An interesting point was made this afternoon on Pro Football Talk Live, the NBC Sports show hosted by Mike Florio, who implied that the fast turnaround in Kansas City likely will inspire NFL owners to be more quick to fire head coaches of struggling yet talented teams.

As always, owners are always seeking trends that can help their clubs, and perhaps Andy Reid’s revival job with the undefeated Chiefs will inspire quick moves for new head coaches that are less about cleaning house and more about maximizing what’s in place.

Reid walked into a talented roster in Kansas City that won just two games last season. Hmm. That has a familiar feel to it. Ironically, Schiano and Reid are longtime friends, dating back to Schiano’s days at Rutgers.

The topic was raised during Florio’s coaching “hot seat” feature, which placed Greg Schiano as No. 1 on the list. Below him were Leslie Frazier, Gary Kubiak, Jim Schwartz and Joe Philbin.

Whether this theory applies to Schiano remains to be seen. On his current course, Schiano will be fired regardless.

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Joe’s made the point several times that while Mike Glennon looks like a good prospect, he’s the worst QB talent in the NFC South and that’s not a recipe for a Super Bowl victory.

It’s a painful reality, and one that’s somewhat unique to the Bucs’ division. Last week, Matt Ryan showed he could carve up a solid Bucs defense despite a seriously depleted receiving corps, a backup running back and Tony Gonzalez having an off day.

Tomorrow night, surging Cam Newton comes to the Stadium on Dale Mabry Highway on a roll. CBS Sports radio in Charlotte penned a piece on Newton’s growth that delivers telling numbers.

Both Charley Casserly and Boomer Esiason have mentioned the change in Cam and how he is not forcing the ball downfield anymore. If you take a look at Cam’s last 16 games, his numbers would make for a good season.  A 9-7 record, 60 percent completions, 3800 yards, 31 total TDs, only 11 interceptions and a QB Rating of 92.

And, this season is shaping up to be a big one too for Cam. His QB rating of 95 and his current completion percentage of 64 would be career highs.  And, he is on the verge of being over .500 for the first time ever in the NFL.

It is a different version of Newton coming to face the Bucs. The Panthers’ offense has become diverse, with Newton running less, and excellent on third down, 34-of-74. The Bucs, in contrast, are 34-of-93 on third down.

This is a brutally tough game for Tampa Bay. They’ve got to find a way to move the chains against a ferocious defense; Giving Carolina field position could be lethal. In addition to their emerging offense, Panthers kicker Graham Gano is perfect in three tries from 50+ yards this season.

Joe is simply amazed at the deep hatred Bucs fans have leveled on Bucs commander Greg Schiano. The tide seemed to turn on Schiano when the saga of defrocked franchise quarterback and leaker Josh Freeman was tossed out of town.

(Notice how the drama with the Bucs has subsided now that Freeman is no longer employed by the Bucs? Hhhmmm? Funny how that works.)

One would think with how horrid Freeman played against the porous Giants defense Monday night, a historically rotten performance, that perhaps Schiano has an idea what he is doing, no?

No, is what the one and only Chris “Mad Dog” Russo would say. During his weekly segment with theMMQB’s Peter King Tuesday, heard exclusively on SiriusXM Radio, Russo, who hosts the show that bears his name, “Mad Dog Unleashed,” engaged in a memorable rant about Schiano’s kneel-down defense, which keeps rearing its ugly head.

Chris “Mad Dog” Russo: You know, Schiano, the old college try, the team is trying to be competitive. But do I need to see him do this stupid thing with this crashing into the line of scrimmage as he did on Sunday in Atlanta? Do I need to see this again? I mean, Greg, stop with the rah-rah college garbage, please. The game is over. You had the ball for 9,000 minutes in the fourth quarter and all you could get was two field goals. And he’s crashing the line of scrimmage there at the end against the Falcons, which he has done in the past, last year at the Giants. He didn’t learn his lesson. What is your take on that?

