )

@AJaClay: Knee is good!

And that means the Bucs are good!

Hopefully, with a reinvigorated Clayborn, Pro Bowler Gerald McCoy and a return of Michael Bennett and a healthy Da’Quan Bowers, the Bucs will be able to make quarterbacks have untimely accidents on the field, which used to happen when Warren Sapp and Rice danced and pranced.

Making a Pro Bowl and a playing a full season is just one hurdle for Gerald McCoy, says Derrick Brooks

It seems Bucs icon Derrick Brooks is taking a measured approach to the emergence of Gerald McCoy as a recognized superstar.

Speaking on WDAE-AM 620 this week, Brooks was told some fans still think McCoy is a bust and was asked for his take on the Bucs’ big-money, Pro Bowl defensive tackle. Brooks did not play cheerleader and was not horrified by the inference that McCoy could be a bust.

Brooks said McCoy earned the Pro Bowl berth, but it’s just a small part of the big picture.

“I was happy for him to finish a season,” Brooks said of McCoy. “I think that was the No. 1 goal, was to finish a season healthy and let’s see what happens.Now, you’ve set this [Pro Bowl year] as a standard that he has to build on. I mean, you could look at the other D-tackle up in Detroit [Ndamukong Suh], did he have the same impact this year that he did last year? No. And it could because of the defense as a whole. It could be because of him. Who knows.

“But I will say [McCoy] got through the first hurdle of finishing the season healthy. And now it’s something to build on. To determine if he’s, you know, a bust at this point, it’s something that we can’t determine and will continue to build on.”

Sure McCoy has more to achieve, but Joe’s a bit surprised there aren’t more warm and fuzzy feelings for McCoy. At 24 years old, he’s proven he’s not a bust and the prime of his career lies ahead.

Plus, his teammates voted him captain, he’s outspoken to media (which means he communicates with fans) and he’s been a pillar in the community. This morning, McCoy is speaking at a Tampa elementary school and helping distribute eyeglasses to needy kids. Yesterday, he did the same thing.

Yeah, a Hall of Fame career would be nice, but Bucs fans and observers should be able to appreciate McCoy’s impact.

If Quincy Black’s medical status doesn’t change by April, the Bucs may have to reassess linebacker needs for the draft.

One Bucs bright spot to celebrate this past season was the transformation of the rush defense and the front seven.

Just by adding a second round draft pick who appears to be a major NFL star in the making, Lavonte David, Bucs linebackers went from wretched to remarkable all in the span of 16 games.

Even when outside linebacker Quincy Black, who was having his best NFL season by far, went down with a scary upper body nerve injury, the Bucs’ rush defense didn’t fall back much.

So it struck Joe to read a missive in the TBO Bucs Q&A stump for Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik to draft and/or add a linebacker via free agency.

Q: Don’t you think the Bucs need LB help either in free agency or the draft?

– Michael Stanley, Columbus, Miss.

A: I do indeed. I believe they could use a little depth there at least. May even need to start looking for a new SLB. We’re still not sure how Quincy Black is after suffering that neck stinger.

– Woody Cummings

Need help at linebacker? No.

Could the Bucs use help at linebacker? Yes, of course.

The last time Joe heard Bucs coach Greg Schiano speak of Black, there was no assurance that Black would be 100 percent by the time training camp rolls around in roughly six months — yes, six months to training camp. Black is seeking all sorts of feedback from medical specialists across the country, if not beyond borders. The fact the Bucs and Black have even gone international in seeking advice about Black’s injury tells Joe this is a very serious injury Black suffered.

So if Black remains a question mark to return by the time the draft rolls around, then sure, Joe can live with drafting a linebacker, say in the third round.

As the Bucs stand approaching late January, Joe isn’t ready to anoint linebacker as a priority need for the 2013 season.

It seems like only yesterday that Bucs fans were wondering why Chucky was so stubbornly resistant to ever putting his quarterback in the shotgun formation. Now the ol’ ball coach is crediting it for having rookie QBs NFL ready.

Below is a rare piece of a Chucky interview where he gets into some Xs and Os and doesn’t claim to love anyone. Chucky seems to accept young-and-ready QBs as a legitimate phenomenon in the NFL with no sign of stopping. Joe wonders how this could affect the perceived value of Josh Freeman going forward.

Joe’s glad to see he’s not the only one breathing a huge sigh of relief because Bucs offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan didn’t land as a head coach Chicago, in what what have been a devastating setback to Josh Freeman and the offense.

Vincent Jackson expressed similar sentiment, documented by Buccaneers video mogul Scott Smith, and explained that continuity alone should help the Bucs as they try to squeeze the most out of every last minute of practice time, which is restricted by the player-owner labor agreement.

“I think it’s huge,” said Jackson of Sullivan’s return.  “To get that year under your belt is huge, and if we had gotten a new guy here we could have had a different system and we would have had to pretty much start from scratch like we did last year.  So having this confidence – you know, we kind of know what to expect from him and the coaching staff knows what to expect from us – it’s definitely going to give us a head start this offseason.”

The Bucs didn’t achieve their postseason goals, but they did set new franchise single-season records for points scored, yards gained and passing yards gained.  Obviously, the arrival of Jackson (and rookie RB Doug Martin) had a lot to do with that, and Jackson thinks the Bucs can top themselves again in 2013, thanks to that much-appreciated continuity.

“I think there is a huge chance that we will be a lot better just because the fact that, again, you feel all different kinds of struggle when [you] get a new coordinator or [you] get a new head coach and everything is kind of fresh,” he said. “Even though we put in lots of work and I felt we were playing at a high level and we felt very comfortable with the system, you know, well early on in the season there were still things we could improve on and we could have been more consistent with. I expect us to definitely to have a head start on that. This offseason we won’t have to spend as much time installing, you know. Some of the veteran guys will know what is expected of them and know all of the calls and formations.  We’re all in this league racing against the clock, with the union and all the hours we are only allowed to do in the offseason and during the season, that’s what we’re all competing against.  It’s preparation. So for us to have that knowledge under our belt, it’s definitely going to help us.”

Smith has more excellent nuggets from Jackson, which you can find by clicking above.

Joe finds it interesting that Jackson talked about how the Bucs could have been more consistent and tighter early in the season, versus later in the year during the December collapse. It was a similar sentiment that former wide receivers coach P.J. Fleck told Joe last week, when Fleck said alleged miscommunication between Freeman and receivers was more a function of defenses catching up to the Bucs than anything else.

Regardless, Joe, along with Jackson, is confident that Year 2 of the Sullivan offense should translate to stellar and consistent production given the Bucs’ talent. There really are no more excuses.

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