Joe’s heard some fans and media squawking about how rockstar general manager Mark Dominik miscalculated the ability of the Bucs roster and, per these folks, fans are now seeing on the field what a talent-poor roster delivers.

Joe thinks this is a garbage take. And Joe’s prompted to write about it now because St. Pete Times Bucs beat writer Stephen Holder is saying just the opposite in a long analysis of the state of the Bucs penned today for TampaBay.com.

“Right now, it is hard not to think the front office overestimated the talent level of this team,” Holder writes.

Joe’s not about to believe that Josh Freeman isn’t as talented as he was last year, and that this offensive line isn’t as talented as the one that won games last year without the services of Davin Joseph, Jeff Faine and Jeremy Trueblood. Joe’s also not buying that LeGarrette Blount has lost anything to his game. And please don’t tell Joe that Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn aren’t capable of catching more than four passes combined like they did Sunday, during a game that had the Bucs trailing and taking to the air.

On the defensive side of the ball, the poor tackling exhibition in the secondary surely isn’t related to talent. Aqib Talib, Tanard Jackson and Sean Jones have gotten it done in past years.

Everyone knew going in that the defensive line was young and likely a liability, so surely it can’t qualify as overestimated. That said, Adrian Clayborn has been a significant upgrade. Brian Price is overachieving, and Michael Bennett also is an upgrade over sackless Kyle Moore. Gerald McCoy was giving the Bucs what they expected.

Joe will say that Quincy Black falls in the mythical overestimated talent category. Geno Hayes also hasn’t made the leap in his fourth season to a level of consistency that will keep him around. So add him in. But Mason Foster has been as advertised. Even Hardy Nickerson sees it.

Obviously, Joe could break this down in more detail. But the point is Joe’s not buying that all of a sudden a bunch of players have lost their gifts. These same guys beat the Falcons and Saints this season, and those wins were no fluke.

If Joe were to point fingers of blame, it’s far more reasonable to hang what the Bucs have become on the coaching staff. At the end of the day, a coach’s job, on any level, is to get the most out of his players consistently. The Bucs staff has had far too many failures in that area.

So what are the tangible consequences for Buccaneers players after the shameful home-field beating at the hands of the Texans on Sunday?

The answer is two practices in pads this week, rarely allowed under the new labor agreement, and a head coach that expects to hear collisions. Raheem Morris explained his changed mentality on The Raheem Morris Show on WDAE-AM 620 last night.

“I’ll take these guys into the woodshed, so to speak, this week,” Raheem said. “We’ll go to practice and we’ll put our pads on, and we’ll compete in practice and get these guys to play a simulated game. … Obviously you’ve got to change some of your preparation when that happens. … 

“Before, you know, everybody’s trying to worry about preservation and keeping your team healthy. This week we’re going to go more with a physical mentality. We’re going to work on the physicality of our football team.

“Gotta clean up your sense of urgency. And you gotta somehow simulate it in practice. The only way to simulate sense of urgency in practice is to put the pads on and go out there and do some things a little bit different, and play a little bit harder and make it a little bit tougher to make people concentrate more.”

Joe can only hope the Bucs figure out how to tackle by actually doing it during these physical practices. Things surely coudn’t get much worse in that area.

And receivers and cornerbacks holding on to balls would be a good thing, too. Watching the Bucs-Texans game again, Joe saw the lost interception by Aqib Talib and the clear drop in the end zone by Dezmon Brizcoe, and knows the Texans should have led only 13-7 at halftime.

Regardless, something has to get through to the Bucs. If they can’t at least play sound football in Green Bay, Joe’s going to have to wonder if they’ve given up on their coaches.

Reports from various national media say Albert Haynesworth’s 2012 contract is for $7 million.

One might assume the Bucs would have no interest in that kind of salary for a backup defensive tackle, but it seems Haynesworth may be having a legitimate audition for a 2012 starting role in place of injured Gerald McCoy.

Per a Q & A on TBO.com, Bucs beat writer Woody Cummings reveals that the powers that be at One Buc Palace aren’t yet counting on McCoy being ready for next season’s opening kickoff.

Q: I like the Bucs’ move for Albert Haynesworth but after this year, McCoy will be back. Does the team just plan on using albert for this season and then just dumping him next season or do they have plans on keeping him for the long term? I still feel that he can be the same player that he was as a Titan, and he is a better player than Roy Miller, who has been invisible for most of his career.

