Joe’s really steamed by the steady flow of experts trying to sell that Saints head coach/offensive coordinator Sean Payton not calling plays in the second half somehow negatively impacted the Saints performance.

So Peyton going down explains why the Saints couldn’t run the ball all day? His absence made Drew Brees throw an interception? The Saints offensive coordinator that took over playcalling couldn’t pick one of their predetermined option for what to run on 2nd and 7?

Joe’s not buying that there was a negative effect on the Saints. They moved the ball up and down the field, plus they were losing big when Payton was there.

For those that want to hear a big name talk about how losing Payton for a half made a difference, here’s a link to former Redskins and Texans general manager turned CBS Sports analyst Charley Casserly telling WDAE-AM 620 host Dan Sileo all about it.

“No question it has an impact,” Casserly said. “Common sense says it does.”

Josh Freeman connected on a bomb of a touchdown. He also connected on a sweet seam route for a score. Earnest Graham ran for over 100 yards.

How special was this that the Bucs finally found an offense. Again. It impressed Joe about as much as it impressed veteran St. Petersburg Times columnist Gary Shelton.

Just asking, but where has this been? And now that the Bucs have rediscovered directions to the end zone, can someone put this offensive game plan in a safe place?

“We know we haven’t been hitting on all cylinders,” said offensive coordinator Greg Olson. “We still have some work to do, but it was exciting to see them come back. We had two ways to go. We could feel sorry for ourselves and get our butts kicked, or we could prepare and learn from our mistakes. I’m glad we played the Saints, because they’re a great team, and our players knew they were going to have to focus.”

Here’s an idea. Why not tell the players that next week’s game is against the Saints, too. And that isn’t London. It’s the French Quarter.

As always, it starts with the ground game. When Graham was able to run for chunks of yards, the Saints packed the box and opened up passing lanes for Josh Freeman.

It’s simply amazing what a running game, an effective running game can do for an offense. And a team.

After last night’s beating of the Saints, most Buccaneers Joe talked to were heading home to pack and then join their teammates about 6:30 a.m. today to start the long process of flying to England. The Bucs arrived this evening in preparation for Sundays Bucs-Bears game.

The Bucs will have their usual day off tomorrow in London, where they surely will frolic about town. Hopefully, no Buccaneers will misunderstand if, say, a cab driver offers them a fag or calls them a bloke.

The Bucs will resume their usual game-week practice schedule Wednesday.

The Bears, however, are in Illinois preparing, as usual, for a road game, and will fly overseas Thursday. ESPNChicago.com reports some of the Bears’ rationale.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Bears itinerary calls for the club to conduct practice at Halas Hall on Wednesday and Thursday, then take off for the United Kingdom sometime Thursday afternoon/early evening, which puts them in London on Friday morning.

Once the Bears arrive, select players and coach Lovie Smith are scheduled to meet with the media Friday at approximately 3:15 p.m. London time, before the team conducts a practice from 4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.

“It’s a business trip for us,” Smith said Monday of the decision to go later in the week. “We didn’t go over there early because we want to go through our same game week routine, our practice field, our equipment, our meeting rooms. [We want to] do what we normally do when we play a road game. Go out at the end of the week and play the game. That’s how we are looking at the game.”

Ironically, if you click through the ESPN story above, you’ll see that Lovie Smith says the Bears did lots of research and determined flying out to England early is the wrong move. Who did they talk to that said the Bucs are doing it all wrong?

Joe really has no theory on the right way to prepare for a game in England. For the Bucs, it’s probably a good idea to be out there early (no chance of a travel nightmare impacting play) and get used to the elements and all things London. Kickoff conditions Sunday are forecast to be about 56 degrees with a strong chance of rain.

Steve White said it. Shaun King said it. Derrick Brooks said it.

Each had significant doubts whether Tanard Jackson, who went 56 weeks without playing a football game and had a grand total of four practices under his belt, would start and/or be successful for the Bucs against the Saints.

But he did start. And he had an impact, even picking off a Drew Brees pass.

There were several strange things that happened Sunday in the Bucs win, whether it was Sean Payton getting rolled and calling plays while sitting on the bench or Bucs secondary coach Jimmy Lake going all Bill Grammatica and blowing out a knee celebrating.

