Moe Howard may has well have been calling the Bucs’ offensive plays in the fourth quarter the way the Bucs choked away an upset win.

The Bucs were hammering the Seahawks with the run. Mike James, with his best game since high school, was getting three and four (or much more) yards a carry. The Bucs largely built a lead on the legs of James.

Then, in the second half, which is the Bucs’ kryptonite, the Bucs choked an upset win away by getting away from the run in the fourth quarter, specifically getting away from feeding James the ball.

On the Bucs’ first drive of the fourth quarter leading by a touchdown, the Bucs had a 3rd-and-3 situation from the Bucs-40. Instead, the Bucs go to the pass (from a rookie in a rocking, raucous chamber of doom) and Glennon is sacked and the Bucs have to punt.

On the Bucs’ second possession, the Bucs had a 3rd-and-2 from their own 29-yard line and again, instead of James running, Glennon threw incomplete to the left side.

In the Bucs’ third possession, granted with the clock ticking, the Bucs never tried one run (though Joe understands running there would have been dicey).

The Bucs largely got a big lead on the Seahawks using James. They got away from that in the fourth quarter. And that’s a big reason why the Bucs choked. Plain and simple.

Speaking on the Buccaneers Radio Network after the predictable, inexcusable loss to the Seahawks, when the Bucs pulled a Heimlich maneuver in the second half — a trademark in the Greg Schiano Era — and lost, Mike James indirectly pointed a finger at the root cause of the Bucs loss.

The Bucs did not play disciplined football in the second half.

The Bucs jumped out to a 21-point lead and then went Connie Chung impotent in the second half scoring but three points — THREE!

“We all knew we had to be disciplined,” James said of the Bucs’ torrid start in the first half.

So that suggests the Bucs got sloppy in the second half? Wouldn’t that be the logical conclusion?

It frosts Joe how Bucs commander Greg Schiano — who Joe likes a lot as a person — can be such a preacher of discipline, yet his team plays so undisciplined?

It will be Schiano’s epithet on his headstone as Bucs coach.

It’s just one loss, but Bucs fans know it was a hell of a lot more than that.

Greg Schiano just proved again that he can’t win a close game in professional football. He never has.

The Bucs haven’t quit. They have talent. That was obvious today. But Schiano keeps finding new ways to lose. Yet another game on the coaching staff.

Joe was dumbfounded that conservative Schiano and Mike Sullivan, of all people, gave up on the running game when it was working big time. Joe can only imagine the joy and relief in the Seahawks players when the Bucs, out of nowhere, decided to top running Mike James down their throat in the fourth quarter and in overtime.

Joe wishes he could hear the muttering under the breath of the Bucs’ offensive linemen.

The Bucs have eight games remaining in 2013, and they showed plenty of signs of life today. But that’s just not good enough for Schiano’s job security.

An optimist could say the Bucs perhaps turned a corner today. But the realist knows what’s in front of them, a team and a coaching staff that have mastered the art of losing.

Joe doesn’t give a damn who the hell you are playing. You have a three-touchdown lead in the first half, you close the door on your opponent and put your foot on their throat. Instead, the typical Bucs hibernated in the second half and scored just one field goal.

Three freaking points!!!

Inexcusable!

Do you know that the Bucs, through eight games, have scored a grand total of three second-half offensive touchdowns?

Three freaking touchdowns in eight seperate second halves!

Inexcusable!

The Bucs defense turned into a sieve in the second half. They couldn’t stop a turtle from crossing the road. If not for the Seahawks shooting themselves in the foot (trying to force a touchdown pass deep in Bucs’ territory when Marshawn Lynch was running off five yard runs at a crack), the Bucs defense may as well saved themselves and just sat on the bench. A set of folding chairs could have defended better. At least Lynch had a chance of tripping over one of them.

Inexcusable!

Third down and three when Mike James was running for four yards a crack and they pass when receivers were blanketed mostly all day?

Inexcusable!

Joe’s guessing at this moment, Schiano’s agent is calling college athletic directors who will be filling positions soon.