A: I think the decision to pick up Haynesworth was done in part because there is concern inside the organization that McCoy won’t be back for the start of the season next year. His injury takes anywhere from six months to a year to recover from. He recovered from the same injury in six months last year, but that may not be the case this time. …

Click through the link above to read beat writer Cummings’ complete response.

Frankly, Joe hadn’t even considered that McCoy wouldn’t be healthy and ready to go come training camp for next season. Joe knows many fans already use  the “bust” word for McCoy. Joe’s not there yet, but if McCoy can’t start 2012 on the field, Joe’s not sure how to avoid giving him the label.

Rich Gannon on Josh Freeman: "I'm convinced he's not 100 percent."

Monday, former Super Bowl quarterback Rich Gannon, who co-hosts “The Blitz” with popular sports radio personality Adam Schein, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio, broke down what he thought was wrong with the Bucs.

Naturally, Joe transcribed the discussion.

Gannon had a first-hand look at the Bucs over the weekend. He worked the game as an analyst for CBS-TV, and Friday he spent time at One Buc Palace talking to coaches and watching practice.

“After watching practice and the game Sunday, I’m convinced Josh Freeman is not 100 percent. He has a sprained thumb in his throwing hand. Last year he started the season with the same injured thumb and he struggled the first few weeks.

“They are not winning at the wide receiver position. Mike Williams I think has taken a step back. Arrelious Benn, they are not speed demons where they can just run by you. they have to have creative ways to get open and get separation and right now they are not doing that.

“[Freeman’s] favorite target is his tight end, he wants to throw to Kellen Winslow. If LeGarrette Blount can’t have a big day running the football, this is an offense that is going to struggle. LeGarrette Blount was a non-factor [Sunday]. Turnovers are a big story and penalties continue to haunt the Buccaneers.”

Later in the show Gannon said he was skeptical of Bucs coaches claiming they had a plan on how to negate Texas linebacker Brian Cushing and Gannon said, in a discussion about the Redskins invoked the Bucs, “If they can’t run the football the game’s over.”

Joe came across this little nugget from his good friend Justin Pawlowski of WDAE-AM 620. Many of you enjoy Justin’s work as well during Bucs pregame and postgame shows heard on the Bucs radio network.

Per a post by Justin on WDAE-AM’s website, via FOX 8 in New Orleans, Tulane University is preparing to break ground on a new football stadium. The New Orleans institution of higher learning (which also produced among others, Shaun King, Peter Brown and Gregg Rosenthal), has played football games in the Superdome for decades.

Now, the school is building an on-campus stadium and two NFL families are helping finance the new stadium, so FOX 8 reports: Tom Benson’s family and the Glazer family.

FOX 8 has also learned that the Benson family and the Glazer family, which owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, will largely fund the new stadium.

“I want to give a huge thank you to them. I mean that’s putting us on the map,” says student Efren Lopez.

The old Tulane Stadium was demolished in 1980. Back in the 60’s, Tulane advertised it’s stadium in football programs as the ‘world’s largest steel stadium.’

It seems, per Justin, that Avi Glazer’s wife attended Tulane and she currently sits on the school’s board of trustees.

Joe thinks this is a wonderful gesture by Team Glazer. Now the first thing Joe thought of when he learned the Glazer family would help fund a college football stadium, maybe Stu Sternberg should attend a Bucs game and talk turkey to see if Team Glazer would want to help build a sorely-needed new Rays stadium in downtown Tampa.

Defensive coordinator/head coach Raheem Morris faced the media this afternoon and Joe’s got your need-to-know.

Raheem didn’t use the “quit” word but explained that “we had some issues with effort” on the two big plays allowed for Texans touchdowns. He then called them “uncharacteristic loafs.” He also said the Bucs were not physical “as far as competing for the football.”

Raheem promised a week of practice as physical as he can make it and emphasized that his wide receiving corps, especially, needs that kind of work.

The head coach said Jeff Faine, Kellen Winslow and Ronde Barber came to speak to him 1-on-1 after the game re-pledge their allegiance. “They didn’t like the fact that I tried to take [the blame] on myself,” Raheem said.

On the upside, Raheem said Albert Haynesworth “played well” in his “47 snaps” and was communicative about his on-field mistakes. Raheem also praised Michael Bennett and Geno Hayes.

Joe agrees with Raheem’s take on the Packers being the best possible next opponent for the Bucs.

There are no moral victories, but if the Bucs can’t at least play decent football against the Packers, regardless of the result, than the season hanging by a thread is completely shot.

Longtime St. Pete Times Bucs beat writer Rick Stroud fired a whole lot of darts at the Buccaneers this morning on The Dan Sileo Show on WDAE-AM 620.