But to Joe, the fact Jackson came in and it was as if he never missed a practice was the most mind-blowing of occurrences yesterday. The defense actually improved with Jackson in the lineup, so Ronde Barber told dapper Rick Brown of the Lakeland Ledger.

“He makes our defense faster,” the veteran corner said. “He makes it more dynamic. We can do a lot more things with him. He’s just a ball magnet. He’s around the ball in the run game, the passing game. It’s good to have him back. His opportunity is to our benefit.”

The more Joe thinks about it, while it’s stunning to see Jackson start yesterday, rather than throwing rose petals before Jackson’s feet, Joe is starting to believe there was such a massive hole at safety for the Bucs after Cody Grimm went down, that it allowed a guy who hasn’t played in over a year to start with virtually no preparation and be an upgrade.

For those out of the loop, famous Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King, who also is an analyst on NBC-TV football broadcasts, NFL Radio and more, writes a gigantic column Monday Morning Quarterback column for SI.com. It’s several thousands of words on everything King thinks fans need to know out of the previous day’s NFL games — and a little bit more.

It’s a great column, and clearly King stays up all night writing it before it posts on Monday morning.

But something shockingly was missing from King’s column today. There was not one mention of Tanard Jackson.

Jackson was home last Monday finishing out more than a year suspended by the NFL for substance abuse. Then he gets reinstated, attends a few practices and flourishes in the starting lineup Sunday against arguably the best offense in the NFL.

There’s no question that Jackson’s story was one of the more stunning in NFL this season, complete with  Hollywood storylines of getting an early interception and having to leave the game for a spell with cramps, yet not a peep from King in his all-encompassing column.

Joe respects and likes King, but this was either a major screwup or just evidence that the Bucs are nothing more than an annoying afterthought for the national media.

Either option sucks.

SI.com NFL guru Mark Perloff explains that he’s no believer in team Tampa Bay. His comrade in this video is somewhat warm on the Bucs but more down on the Saints.

Leading 20-7 yesterday with about 1:30 left in the first half and the ball on their 45 yard line, the Bucs threw three consecutive incompletions to Kellen Winslow rather than trying to pound the ball on the ground.

The latter likely would have kept New Orleans from getting the ball back with enough time to score before intermission. But the Bucs chose the riskier path — what were they thinking? — and with 55 seconds left, punter Michael Koenen dropped a gorgeous punt out of bounds at the New Orleans 2 yard line.

Drew Brees then proceeded to march the Saints 84 yards, which set up an end-of-half field goal for the bad guys. The Bucs probably allow a touchdown there if not for Koenen’s stud punt, something he rips off routinely — and something Raheem Morris appreciates immensely.

“[Koenan] absolutely did a great job keeping the ball away from [Darren] Sproles. He’s been an MVP the whole season. He’s gotten game balls. I don’t know if I can give him enough for what he does for us,” Raheem said after the win. “Changing field position, that one big bomb [late in the first half] he got out of there for us. All those things, you know, it’s definitely been a winning edge for us this year.”

Koenen’s surely been worth the many millions the Bucs paid him in free agency. Imagine if the Bucs could pick another couple of standout free agents like that for next season.

Jeff Duncan gives his take on the Bucs win Sunday in this New Orleans Times-Picayune video.

Joe was as geeked as the next guy that the Bucs won. Look, the great thing about sports is the unexpected. And Joe will challenge anyone who, with a sober mind, fully expected the Bucs would have won yesterday after the chain-whipping they endured in San Francisco and playing without their best running back and best defensive lineman and their starting center leaving the game with an injured arm.

It very well could be a coming of age moment for the Bucs and a turning point in the season.

But Pat Yasinskas is of the mind this may be a turning point for the organization, that perhaps the Bucs will be the team to beat in the NFC South and not the Saints.

What the Bucs found back home in Tampa Bay (before shipping off to London on Monday morning to play the Chicago Bears next Sunday) was a bigger win than they’ve had in several years. In a 10-6 season last year, the Bucs won a lot of games against mediocre teams. Even the biggest victory earlier this season, against Atlanta, wasn’t all that impressive because the Falcons have been up and down.

But Sunday was different. There’s no debating whether the Saints are a good team. There’s no arguing the Bucs played their most complete game since Morris has been around. Graham took care of the ground game, Freeman had his best game of the season and the defense was the story of the day.