Peter King: I am not a fan of it. At all. Because I think that, ah, there is enough problems in the NFL today with guys getting hurt on plays that really count and plays that matter. You are just making guys play more plays. I don’t agree with it. It is clear by now that he is going to keep doing this. You know, it’s not going to change so if you have a team [that is playing the Bucs] you are going to have to…

Russo: Doesn’t he realize…

King: … prepare for it. I’m not a fan of it.

Russo: Doesn’t he realize that he is ostracizing fans, media, some players and some coaches by doing this kind of stuff?

King: He will always go back to that one time at Rutgers where it helped him win a game.

Russo: Aw, stop! Come, on! He’s not going to win a game on that, Pete! C’mon, Greg! Don’t be an idiot!

King: I am not saying that he will. I don’t agree with it. I do think you create more enmity in the very one-in-a-thousand chance that you are making a play that you are going to work. I don’t buy it either.

Now Joe spoke to Russo last year at Super Bowl media day and Russo likes Schiano. Russo, though, clearly doesn’t like the Schiano kneel-down. Clearly.

This is yet another of the strange contradictions that Schiano has. Schiano is a big time promoter of health among football players. Just yesterday he expressed concern over how smart it may be to play Thursday games because of the health of players and injury prevention. Schiano has even campaigned to have kickoffs eliminated from football as he believes it’s too easy for players to get hurt on kickoffs.

Yet on a play which is prone to get guys hurt, Schiano is in favor of it time and again and staunchly defends said play. Joe doesn’t get it.

This is one of those mysteries about Schiano that Joe can’t solve, just like how he is a disciplinarian yet his team plays so undisciplined with rashes of penalties and dumb errors seemingly each week.

Patrick Welter gives Bucs fans a peek at how the Bucs are readying themselves for Thursday Night Football in this TBO.com video.

Embattled Bucs commander Greg Schiano was on the NFL Network airwaves this morning fielding the tough questions.

Schiano didn’t bite on queries about Josh Freeman and his ugly showing on Monday Night Football, and Schiano insisted he’ll get the “worm to turn” with the Bucs and put up wins.

Asked about his job security if he can’t win games, Schiano gave a brief reply, “We’ll win our share. “Don’t worry.” (Here’s the video)

Schiano also went on to say his locker room is in great shape, thanks to leaders Gerald McCoy, Darrelle Revis, Dashon Goldson, Vincent Jackson and Davin Joseph.

NFL Draft guru and color analyst on Thursday Night Football, Mike Mayock, has put in loads of homework on Mike Glennon, including watching every throw of the Bucs’ quarterback this season.

Speaking on WDAE-AM 620 this morning, Mayock said he needs to see more of Glennon before labeling him a bust as a starter or a franchise quarterback prospect. Mayock said Glennon’s performance has been predictable — rookie mistakes mixed in with positives.

“The two big issues for him now are exactly what they were coming out of N.C. State: lack of mobility and a release. How quickly can he get the ball out of his hands,” Mayock said. “It’s one thing when you’re Matt Ryan and you can’t run fast but at least you can slide and move in the pocket. That’s what this kid has to show he can do.”

In three games, Glennon has two intentional grounding calls against him and one pass over the line of scrimmage. Clearly, he’s uncomfortable on the move. Somehow, the Bucs must find a way to coach those mistakes out of him. It’ll be interesting to see if Glennon can evolve and grow faster than defenses adjust to him.

Mayock’s full interview is below. Mayock also explains that he sees absolutely no quit in the Bucs on film.

The Panthers are very cocky when it comes to their No. 2-ranked defense. This story in the Charlotte Observer clearly gives that feel.

Combine that with the Panthers facing the Bucs’ ugly offense, it’s a mix that has Carolina licking its chops.

“Those guys up front, they hunt. That’s what they’ve been doing since Day 1,” cornerback Captain Munnerlyn said. “So if (Bucs wideouts) Vincent Jackson and Mike Williams want to do all those deep routes, they probably won’t have time with our defensive line.”