Typical 2013 Bucs, crawled into a fetal position in the second half.

Inexcusable!

Thank you, Buccaneers. Thank you for making Bucs football tolerable again — at least for a day.

For 50+ minutes, the Bucs came out and punished the NFC’s best team and the NFL’s best home team in their own house. And then came the collapse. The Bucs’ defense and offense crawled into their respective holes and died.

Greg Schiano doesn’t know how to win. It’s that simple.

Joe will tip his cap slightly to Mike Sullivan, whose playcalling was stellar until he (or Schiano?) decided to go back to what hasn’t worked most of the season. Three second-half points? Sadly, that’s about what the Bucs are good for these days.

Everything looks a lot easier when your offensive line is dominant. The Bucs’ O-line came out of nowhere to play a stellar game. (Yes, Joe saw Demar Dotson get blown up a few times.) Jamon Meredith making his first start at left guard showed what he did last season at right guard. The guy plays solid football.

And what can Joe say about the rookie stars of the day, Mike Glennon and Mike James? James finished with 28 carries for 158 yards and a touchdown pass to Tom Crabtree. Glennon was 17-of-23 for 168 yards and two touchdowns. He wasn’t up for his biggest drives, but it didn’t help that the Bucs abandoned the run on him.

Sad times for Bucs fans — 0-8 sucks. But at least, for one game, you don’t have to be completely embarrassed.

So the Bucs travel to the Pacific Northeest to play in the Chamber of Doom known as the Seahawks’ home nest. Joe doesn’t expect it to be pretty.

Out is Doug Martin. Out is Mike Williams. The offensive line has played with porous abandon. The Bucs have rookie Mike Glennon who looks to be a fine long-term option – as a back-up — some day.

Just how the offense of the Bucs, limited that it is, can somehow score points on the stingy Seahawks defense is a stretch for Joe. He will have to have a cocktail or two to figure out that riddle. If the Seahawks ever single-cover Vincent Jackson, it would have to be a miscommunication of some sort. Or a defensive back fell down.

Feel free to let out your frustrations here as this appears to be a long game. As always, please do not post links to illegally streamed sites hosting the game. You are encouraged to e-mail links among yourselves.

Have fun and go Bucs!

The following Bucs won’t be wearing a helmet today or have remained back in Tampa: Doug Martin, Jeff Demps, Deveron Carr, Dashon Goldson, Patrick Omameh, Carl Nicks and Chris Owusu.

There was some strong hope Goldson and Owusu could play, but their injuries, apparently, just aren’t healed enough.

Joe would like to see Eric Page more in the passing game. He’s the got the hands and seems and like he could be a pesky threat in a various roles.

Game 8

Bucs (0-7) at Seahawks (7-1)

Kickoff: 4 p.m.

TV: WTVT-TV Channel 13 in the Tampa Bay area. Elsewhere, DirecTV Channel 711.

Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network (in Tampa WFUS-FM 103.5, and WDAE-AM 620); SiriusXM Channel 110.

Weather: Per AccuWeather.com, typical Seattle in November. Cold and rain. Kickoff is expected to take place with showers falling and a temperature of 47 degrees. Temperature is expected to rise to 50 by the end of the game and there may be a sighting of the sun in the third quarter before rain resumes for the remainder of the game.

Odds: Per FootballLocks.com, Seahawks -16.

Outlook: This has a chance to be very, very ugly for the Bucs. Their two main weapons later today? Quarterback Mike Glennon and Vincent Jackson. No No. 2 receiver to speak or (much less a No. 3 receiver), no tight end to speak of (unless Tim Wright goes all Jimmy Graham — who believes that will happen?), no running back to speak of (Mike James is a good guy but not a full-time, beat-up-the-defense kind of guy) and a shaky offensive line.

Other than that, the Bucs are just fine offensively.