“When our defense plays like that, there’s no one in the NFL that can beat us,’’ Penn said. “No one.’’

Joe never thought of the win that way but Yasinskas has a point. If the Bucs become the team to beat in the division, it very much is a turning point for the franchise, not just a season.

Jim Basquil and Eric Allen dissect the Bucs win over the Saints yesterday in this BSPN video.

When Preston Parker caught a 19-yard second-quarter touchdown pass to give the Bucs a 19-7 lead, Kellen Winslow didn’t look happy.

On that play, the Saints were late to the line of scrimmage in having a guy cover Winslow, who was lined up in the flat. Winslow was flailing and screaming for a quick snap of the ball because he was alone, but it didn’t come. The Saints did, in fact, finally get a man over before the snap to cover Winslow, who was signaling Josh Freeman to throw him the ball, seemingly because Winslow liked the 1-0n-1 matchup against the smaller defender.

At the snap, Winslow broke for the corner of the end zone. He wasn’t open. And Freeman hit Parker over the middle, just inside of Winslow for the score. Parker’s touchdown celebration was near Winslow in the end zone, but Winslow didn’t join in. Winslow had a slumped posture and was the last player off the field.

His first stop was Josh Freeman to talk about something that didn’t look too celebratory.

At the time, Joe was stunned that a guy would get in his quarterback’s ear, clearly with some negativity, seconds after a pivotal touchdown.

On the next Bucs’ offensive series, the Bucs, after running the ball successfully, threw three consecutive forced passes into Winslow. All were incomplete. Then Winslow and Freeman had what looked like another intense conversation picked up by FOX-TV cameras, which seemed to follow their sideline discussion intermittently.

Now Joe doesn’t know what was said, of course, but the way it all played out looked really crappy for Winslow.

After the game, Winslow told Joe, “We had some arguments out there. It was real heated out there. But I’m kind of glad it happened because it really brought us together.”

Following a win like this, Joe’s choosing to believe in all aspects of the fairy tale ending to yeterday’s story against the Saints, even in the case of the Winslow-Freeman squabble. But given some of the negative perceptions that came with Winslow from Cleveland, his relationship with Freeman bears keeping an eye on.

It was the strangest sight Joe had ever seen. An offensive coordinator, a head coach, sitting on a bench calling plays. When Saints coach Sean Payton got rolled up and blew out a knee and suffered a broken leg Sunday, Joe can only imagine that may have affected in some way the Saints offense.

But Payton wasn’t the only coach who blew a knee.

Bucs secondary coach Jimmy Lake blew out a knee as well as reported by
Victoria Horchak of PewterReport.com.

Lake injured his patella tendon during his celebration of an interception by Tanard Jackson in the second quarter. The injury will require surgery which he will undergo once the team returns from London. When asked about his injury he kind of brushed it off.

“I am feeling fine,” Lake said. “I am feeling fine. It is just stiffer than anything. I got the Cadillac Williams injury. It is the patella tendon. I will have surgery right when I get back from London.”

With Lake not being able to be on the sidelines for the remainder of the game, the team turned to veteran player Ronde Barber to assist in the relaying of information to the defense on the field. Barber was seen on the field wearing a headset after the injury to Lake. According to Barber, he was not play-calling, but rather just relaying the calls of what coach said in his ear to his teammates.

Joe too saw Ronde Barber wearing a headset at one point and thought not much more of it. Joe wonders if the NFL has some rule about players wearing a headset? The league sure gets bent over smartphones on the sideline.

Joe always sees players wearing earphones but never headsets.

Joe pointed out that the Bucs were last in the NFC in interceptions yesterday, with only two through the first five games.

That lousy stat is out the window now, after Tanard Jackson, E.J. Biggers and Quincy Black picked off Drew Brees today.

As a result, the Bucs’ former defensive backs coach and the man who says “Stats are for losers” several times a week changed his tune tonight during his postgame news conference. A smiling Raheem Morris said, ” Stats are for losers except interceptions.”

Bucs defensive backs were dropping balls left and right before today. Often times that’s contagious.

It’s amazing that the guy on his couch (or not on his couch) for the past year was the one with glue on his hands to make the Bucs’ secondary dangerous again.