So there’s a punk Panthers cornerback all but saying the Bucs’ offensive line is going to struggle if Mike Glennon tries to throw a deep pass.

It’s really time for the Bucs’ O-line to bring their A-games. Joe realizes Davin Joseph is on the down side of his career, or just isn’t healthy, but the other guys have to step up. With a rookie running back and a rookie quarterback, Thursday’s success likely rides on a strong game from that unit.

Joe likes to brag that he knew about Bucs stud linebacker Lavonte David long before 90 percent of America did. Joe would watch Nebraska games and see David fly from sideline to sideline and thought he would be an awesome pick for the Bucs (which later came true).

(Post sidenote: Joe almost cannot bear to watch Nebraska games now because their defense is such a sieve, it makes the Bucs look like the 1985 Bears).

Last year, many thought David should have been named to the Pro Bowl along with his fellow rookie Doug Martin, who did eat pineapple. This year, it appears David should again, as Nathan Jahnke of ProFootballFocus.com details.

As a rookie, linebacker Lavonte David showed he could stop the run and play in coverage. In 2013 he has shown he can be a triple threat. He had a below average 9.9 Pass Rushing Productivity last year, where this year he has a league-leading 35.7. On 42.8% of his pass rushes he has gotten pressure, and on 19.0% of his pass rushes he has either sacked or hit the opposing quarterback.

David was simply all over the place against the Dixie Chicks in the first half. Joe may not have seen a Bucs linebacker play like that since there was some dude wearing No. 55 flying around. Joe never thought he would see the next Derrick Brooks but, lo and behold before our very eyes, David may just be a clone of Brooks.’

Now will David make the Pro Bowl? Joe isn’t sure. Outside of Bucs fans and Cornhuskers fans, you mention the “Lavonte David” and 19 out of 20 will say, “Oh, you mean the guy that make the dumbarse play with Geno Smith in New York that gave the game to the Jets?”

Sad as it is, to date, that is David’s signature play. Until or unless the Bucs begin playing meaningful games, and David makes a splash in those games, he will go down as the defensive Joe Pisarcik of his time.

And that truly is sad.

Joe simply cannot remember a team year after year after year that goes into the offseason with a focus of finding sackmeisters and consistently ends up back at Square One like the Bucs.

Never can Joe think of a team that has spent so many draft picks on a certain area, and it seems that the picks were hollow. That is the Bucs’ pass rush.

Now Joe gets hammered all the time for liking Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik. Joe makes no apologies. Joe saw Dominik’s predecessor Bruce Almighty, and his caped crusader cohort Chucky, whiff on so many draft picks that the weekend of the NFL draft should have been hurricane awareness weekend around these parts. That way the NFL could have sold silly lapel ribbons — bearing the NFL shield, no less — to wear for three days, as well as peddle other color-specific paraphernalia, and pocket cash off the sales, all under the caring, cuddly guise of “awareness.”

This year is no different. After six games, Bucs defensive linemen have put opposing quarterbacks on the ground (while still in possession of the football, a key trick) a grand total of six times, which really is unforgivable. The lone bright spot on the annual quest for sacks from he defensive line is none other than defensive tackle Gerald McCoy who has blossomed into one of the better defensive tackles in the NFL. GMC spoke about the need for more sacks Tuesday.

“It needs to be better. We’ve got to rush better collectively, as a group, as a unit. You see sprinkles here and there, guys getting there [to the quarterback], but as a unit, we need to be better,” McCoy said. “Me personally, though – me being a leader, one of the leaders of the team, and definitely a leader of the defense – I’m kind of taking it upon myself to get something done. We do have to rush as a unit, and that’s all well and good, but there comes a point in time where you’re 0-5, 0-6 – somebody’s got to do something. I take it upon myself, I’ve got to make something happen. I’m getting to the quarterback, definitely getting to the quarterback. I’ve just got to get him on the ground. I’m hitting him, I’m pressuring him, but I’ve got to get him on the ground. It’s good to be able to get to him, but, personally, I just feel that I haven’t done good enough with getting him on the ground. I’m hitting him, but I need him to have the ball in his hand when I do it.”