Even noted Bucs-basher host Dan Sileo (though he has softened on the Bucs a bit) seemed a bit taken back, saying after Stroud got off the phone that Stroud “dumped on” the Bucs and he had hoped the interview wouldn’t have gone there.

Among Stroud’s highlights/lowlights:

“You got a lot of guys that are happy to be in the NFL that don’t understand that your job is to win.”
“They’re also not real talented.”
“A lot of this goes on Mark Dominik, you know, the free agency situation where they wanted to go young and that means that you have no depth.”
“It’s an organizational failure.”
“The pressure will be ratched up next year because you’ll now be going into Year 4 with no playoff appearances.”
“It’ll be difficult to survive as decision-makers if things don’t turn around quickly.”
“They’re not going to make the playoffs.”
“I saw some efforts yesterday that in a youth football league team you would pull that player out of the game. … I’m talking about effort.”

Don’t get Joe wrong, Joe knows the Bucs are playing heinous football on both sides of the ball, but Joe’s not about to say the Bucs are lacking talent. Young guys and guys in their prime that got it done last year are regressing. That’s not because of a lack of talent.

The Bucs offense is essentially the same as it was last year, when it was ranked about 10th in the league over the second half of the season. The team was good enough to knock off the Saints and Falcons this season without needing any fancy miracles in those games.

For some reason players here have stopped performing, and Joe can’t hang that on talent.

A great offer from Joe’s friends at Ed Morse Auto Plaza, Brandon Auto Mall and Ed Morse Cadillac Tampa.

Woody Cummings of The Tampa Tribune and Dan Lucas of WFLA-TV discuss the Bucs loss to the Texans in this TBO.com video.

Now Joe is not about to call NFL players “quitters.” To do so is to suggest an NFL player has no soul and is more morally bankrupt than Tim Curley.

Watching yesterday’s, um, exhibition on the stadium on Dale Mabry Highway, it sure didn’t look anything like the team that beat both the Dixie Chicks and the Saints at home earlier this season.

During a live chat in the midst of Sunday’s exhibition against the Texans, St. Petersburg Times reporter Stephen Holder suggested the Bucs defense has accepted the depressing realization that the team cannot stop a cool breeze.

Stephen F. Holder: I don’t even see a sense of urgency from this defense. I think they have resolved themselves to conceding that they cannot stop the run. This is an embarrassing effort.

At this point in the season, the Bucs’ secondary is average. The defensive front, largely because they are so young, is a work in progress (though Joe is very geeked over the play of Adrian Clayborn).

Simply put, the Bucs have no play from their linebacker corps. Rookie Mason Foster looked like a stud early this season, but hasn’t played to that level of late, probably because there may be a book out on him from opposing NFL offensive coordinators.

To be fair, Foster is a one-man linebacker unit. Joe has to be reminded when Quincy Black is on the field and when Geno Hayes doesn’t play, well, there’s a massive void.

No, this defense isn’t very good. Not now. It was getting the job done earlier in the season.

What happened in the past month?

Sunday’s Bucs loss to the Texans was a game Team Glazer is probably grateful many in the Tampa Bay area couldn’t watch.

One local TV sports anchor suggested the game was over after the first play, a Texans touchdown. Well, that’s not quite accurate but pretty close.

There are a lot of fingers to point, so many targets one doesn’t have enough digits on his hands. Veteran St. Petersburg Times sports columnist Gary Shelton is of the mind the humiliating loss was a total team effort.

The team is slow, but it makes up for it by not playing smart. The only thing worse than the offense might be the defense. Who knows when it will win again?

You wonder: Did last year fool the front office, too? Did the team think it was better than it has turned out to be?

Joe strongly suggests clicking on the link above as it is one of Shelton’s better works: funny, smart and informative.

About the best thing Joe can say about yesterday’s ugly game is that the quicker it is forgotten, the better the Bucs can prepare for the world champs and Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews.

Watching the Bucs tackle today made Joe shake his head in disbelief several times.

That was bad enough, but Joe didn’t expect to be shaking his head the same way after the game. That came when Bucs postgame radio personality and former linebacker Ryan Nece said many Bucs fans need to show more loyalty to their team.

His take came after a caller said he left the Bucs-Texans debacle early.

Nece called today’s game “frustrating and disgusting” but chastised fans for leaving early, saying that if fans want players playing to the final whistle, then they should stay ’til the final whistle.