There were many fingers pointed at Bucs receiver Mike Williams over the past few weeks for the struggles of the Bucs offense. And no one pointed a bigger finger than Williams himself who described his play this season thus far as “terrible.”

But the Bucs offense woke up from a slumber today, and a big reason was the play of Williams. The second-year receiver had six catches for 59 yards and helped open up the offense.

Williams was quite excited about the win after the game.

“This feels great,” Williams said with an ear-to-ear smile. “It feels great to beat a division opponent and to be in first place and for the team we beat to be the Saints on top of that. It feels great.

“The Saints are a great team. It’s always hard to get a division win but to do it against he Saints, man, it feels great.”

Though the game was blacked out, there were nearly 57,000 in the stadium and at times it sounded as if it were 100,000. This was not lost on Williams who was impressed and motivated by the fans.

“Beating the Saints at home, I hope that gets some more people in the [stands],” Williams said. “To get a home win like that, and a big game like the Saints, the people that were here were our sixth man, our 12th man, whatever you want to call it. They were there for us and it feels good.”

One of Joe’s favorite stories about the greatest basketball team ever assembled, the 1984 U.S. Olympic men’s squad, was when coach Bob Knight took the team on a barnstorming tour just prior to the Olympics.

Knight used these stops as both a scrimmage and a grueling practice, knowing that his backups were likely better than any other team in the world.

In a particular practice at an Indiana high school gym that seats over 10,000, Knight abruptly halted a practice after Oklahoma forward Wayman Tisdale had a defensive stop.

Knight had ridden Tisdale mercilessly throughout the practices for his lack of defensive hustle. In Knight’s eyes, if one couldn’t play defense, one couldn’t play basketball.

Knight stopped practice and demanded someone bring him a magic marker. Knight walked to where Tisdale was standing on the court, knelt down and wrote on the basketball floor with the magic marker “Wayman Tisdale played defense” and wrote the day’s date below.

That story raced through Joe’s mind when linebacker Quincy Black picked off a Drew Brees pass late in the game in the end zone. It was a play that turned the game and all but sealed the win.

Joe just wanted to run on the field and spray paint “Quincy Black made a play.”

Joe has been harsh on Black over the past few years. While people screamed bloody murder over Barrett Ruud not making plays, Joe wondered why the same standards were never applied to Black? Joe can think of four splash plays now that Black has made in not quite three seasons.

“It was man-to-man defense and Drew Brees doesn’t make those mistakes that often,” Black said of his interception, which was a drag route and Black was assigned to John Gilmore. “I was at the right place at the right time.”

Black didn’t seem to want to talk about the Bucs stirring win over the Saints. He surely didn’t want to talk about the alley-beating the 49ers laid upon them last week when Joe asked how the Bucs made such a dramatic bounce-back in a week.

“That doesn’t matter,” Black said.”We won the game today and we have a game in London next week that we have to prepare for that.”

The defense rose to the occasion today forcing four turnovers and Black, for a change, was a big part of that at a critical time no less.

“To create turnovers at home, the crowd was going and it was an exciting atmosphere,” Black said. “Glad to get out with a ‘W.'”

Joe only hopes Black’s play today is a harbinger of things to come.

First, the really good news. Earnest Graham told Joe he feels 100 percent coming out of the Saints game. No bruises. No tweaks. No cobwebs in his head.

And considering Graham ran for 109 yards on just 17 carries and Joe can’t find anyone that thinks LeGarrette Blount will play Sunday in England, that was critical, especially considering Graham’s history of injuries.

Watching Graham rekindle his 2007 glory today, Joe wondered briefly whether Graham could be more versatile and dangerous than Blount?

Don’t get Joe wrong, Joe thinks Blount is a stud, but Graham was stellar, running hard and flashing elusiveness Blount doesn’t have.  Joe asked Donald Penn about Graham, and Penn suggested Graham might be the better back.

“We knew Earnest Graham was going to bring it to the table. You remember that year when he came in and took over for Cadillac and almost had 1,000 yard rushing? We knew Earnest Graham would come through. Earnest Graham knew Earnest Graham he would come through,” Penn said.