Of course, opposing coaches are not stupid. They know GMC is the biggest threat to get to quarterbacks. So what do coaches do to a team’s best player? They try to take him out of the game. That’s what the DIxie Chicks did to GMC last week.

GMC, as good as he is, is not the Green Lantern. He doesn’t possess some type of superpower where he can avoid two if not three giant offensive linemen who are bound to lock him up. GMC needs help from others so he isn’t double- and triple-teamed.

At times, defensive end Adrian Clayborn can put heat on quarterbacks. But where is he? We’ve heard about how tackle Akeem Spence had pass rushing abilities he never flashed in college at Illinois. Where is he? Sadly, the same question can be lodged at good guy Da’Quan Bowers, too. Where is he?

Joe suspects part of the reason Clayborn and Spence can’t be found is that they are too busy virtually each play dancing around in some form of silly, exotic stunt and not making a beeline to the quarterback.

You know, simple physics: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line?

Just like Raheem Morris couldn’t get the best out of his defense, after each loss mounts, perhaps the same can be said about Greg Schiano and the defensive line constantly under performing.

“I’ve known Mike a long time, you know, I recruited Mike at Rutgers and wanted him to be, you know he was the top quarterback, back however many years ago that was, on our recruiting board. So I’ve been aware of Mike. And always when you recruit a kid and you like him you always follow him. And then when I got to Tampa, you know, and we were in the draft process, my second draft, we started talking about, you know, the position, and we’re talking about guys. He caught our eye, and he caught Mark Dominik’s and our scouts’ eyes. So then, when someone catches your eye, you put more eyeballs on the tape and you watch. And we watched every single throw the guy made. And then we went back to his junior year. And the more you watched, you know, the more I liked him and the more Mark liked him. And so we came to an agreement; that this was going to be our guy, if available. And we’re very fortunate that he was available.” — Greg Schiano, speaking today to the Panthers media.

Joe hadn’t heard the above level of detail previously, regarding the drafting of Mike Glennon. It gives some rare insight into the Bucs’ draft process.

Greg Schiano was very relaxed talking to the Carolina media today, and his comment seemed to paint a picture of Schiano and his staff scouting college players and then comparing notes with rockstar general manager Mark Dominik and his staff before reaching a consensus on what players to pursue further.

Of course, Glennon’s “the guy” now, so the QB study is moot. But one could have fun reading between the lines of Schiano’s comments.

Last week, Bucs defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan, amid a non-controversy of how the Bucs were misusing (?) All-World cornerback Darrelle Revis, partly in jest, invited Bucs fans to show up at 5:20 a.m. at One Buc Palace. These fans could have all the free Cokes they desired, Sheridan said, and spend all day and much of the night helping him and his charges to come up with proper game plans for opponents.

Well, a few fans did take Sheridan up on his offer, but they were rebuffed at the gates of One Buc Palace on Monday morning.

Sheridan was asked today if fans tried to take accept his invitation, and he simply said, with a grin on his face, “Yes… yes.”

Sheridan confessed a few fans were waiting when he drove into the facility but he did not speak with any of them (“Nope.”). Said fans were not granted access to One Buc Palace, however.

Joe knows the Tampa Bay area is still infested with Freemanites and the following, which may annoy some Bucs fans, will be of keen interest to those Freemanites.

The numbers crunchers of Pro Football Focus have come along way from being a cult to mainstream in the five years the outfit has been charting the NFL. After last night’s painful performance by former Bucs defrocked franchise quarterback Josh Freeman, the Pro Football Focus crowd confessed it’s never charted a worse performance by a quarterback in the history of their august publication than what Freeman had last night.