Joe’s not sure what could prompt the usually thoughtful Nece to have such an outlandish opinion. Fans pay cold, hard-earned cash for their tickets. If they only want to sit through 45 minutes of embarrassing Bucs football, then so be it.

Nece should be thankful the home crowd thinned out fast and early, rather than the Bucs being serenaded with a chorus of boos as they turned in a fourth-quarter effort worthy of words that rhyme with duck and spit.

Look, every man is human, short of Albert Pujols. But even the great Cardinals slugger will get fooled and have a strikeout once a month or so.

Same with Aaron Rodgers. Dude will have an incompletion from time to time.

So too are front office types human. Take Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik for example.

Whether it was loyalty or something Dominik saw in Quincy Black, perhaps maybe a high ceiling, just about every Bucs fan raised an eyebrow that Dominik re-signed Black, handing the Bucs linebacker a five-year, $29 million contract. The deal contains $11.5 million guaranteed.

To date, Black has played on the level of someone earning the league-minimum.

In what may turn out to be the defensive equivalent of Michael Clayton’s re-signing, Black has far too often been invisible on the field. In the second half today there was a good reason why fans couldn’t see him on the field: he was replaced by Geno Hayes.

There was no announcement made by Buccaneers staffers that Black was injured, as is often the case when someone is dinged up and has to leave the game.

This is not the first time this season that Black was benched for subpar play, though the first time, against Minnesota, Black was less than 100 percent.

Black did have a tackle for a loss today, to his credit.

It has always puzzled Joe why Black was handed a starting job in 2009. Joe can count on one hand the number of big plays Black has made in 42 games. Often, one needs two hands to count the number of splash plays a good linebacker makes in one game, much less 41.

Simply put, if the Bucs rush defense is ever going to improve, Black must simply play better.

Bucs rookie defensive end Adrian Clayborn had a few things to say from a somber Bucs locker room after the game.

“We need to show for the whole 60 minutes and play like we want it, not just for a quarter or a half a quarter. I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, we’re just not playing the way we need to play.

“Practice always goes well, that’s how it goes. I’ve never had a bad week of practice. Just have to bring it to the game. I thought we had a good game plan. I guess they had a better game plan.”

There’s nothing worse as an athlete than to be called a quitter. You can suck or screwup, but you don’t want to be labeled a quitter. Just ask Albert Haynesworth.

But it seems that the some Bucs are quitting on Raheem Morris. These damning words come from the game radio analysts paid by the Buccaneers, former Bucs Ryan Nece and Dave Moore.

Moore said he’s not seeing the never-say-die Bucs from 2010. 

“That swagger and that effort from last year,” Moore said after the game, “we’ve lost that. You don’t see that. You see guys taking plays off.”

Moore went on to single out the defensive backs specifically for their lack of effort. “Last year a guy misses a tackle and three other guys are there to finish it off,” Moore said, claiming that’s not happening this season.

Nece said he’s disgusted by the lack of “intensity, the sense of urgency” and the Bucs are lacking consistent “nastiness.”

“Really, from the very beginning of game there was a lackluster intensity and effort, per se,” Nece continued. “It seems like there are some players waiting for other players to make a play.”

Nece called on the Bucs players to “feel embarrassed” and find a way to bring “anger” onto the field. He said as an ex-players it’s frustrating to see players “take plays off.”

Now Joe doesn’t have to be politically correct like Moore and Nece, so Joe will name some names. Joe would be stunned if Moore and Nece aren’t talking about Quincy Black and Sean Jones among the Bucs that take plays off.

To a man the Bucs say they love playing for Raheem Morris. Hopefully they realize that won’t last long if the effort continues to be questionable week in and week out.

Joe’s not going to go crazy here. He’s trying to temper his emotions despite another ugly loss.

This game very much reminded Joe of when the Saints pistol-whipped the Bucs last year in the stadium on Dale Mabry Highway that Derrick Brooks built.

It’s early in the game, the Bucs are only down 9-0, hardly an unconquerable difference. LaGarrette Blount is starting to get some nice chucks of yards against a damned strout rush defense.

Soon as Blount began to break a sweat, nope, back to dinks an dunks, Joe’s favorite was a three-yard pass in the left flat to Kregg Lumpkin on third-and 13.

OK, so perhaps Lumpkin was the only guy open, but why in the world is he running a three-yard route when 13 yards are needed?

Joe’s not the only person to notice this, trust Joe. Dave Moore wondered aloud during the Bucs broadcast why the Bucs are so quick to abandon the run when Blount was showing promise. Even eye-RAH! Kaufman took to Twitter asking the same thing at halftime.