“You know, he’s a veteran. Blount’s still learning and he’s got a great guy to learn from, but you know Earnest Graham has been there a lot. He knows how to read those holes a little better. You know, Blount’s still learning. You know, Blount’s probably going to sit down with E.G. and watch this film and be like, ‘Damn, OK. Let me see what [Graham’s] seeing.’ And it’s going to help him out. We’re going to be a lot better.”

Joe’s just grateful right now that the Bucs can afford to have Blount miss the Bears game Sunday (then rest/rehab during the bye week) and really get his knee healthy. The Bears have one of the worst run defenses in the NFL, which doesn’t hurt.

As for Graham, he says he’s down to 225 pounds, from 235 as a fullback in 2010, and looking to get down to his 2007 playing weight of 220 soon. He said he’s feeling some extra quickness. And Joe’s pretty sure everyone saw it.

Just an injury update here on center/captain Jeff Faine, who left the game with a bicep injury midway through today’s beating of the Saints.

After the game, Faine said there’s a slim chance he would return next Sunday in England but the likely scenario would have him back on the field in New Orleans on Nov. 6 to face the Saints.

Faine wasn’t too downtrodden and spoke warmly of the Bucs’ resiliency.

Joe has been a big Jeremy Zuttah fan from Day 1. As a rookie, he started four games to replace an injured Davin Joseph.

Zuttah’s name was never mentioned by Gene Deckerhoff. And for an offensive lineman, there can be no greater praise.

When Bucs center Jeff Faine went down with a right bicep injury today, Zuttah, who was starting at left guard, made the transition smoothly back to center.

Last year when Faine went down with an injury, Zuttah again stepped in and one could argue the offensive line may have been better. It certainly wasn’t worse.

Zuttah just shrugged off the move in mid-game. Just another day at the office, Zuttah suggested.

“It is what it is,” Zuttah said. “I played way more at center this year in practice than any other position. So it didn’t bother me.”

As for having to flip positions in the middle of a game, Zuttah said, “You have to do what you have to do sometimes, yeah.”

Zuttah didn’t want to talk about himself so much, but rather the win. After getting mugged on the streets of San Francisco last week known better as the Massacre at Candlestick, it was a fantastic bounce-back. To do that against the Saints and in the process, reach a tie for first place was something Zuttah and the rest of his teammates were celebrating.

“It’s nice to get a win over such a good team,” Zuttah said. “This is the Saints and Drew Brees.”

Zuttah gave a lot of credit to the Bucs defense. It was the Bucs defense that forced four turnovers and allowed the offense to not panic. The Bucs’ offense didn’t need to score a touchdown each possession.

“The defense did a great job,” Zuttah said. “We still have to do a better job of scoring points when we get down there. We need to turn some of those three points into seven points. The defense helped us out. We have to help them out too.”

The comeback of Tanard Jackson still amazes Joe. What an unreal physical and mental challenge. Joe had a man-to-blogger conversation with Aqib Talib after the Bucs-Saints game to get his take on Jackson’s return.

JoeBucsFan.com: Tanard Jackson’s on the couch and working out himself for a year and comes back and plays well against one of the best offenses in the league and even gets a pick. What does that say to you?

Aqib Talib: Man, he was out, but I assure you he wasn’t on the couch though. He wasn’t just at home on the couch, you know what I’m saying. He held up pretty good. He cramped a little bit at the end. While he was out he worked. He worked hard. And I know because half the offseason I was working with him. So he wasn’t home on the couch.

Joe: Fans might be wondering what’s the value of training camp and preseason when a guy can come back like that and perform at a high level? Does that mean training camp isn’t as valuable as everyone thinks it is?

Talib: No. Everbody their own person. I’m sure he would have been in even better shape if he was in camp. So training camp is important. But everyone is their own person. You know I don’t speak for everybody.

Joe: When you guys were working out through the lockout, what were you doing?

Talib: Just playing football, lifting weights, playing football. That’s what we did. Football drills.

Joe: What sort of difference does Tanard bring back there? No slight on Corey Lynch, but what’s different with Tanard in there?

Talib: They different people. They bring a different mentality to the game. Tanard’s going to come down and he’s going to hit you. He showed that tonight. He’ll come down and hit you. He looked like he never left. He knows all the calls, knows all the run fits. He’s a starter.