@PFF_Pete: Josh Freeman’s -11.3 @PFF grade was the lowest single-game mark we’ve ever given a QB.

Stop with the “He didn’t have enough time to learn the playbook” nonsense. You don’t think Leslie Frazier dumbed down the playbook for Freeman? Only a mental patient would have thrown a quarterback to the wolves without doing that.

Besides, does Freeman really need to learn a new playbook to understand not to overthrow receivers as if they were standing on the Iowa border?

You know it was bad when Chucky, who loves everybody on Monday Night Football, was calling for Freeman to be benched.

Maybe Schiano knew more than most of us sitting on the other side of the fence from One Buc Palace?

Greg Schiano was excited today to talk about emerging sackmaster DaQuan Bowers. The third year defensive end has no sacks this season, but he’s improving steadily Schiano said during his news conference.

Schiano liked what he saw from Bowers against Atlanta, though it was only six plays worth.

“I look forward to him playing more this week. He’s feeling better. I actually think Da’Quan has gotten better and better. I know that outside looking in, ‘why isn’t he playing more?’ I think he’s improving,” Schiano said “Not as fast as everyone would like, but he’s improving and he has natural ability. So he’s going to play more and more as the year goes on, as long as he keeps improving. Not very much unlike what I described on offense, where you earn your piece of the pie, it’s the same thing on defense. You earn your plays. You earn your reps.” 

Jimminy Christmas! How much does Bowers have to do to show he’s better than Daniel Te’o-Nesheim, the starting left end ahead of him.? How far did Bowers fall from when Schiano said he’d be a double-digit sacks guy?

Te’O-Nesheim has a paltry six tackles in six games. That’s terrible.

Sorry. As nice as it is to hear Bowers is improving, Joe can’t consider Bowers’ reported growth a bright spot. He’s a second-round pick who needs to produce.

Time for the weekly podcast with Joe and smooth-voiced Ronnie Lane of the Buccaneers Radio Network and WDAE-AM 620. Joe fishes for positives, pleads for offensive line improvement and much more. Enjoy!

Joe read an interesting stat before last Sunday’s game that claimed Mike Glennon was the second-most blitzed quarterback in the NFL, based on percentage of passing attempts. Teams are coming after Glennon, and they were loading the box to stuff Doug Martin and dare Glennon to beat them.

No surprise there. He’s a rookie QB and Martin was a Pro Bowler.

But that could change Thursday night against Carolina. Martin is shelved with a shoulder injury and Greg Schiano is waiting to see how the Panthers defend his juggernaut offense.

“When you’re talking about loading the box, that’s to stop the run. So with Doug [Martin] gone, you wonder will they not load the box as much? Do they respect our backup two running backs and our run game, or are they going to lay back more in 2-safety-high and make you beat’em with the run?” Schiano said today at One Buc Palace. “I don’t know. You got a rookie tailback and you got a rookie quarterback. So let them pick; we’ll just react to it.”

The lousy thing is Carolina has the No. 3 ranked defense in the NFL. They’re fifth against the pass, fourth against the run and second best in points allowed (13.8 per game). No matter how Carolina approaches the Bucs they have the talent to stuff them.

Joe suspects Carolina will do all kinds of things to confuse Glennon. A big key will be whether the Bucs’ offensive line can shake their demons and pass block. If not, there’s going to be a loud chorus of boos flying through the night sky.

(Here’s Schiano’s full morning news conference today, via 620wdae.com)

A famous motto of the Raheem Morris regime was “stats are for losers.” Raheem insisted all the popular statistical data was for reporters and fans and it wasn’t going to waste space in his “gray matter” or the brains of his players. 

Buccaneers players bought in and repeated the line publicly. It seemed to keep the team focused on winning for a good while.