@TBO_Buccaneers: LeGarrette Blount has 7 rushing attempts for Bucs today. Not a winning formula for a run-first team desperate to establish an identity.

The thing that puzzles Joe is, without question, Josh Freeman is having an off year. His receivers struggle to get open. People walking around with white canes can see this.

So why are the Bucs so insistent upon forcing an element of their offense to kick it into high gear when it hasn’t all year, while avoiding an element that has been productive?

Joe can promise you the chances of Blount busting out a 30-yard run — provided he is getting touches — is a higher percentage than a Bucs receiver getting a 30-yard pass.

The Bucs’ head coach put the loss today squarely on his shoulders.

Joe was going to type up a bunch of Raheem’s postgame quotes, but there’s reallly not much exciting in there. Simply, Raheem said he didn’t get his team ready in practice last week and didn’t get it done.

Raheem said the Bucs were “outplayed and outphysicaled.” He also said he’s glad to have the opportunity to get things right against the mighty Green Bay Packers.

Of course, Raheem isn’t on the field whiffing on tackles, playing with questionable effort at times, and looking lost on offense.

Joe hopes Raheem’s young team appreciates him shouldering the blame for them. 

If Joe’s going to try and find a glimmer of light from the crushing by the Texans today, it would be starting undertackle Albert Haynesworth.

Big No. 95 contributed.

He had five tackles and blocked a point-after in the first quarter. (Joe didn’t see who blocked the PAT, but the Buccaneers Radio Network reported it was Haynesworth). Haynesworth got penetration and looked to be giving consistent effort. At least he looked like a live body and a solid pickup at a position where the Bucs are terribly thin.  The CBS cameras even caught Haynesworth interacting in an interested and professional manner with defensive line coach Keith Millard on the sidelines late in the game.

Everyone knew of the unflattering reputation that followed Albert Haynesworth to Tampa, even Brian Price, who when asked to comment on Haynesworth after the game on WDAE-AM 620 told listeners that the guy lined up next to him is a standup dude.

“Man he’s a great guy. People look at the media and you think that he’s a butthole,” [but he’s not,] Price said. “Everybody respects him. …  You look at TV and he’s portrayed as a bad person, but he’s a great guy.”

As Joe’s typing this, Bucs color analyst and former TE Dave Moore is raving about Haynesworth’s performance.

At least it wasn’t all bad today.

The Texans embarrassed the Bucs defense and put up two touchdowns and a field goal in their first four possessions en route to a 16-0 lead. So that would mean the Bucs would take to the air and the wide receivers would rack up numbers even in a loss. Right? Wrong.

The Bucs’ wide receivers combined for only six catches for 107 yards, two each for Preston Parker, Mike Williams and Arrellious Benn.  Per the stat geeks at ESPN.com, Bucs wideouts were targeted 18 times.

Why can’t these guys get open? And why can’t the Bucs take deep shots or find seams underneath. Benn beat his man for a 33 yard strike downfield early in the second quarter, but the Bucs didn’t keep swinging for the fences.

There’s plenty of blame to go around given the thorough breakdown of the offense. But something has to change in a hurry. Joe’s heard from players that the playbook is gigantic. There’s got to be something in there that can jumpstart the offense.

Yugly!

Why are the Bucs are so much worse than they were last year? Even the most positive-thinking Bucs fan must be wondering. And make no mistake, there’s been a significant dropoff, underscored by the complete beating at the hands of the Texans at home today.

The Bucs started slowly again. Their tackling was horrid. They continue to get gashed in the running game repeatedly. They don’t catch sure interceptions. Albert Haynesworth wasn’t a liability, at least not as much as the linebackers that just aren’t shedding blocks.  Quincy Black and Mason Foster combined for six tackles, most of Black’s in garbage time.

And the offense? Well, it’s simply impotent at this point, even with the high-priced offensive line healthy and on the field.

CBS analyst Rich Gannon skewered the Bucs through the broadcast, saying the Bucs’ offense didn’t look good in practice Friday, Josh Freeman isn’t sharp (practice and game), and he called out Mike Williams and Arrellious Benn for losing battles downfield repeatedly.

What’s particularly heinous for Joe is the Bucs’ lame efforts this week and last after a bye week, plus the fact that there really isn’t a glimmer of hope anywhere. The coaching isn’t getting through, or the coaching is getting outcoached repeatedly.

Next up? The undefeated Green Bay Packers on the frozen tundra. … Joe suggests stockpiling painkillers.