Jeff Duncan, James Varney and Mike Triplett debate what’s the deal with the Saints and preview  Sunday’s game in this New Orleans Times-Picayune video.

In one of the more interesting fan questions during a player radio show, a guy called in to The Mike Williams Show on WDAE-AM 620 last night to put the Bucs’ top wide receiver on the spot.

The caller asked Williams what he does above and beyond the call of duty from his coaches to make himself a better receiver, ala some of the great personal training stories of Issac Bruce and Jerry Rice.

Williams had an answer.

He said he takes 75 balls a day from the JUGS machine before practice and has receivers coach Eric Yarber work with him one on one throwing him bad passes from six yards away so he can practice quick reaction to those balls. Also, Williams said he works on mentally preparing to never taking a play off in practice.

On a lighter note, during the show Williams asked fans to interact with him on Twitter, @MikeBuc19. But apparently Williams wasn’t a fan of all the Tweets shot his way and let out a frustrated sigh on the air. Host T.J. Rives explained to the audience that Williams received some unflattering messages from fans.

So it goes on the Internet. It’s a rough crowd out there. Even Joe gets a regular flow of hate mail.

The dean of Tampa Bay sports radio, Steve Duemig of WDAE-AM 620, told his many tens of thousands of listeners yesterday why the Bucs didn’t pursue a veteran running back to replace injured Earnest Graham.

Duemig said he made a direct query to the powers at One Buc Palace and shared that he was told “the offense is not conducive to a quick study,” even for a veteran RB.

Joe wonders whether this complexity in the Bucs offense is a byproduct of using so much of Chucky’s old playbook? Probably.

Joe polls his readers a few times a month, but this is an official JoeBucsFan/WTSP-TV 10 News Poll. How about that! Joe’s pulling a Zobgy. Results here may be used during a Ch. 10 sports report.

Back for his weekly trip to the end zone of the NFL universe, popular sports radio personality Adam Schein travels through football space and time outs. Check out what Schein says about the Bucs this week. Consider yourself sucked in to the latest episode of Cosmic Schein!

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=a842a4f0-5773-48ca-bf9a-78b0eee9051f" target="_new" title="">Cosmic Schein: Week 9</a>

Forbes magazine is at it again. The publication notorious for lists has come out with the Top Ten Best/Worst owners in the NFL.

The list seems to be judged by solely on-field record. Why else would it list Tom Benson as one of the best. He did his best to move the Saints to Texas after Hurricane Katrina and only returned when promised the sun and the moon by New Orleans officials.

Since it’s been — how long? — since the Bucs have been in the playoffs and given the apparent criteria Forbes has for picking its best owners, Forbes has ranked Team Glazer as No. 8 among the bottom 10.

The Worst: 8. Malcolm Glazer – Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer also bought the iconic Manchester United soccer franchise between 2003 and 2005.
Five-Year Franchise Value: 2% increase.
Five-Year Win Percentage: 44%.

Joe thinks this is poppycock for several reasons but Joe totally dismissed this list, not just because Benson is in the top 10, but it has Alex Spanos rated ahead of Dan Rooney if you can imagine such a thing. Alex Spanos???

Lauren Shehadi and Pete Prisco discuss the Bucs-Saints game Sunday in this CBSSports.com video.

Last week against the horrid Lambs, the Saints stunk up the Edward Jones Dome worse than a men’s room stall at The CITS following a September afternoon game.

Drew Brees couldn’t hit the broad side of Busch Stadium. The Saints defense gave up runs worse than those after Joe inhales a pot of gumbo followed by several beers.

Despite the fact the Saints allow over five yards a carry on the ground and the Bucs get LeGarrette Blount back, popular sports radio personality Adam Schein isn’t buying. He expects the Saints to prevail Sunday, so he writes for FoxSports.com.

New Orleans’ three losses this year all have come on the road, against the Bucs, Packers and Rams. This is a different team playing in the Superdome. Drew Brees was interception-happy against St. Louis. This cat is usually a surgeon with his accuracy. I don’t see him falling short again.

Running back Darren Sproles and tight end Jimmy Graham are matchup nightmares. Graham leads all NFL tight ends with 49 catches for 713 yards. He destroyed Tampa last time out with seven catches for 124 yards. Marques Colston plays well against the Bucs, and he had seven catches for 118 yards and a touchdown in the October meeting. Robert Meachem has four touchdowns in his past five games against the Bucs.

All of this against a Tampa defense that is coming off a bad game against Chicago before its bye week.

Schein makes an interesting point. The Saints have stunk on the road whereas at home, it’s a different team.