This is a game that the Don of the Mike Glennon Mob, Dave the TV Producer, would love. A North Carolina State homer through and through, he will be just happy to watch two North Carolina State products play quarterback, Glennon and Seahawks’ signal-caller Russell Wilson (by way of Wisconsin). Thus far ,Wilson is one of the better NFL quarterbacks working and Glennon looks like a nice long-term backup.

Joe just cannot see the Bucs doing much offensively against a strong, stout Seahawks defense. With Glennon playing in one of the biggest lunatic parks in the league, it has all the ingredients for a meltdown.

Don’t let the Seahawks lackluster Monday Night Football performance aginst the Lambs fool you. That was a road game against a division foe — against a team, the Lambs that actually has a pair of defensive linemen who are damn good pass rushers. To the Bucs, pass rushing is a rumor that other teams like to spread around the NFL.

Joe thinks Bucs fans better visit their nearest liquor store before kickoff and stock up. You may need it. A lot of it.

This morning while making an appearance on the highly underrated “That Other Pregame Show,” seen exclusively on the CBS Sports Network, Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Cowher, spoke to popular sports radio and television personality Adam Schein and former Raiders executive Amy Trask. Cowher had harsh words for former Bucs franchise quarterback Josh Freeman, ranking the signal-caller one of the top busts in the NFL.

In so many ways, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is the polar opposite of Bucs commander Greg Schiano, including success on the NFL level.

There really is no right away to coach football, except for the common denominator: win games. Joe remembers Bobby Bowden telling Joe just how different his two acquaintances were: Paul Brown and Vince Lombardi, .

Bowden, as a young coach in the 1960s, used to visit select NFL training camps to oversee practices and sit in on meetings to try to pick up nuggets. Hell, Joe even saw the great Eddie Robinson using a tackling dummy for a desk once while taking notes on a legal pad, watching Gene Stallings’ training camp with the old St. Louis Cardinals.

Bowden told Joe that at Cleveland’s training camp, Brown would just whisper to assistants and softly talk with players. Brown’s words were barely audible, Bowden said. There were few better coaches in NFL history than Brown.

This was just the opposite when Bowden would make it to Green Bay’s training camp where Bowden told Joe, “Lombardi would holla’ and cuss all day-long, but it was all right because he’d go to Mass the next morning and have communion.”

Fast forward to 2013 and we see the polar opposites in NFL coaches in many ways, Pete Carroll of the Seahawks and Bucs commander Greg Schiano. Sort of the Omar Bradley and George Patton of NFL coaches, respectively.

Both are considered college coaches despite both men having NFL coaching experience; Schiano as a position coach. One currently may have the best team in the NFL. The other may have the worst team in the NFL. Tampa Tribune columnist Martin Fennelly documents other differences.

“Really, after getting let go at New England, things changed,” Carroll said. “The opportunity to go to (USC) and run a program, to totally be in charge of the whole thing, to run every aspect of it, really gave me the opportunity to get my thoughts together and philosophy together and put it into practice. … Every year helps. You always learn. You get better as you go. This is a job you really have to grow into, kind of.”

Look, it’s still about talent. Being a players’ coach doesn’t mean a thing if they’re not good players who don’t win. Carroll is Seattle’s de facto GM. There are only seven Seahawks left from when he took over. He has built a powerhouse, a young one at that, brimming with confidence and enthusiasm — you see it in their games. It’s an infection that doesn’t require HAZMAT sweeps. And the head coach is a carrier.

“This game, to me, has always been about playing,” Carroll said. “You get ready to play the game you love. So I think that the environment that you create needs to be one that supports the learning that has to take place and the pressure that’s involved, the rigors and the challenges and all that, and the way we do it is we couldn’t be more serious about the football than we are, but we have fun doing it.”

Look, barring an unforeseen reverse in fortunes, Carroll is entrenched in Seattle. Schiano? His agent may already be working the phones. Players will put up with a lot of s(p)it if it results in wins. You can go all drill sergeant on a team and suffocate them with rules and regulations, but it better result in wins.