Joe is still of the mind that, barring turnovers, Blount will carry the Bucs to victory.

The dynamic duo of eye-RAH! Kaufman and Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune discuss why the Bucs should give up on London and discuss the game in New Orleans this Sunday in this TBO.com vlog.

There really has been nothing coming out of One Buc Palace this week to suggest running back LeGarrette Blount would not play this week, coming off a knee injury suffered against the 49ers.

But any doubt about Blount’s status has been laid to rest, thanks to Joe’s good friend Justin Pawlowski. Blount granted Pawlowski an exclusive interview, to be heard during the Bucs pregame show heard on the Bucs radio network hosted by Pawlowski himself.

Pawlowski, otherwise known as “The Commish,” wrote about his interview with Blount on his website.

To my surprise, when Blount and I entered the hallway, he told me that he enjoyed talking with me, which is when he told me that he will be playing on Sunday.

“It feels good. It feels real well,” Blount said about his knee. “No soreness, no pain, so we’re gonna test it out on Sunday.”

It is my opinion that the Buccaneers refrained from rushing Blount back from injury to soon to make sure he was fully recovered for the stretch run.

This is great news to read and of course no one is more happy about this than Joe.

Hope the knee is fine LeGarrette. You should be getting the rock 25 times Sunday.

The subject that won’t go away, the Bucs’ painfully slow starts to games, was thrown at Raheem Morris a couple of different ways today at his news conference.

Raheem emphatically said the Bucs’ struggles in that area have nothing to with coaches’ ability to motivate or the team’s competitive fire; it’s more the team trusting its coaching and executing.

But Raheem did offer one theory that seems to bear out a bit. Asked why the Bucs started well against New Orleans 2 1/2 weeks ago, Raheem said, “You know, maybe everbody just a little bit more comfortable because of their famaliarity with New Orleans, but we gotta get that every week, in a week of preparation with the whole football team. And we can. And we will.”

Looking back at the Bucs’ performances during this era, they have started better in games against division opponents compared to teams outside the division, including games against the Falcons and Saints this year.

Joe suspects the relative consistency against familiar foes isn’t a coincidence.

Popcorn-munching, coffee-slurping, fried chicken-eating, oatmeal-loving, beer-guzzling Peter King has issued predictions for this week’s NFL games and King foresees the Bucs being repeatedly kneed in the groin by Drew Brees and the Saints, 33-17.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-3) at New Orleans Saints (5-3)
The Saints will come out angry, after suffering a legit beatdown at the hands of the winless Rams last week. Drew Brees doesn’t look like he can ever be angry, but just watch. On cue from Sean Payton, Brees will have another intergalactic day.

If the Bucs cannot get more than 17 points on the Saints with the worst rush defense in the league, then there should be serious questions about the direction of the Bucs.

Could the Saints beat the Bucs? Of course. Just as easily, the Bucs can thrash the Saints.

If there is a blowout by the Saints as King suggests, quite a few people at One Buc Palace would need to take a good, long look in the mirror Sunday night.

Mike Tripplett and James Varney discuss the mindset of the Saints after the “ghastly” loss to the Lambs last week in this New Orleans Times-Picayune video.

Hopefully, Josh Freeman is feeling his usual self now, but as of last night he wasn’t quite there yet. And Joe’s not talking about Freeman’s banged up thumb.

Speaking Wednesday evening on The Josh Freeman Show on WDAE-AM 620, No. 5 had a detailed conversation about the effects of jet lag with host Steve Duemig and explained that he still doesn’t feel back to normal.

“Yeah. I still [feel it]. It’s still kinda, you try to get back into a routine but it’s not quite the same, you know. The whole training camp, the season starts, you get into such a routine. And then you fly [roundtrip] to London and it kind of throws you off a little bit. It’s nothing huge, but it’s noticeable,” Freeman said.

Freeman said most teammates slept the entire morning (EST) flight to London but he forced himself to stay awake so he could acclimate to London time (5 hours ahead) faster.

Joe’s not worried about the Bucs and Freeman being able to peform Sunday, considering in the game following the 2009 trip to England they drilled the playoff-bound Packers, 38-28. However, Joe’s happy to point out anything that might lead the Bucs to reconsider another London game for 2012.

What? You love the Rays but don’t frequent JoeRaysFan.com? Shame on you.

RaysIndex.com adopted Joe last year to form the best Rays site in town. Check it out today and every day like thousands of others do.

One of happy stats of the day coming out of One Buc Palace tells us that the Bucs’ high-priced offensive line is doing its job keeping Josh Freeman upright.