Joe really doesn’t believe Schiano has lost the team. In the Bucs’ locker room this week, and in recent days, Joe has never seen the locker room so loose in a long while, and it wasn’t just Dekoda Watson running smack about his undefeated Seminoles.

Really, it seems Schiano and his staff’s biggest issue, which is deadly for any coaching staff, is that they have not shown the ability to adjust and to coach on an NFL level. Yet.

And that window to show they can is damned near shut.

Yesterday, it was ESPN dropping a nasty hatchet job on Greg Schiano.

Today it’s the New York Post. Longtime columnist Mark Cannizzaro is on a mission to call the Bucs idiots for using Darrelle Revis too much in zone. Cannizzaro compares it to scoring a date with Kate Upton and taking her to Wendy’s, among other analogies. (What? Joe would love watching her down a Frosty.)

Cannizzaro calls on Bucs icon John Lynch to help him.

Lynch, who has called four of Tampa Bay’s games this season for FOX, is as perplexed as many other analysts about the way Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano and his staff have been using Revis.

“ ‘Revis Island’ is a caricature, a nickname, but he earned it because that’s what he did under Rex [Ryan, Jets coach], and he did it as well as anyone,” Lynch said. “You go and pay 96 million bucks for Darrelle Revis. When the game is on the line they have to utilize this guy’s skills. After they gave him all that money, use him.

“I would think it would behoove the Buccaneers to say, ‘OK, Darrelle’s got that guy. We’re taking him out of the equation, let’s focus on everybody else.’ ”

That is the way Ryan used Revis with the Jets, turning the cornerback loose on the opposition’s best receiver and making it a 10-on-10 game.

Lynch said he has spoken to Revis.

“I sense frustration,” Lynch said, “but he’s a pro, and he’s not going to cause a stink.”

Interestingly, Cannizzaro goes on to speculate that Revis’ recent detailed explanation of why his knee health prevented him from playing press-man, aka Revis Island, smells fishy. So he thinks Revis is lying? Joe finds zero reason to doubt Revis’ credibility.

These are tough times for the New Schiano Order. Daggers are flying from everywhere. But it will get much worse if the Bucs lose today, and ESPN has a week to promote/batter a winless Bucs team approaching their lone Monday Night Football appearance Nov. 11.

Every NFL fan in the United States, it seems, is on Coach Watch/Hot Seat Alert when it comes to Greg Schiano.

But Darrelle Revis says nobody he works with has even discussed the subject.

Speaking on WDAE-AM 620 Thursday night, Revis was asked by a fan caller whether he and his teammates are “feeling bad” and “worried” for Schiano and having “conversation” about playing for Schiano’s job and his job security.

“I think we haven’t even been having those discussions. I surely haven’t been having discussions about coach’s job being on the line or not,” Revis said. “I think everbody’s just focus is to just trying get wins. I think us as players, we want to win games. We’re winners. That’s why we play this game. That’s why we love to play it. It’s to get wins and to get to the playoffs and hopefully make a run at the Super Bowl. And that’s our focus. I mean, we’re 0-7. Most of these guys on this team, yeah, we’ve never been in this position to be 0-7. So I think our motive is to just rack up some wins, man.”

Joe’s listened to Revis all season long, face-to-face in the locker room, on radio, at the podium. Joe’s impression of Revis’ tone here was that it was one of honesty.

Now Joe’s not naïve enough to believe players haven’t talked about Schiano’s shelf life, but on the whole, Joe genuinely believes the team is united and playing hard. Of course, when you’re winless, that’s always a fragile situation that bears close monitoring.

Joe’s celebration of Donald Penn’s 100th start continues.

Penn, always one of the great interviews on the Bucs, touched on various topics and memories this week, starting with battling Simeon Rice in practice. Joe asks Penn about his mentors, and Penn talks about surviving to get to his 100th start. Penn references that he’s only missed two or three practices in eight seasons, as well.

 For you sensitive types, there is some S-word foul language in the audio below. Enjoy! 