Per the Buccaneers official Twitter feed, the Bucs are the most efficient pass protectors in the league.

@TBBuccaneers: Here’s a little stat for u that says a lot about the guys up front: TB ranks 1st in the NFL this year in fewest sacks allowed per pass play.

Kudos to the big boys up front.

Joe can only imagine how even better their numbers would be if the Bucs committed to a running game and Freeman ran three or four times a game. 

Prim Siripipat of BSPN spouts statistical rubbish concerning the Bucs-Saints game Sunday.

Joe has been stating how real football fans — men — have no excuse not to have the NFL Network. It’s that simple.

Viewers of the NFL Network learn all sorts of things, sometimes things not said, like yesterday.

While doing an interview with the NFL Network, Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman was caught wearing a thumb brace on his throwing hand.

As Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times pointed out on Twitter and on his newspaper’s website, Freeman in practice showed no signs of an injury and his passes seemed normal.

Apparently, per Holder, Freeman’s right thumb was dinged in the ugly loss to the Bears on British soil.

This, obviously, bears monitoring during the Saints game and suggests to Joe even more strongly that the ball should be put in the hands of LeGarratte Blount.

A Bucs fan happened to call “Movin’ the Chains” Tuesday to discuss the Bucs-Saints game with co-hosts Pat Kirwan and Tim Ryan, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio.

In short, both Kirwan and Ryan suggested the Bucs run LeGarrette Blount early, often and constantly.

Tim Ryan: I’ll tell you how to judge how the game is going. Chart the game. The more the Bucs are in passing situations, third-and-long, the worse it will be for them. That gives [Saints defensive coordinator] Gregg Williams a chance to dial up his blitzes.

Pat Kirwan: The Saints are not strong on their rush defense. I’d run the big guy, LeGarrette Blount 20-25 times. Give him the ball. What are they averaging, giving up 5.5 yards a carry? Run the big guy. If Blount gets the ball 25 times, he should have 150 yards.

Ryan: I’d even run on passing situations. Run right at their blitzes, gash them.

Kirwan: Yes, once you get to the second level with Blount, it will be all over.

Joe believes this is absolute sound advice. Run at the Saints til the wheels fall off. There’s a reason Steven Jackson, nearing the end of his great career, went crazy on the Saints defense last week: Because the Saints can’t stop the run.

The way Josh Freeman is struggling of late, it’s a no-brainer to keep the ball on the ground.

The alleged Kellen Winslow/Josh Freeman issues are a non-issue to Freeman, so he explained in great detail tonight on The Josh Freeman Show on WDAE-AM 620.

Freeman took listeners into what was happening on the sidelines when FOX cameras caught a heated discussion between Winslow and Freeman during the Bucs-Saints game last month, and Freeman said he was suprised when he was peppered with Winslow questions after that game.

Kudos to host Steve Duemig for asking Freeman the question on the minds of legions of Bucs fans. Here’s Freeman’s response verbatim.

“To be completely honest, out of all my guys, I probably have the best relationship with K2. We spend a lot of time working out in the offseason, hangin’ out. I have a great relationship with K2. In no way shape or form has he ever pressured me to get him the ball. You know, it’s a deal where we’re both extremely competitive,” Freeman said. 

“I had a hundred people ask me post Saints game [this year], ‘Are you and Kellen alright? What’s going on between you guys?’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean? That’s two passionate guys that want to win a football game that are trying to get on even ground.’

“I don’t really care. I want to get it done. That’s kind of his feelings to. When we’re there, we’re talking football. And there’s no hard feelings, nothing going on between us, nothing extra-curricular.

“When we’re on the sideline, basically me and Kellen could have been in a 10-foot by 10-foot room having the same conversation and it would have been the exact same for us. I wanted him to speed up his routes. He said he kind of wanted to run them to their depth. I was like, ‘Well we gotta get the ball out. We just gotta get it out because they’re bringing one more guy than we can block. We need to get it going.’

“He was like, ‘Alright, well I want to just break it hot. I’ll just break it hot every time.

“I’m like, ‘Well don’t do that either. But I just need you to hurry up a little bit.’

“We just basically talked it out. That’s our way of doing it, you know. I didn’t feel any disrespect from Kellen and I hope he didn’t feel any from me. Because at the end of the day we’re still great friends and all we want to do is win football games.”

Listening in, Joe got a very candid vibe from Freeman. It was a great answer.

Interestingly, No. 5 admitted he’s been pressing throwing to Mike Williams and Winslow because he believes they’re the Bucs’ best receivers. And Freeman said Brian Urlacher told him after the game that the Bears were keying on him forcing balls to Winslow.