Bucs stud wide receiver Vincent Jackson has been on a tear in recent weeks. Since the bye, Jackson is tied for second-most touchdowns in the league by a receiver (four), tied for third most catches per game (eight) and has four-most receiving yards per game (110.3).

All with a rookie third-round pick throwing him the ball.

But things may get dicey tomorrow. Jackson virtually has no help now that Mike Williams is out for the year. The Bucs’ No. 2 receiver is Tiquan Underwood, who less than a month ago was walking the streets looking for work.

Oh, yeah, and Seattle’s pass defense is pretty damned good, too.

“It’s going to be a challenge, for sure,” Jackson said. “This defense, as a whole, is playing really well, at a high level this year. They play well as a unit, and they do have some guys, some good size, that fly around back there in the secondary. We’ve got our work cut out for us. We’re going to have to execute well, be very disciplined in our routes. These guys are physical. When you have a reputation for being a good defense, you’re going to be doing a lot of touching and stuff up the field, so we’re going to have to fight through that kind of thing and continue to just attack the ball and try to get [quarterback] Mike [Glennon] some separation and some windows.”

Despite largely having untested and inconsistent receivers flanking him now, Jackson insists he’s not concerned.

“I feel confident with all the guys we have,” Jackson said. “That’s what an organization is responsible to do, bring in guys that can come in and step in when someone goes down. We have great running backs, great receivers, great tight ends that all can make plays. These guys aren’t in the NFL for no reason. Our coaches are going to put these guys in the best position to be successful, and I’m just going to go out there and do my job and help us be successful. I think everything will work out just fine with the guys we have.”

Joe just can’t imagine Jackson getting much single coverage Sunday. If so, and Jackson is able to rack up catches and yards and touchdowns, maybe the Bucs do have a prayer?

But with that pass defense the Seahawks have, well, who is Joe kidding? Jackson is likely going to be blanketed like tarp on a baseball infield.

When last seen, Danny Gorrer was intercepting Joe Flacco in the Bucs’ first preseason game of 2013. It was as if Gorrer was making a statement, telling fans to forget how he dropped the game-winning interception against the Eagles last season.

Gorrer blew his groin that August night, and he’s been on a fancy form of injured reserve after surgery ever since. Today, the Bucs re-activated him.

Gorrer has been practicing and could log time on Sunday in Seattle. Joe’s not sure what kind of shape Gorrer is in, but he could soon be a step up from Leonard Johnson, who has struggled in his second season.

Joe engaged in his weekly casual chat with good guy Ronnie Lane, of WDAE-AM 620 and the Buccaneers Radio Network. It’s Joe’s weekly podcast. Enjoy.

In this WTSP-TV Channel 10 video, veteran sports anchor Dave Wirth explores whether the nine days of prep work the Bucs have had for the Seahawks game will be enough. You can catch Wirth and his sportscasts focusing on local teams weeknights at 11 p.m.

Loyal Bucs fans remember that cold Seattle day back in 2009, when rookie Josh Freeman and his 1-12 Bucs made their way to the Great Northwest and thumped the Seahawks 24-7.

Sammie Stroughter was the Bucs’ leading wide receiver. Derrick Ward spearheaded the rushing attack, and the defense forced turnovers, as the Bucs’ stormed back from a halftime deficit to score 18 points in the third quarter.

“It wasn’t too loud that day,” Donald Penn said last night on the Buccaneers Radio Network.

Penn, of course, was referring to the infamous 12th man, the intense noise at Seattle’s home turf. The Bucs’ defense took the crowd out of the game in the first half, and Freeman and friends shut them up for good with that third quarter, rather commonplace after Raheem Morris made second-half adjustments/woke his team up.

Penn’s point was how very important it is for the Bucs to start fast on Sunday. That’s the only way to dial back the crowd, he said.

Unfortunately, Greg Schiano told fans the Bucs can’t come “storming back,” like the those high-powered ’09 Bucs. But the Bucs do have the defense now to stifle the run-focused Seahawks and keep the crowd subdued. Joe shudders to think of what might happen Sunday if the Bucs trail by two scores early.