But the anti-Raheem, Greg Schiano, appears to love quoting stats. Mired in a stretch of 11 losses in 12 games, Schiano is going hard to the stat sheet to justify his team’s alleged progress.

Schiano quoted all kinds of stats yesterday on his radio show on the Buccaneers Radio Network and WDAE-AM 620. Below is one example. A frustrated fan, “Aaron,” called in to vent and about the New Schiano Order’s coaching ability and more. After a rant, Aaron was prompted to ask a question. Schiano responded with all kinds of data.

Fall Caller “Aaron”: … Why is the team looking worse and worse every week? And why aren’t we improving? And why is there so many excuses going on week after week of why the team is doing this and why the team is doing that? So that’s my question.

Greg Schiano: Well, Aaron. I understand your frustration; that’s for sure. I’ll try to address the points. I don’t agree with you that we’re getting worse and worse. We’ve lost some tight ball games, some tough ballgames. And a lot of the reasons we’ve lost them is things that we’ve done ourselves, penalties and, you know, we’ve been even in the turnover margin in every single game, which is almost unheard of.

It’s weird, usually someone wins, someone loses. But when you’re even in the turnover margin, usually you’re kind of even in your record, whether it’s .500 or a game under or a game over. We have shot ourselves in the foot numerous times with, you know, penalties and things like that. I do put the responsibility on me and the coaching staff. As I said to the media and I also said to our squad, it’s a lot of the same guys that last year were 11th [best] in the league in penalties, which is not a bad spot to be. You never want to be top-5; I think you’re not trying hard enough if you do that. You want to be somewhere between five and 10th best, 11 last year was decent. I had no reason to believe that we wouldn’t do the same thing [in 2013]. We have officials every day at practice and we really stress it. But for whatever reason we’re not getting it done. So that’s what I mean when I say we got to get better.

There’s a lot of good things we’re doing. Offensively, I think the emergence of Mike Glennon is really been something to get excited about. I look at him and in his three starters he’s gotten better and better and better. He’s performing at an NFL-quarterback level. He’s only going to get better as he gets more comfortable. Defensively, you know, what we’ve done the last two weeks is giving up really what amounts to five big passes. Earlier in the season we weren’t doing that.

But, you know, there’s so many areas that I look at that we’re improved. Our third-down defense, we’re tenth in the league in third down defense, we’re 10th in the league in third-down defense, getting better, better, better than last year. You know, we’re fourth in rush defense, which keeps us in the top-5 in rush defense. We’re in the red zone, we’re playing really good red-zone defense. I think we’re fourth or fifth in red-zone defense. So there’s a lot of things that I look at as a coach that I have to evaluate.  Ultimately, there’s only one thing that matters and that’s wins and losses. But as a coach I have to look at the process. How are we doing? We’re not doing well in the penalties. We’re getting better on offense. Defensively, we’ve given up four or five balls over our head, which we weren’t doing early in the year. And that’s really how we’ve lost the game, between penalties and giving up some big plays the last two games is what cost us. But, you know what, I don’t see a team that’s not making improvement in certain areas but it’s not consistent in all areas.

Notice how Schiano is inconsistent about when he chooses to compare things to last season, like saying the offense “getting better,” but Bucs fans know it’s nowhere near last year’s 9th-ranked unit.

Regardless, this is a window into what helps keep the head coach positive in the face of losing stretch worse than that of his predecessor.

Schiano admits his discipline program has yet to fully take hold

The head coach who last month said, “you can’t load the entire roster in a two-year period,” has now made it clear he needs more than two years to craft a disciplined team.

Joe can’t believe what comes out of Greg Schiano’s mouth these days. Hey, Coach. Just how long does the Schiano regime need to produce consistently solid football? Let us all know. Please.

Schiano responded on his radio show last night on WDAE-AM 620 to a Bucs fan who expressed a lot of frustration. One thing troubling the fan was team discipline, and Schiano quickly to the blame-Raheem card.

“Make no doubt. Make no mistake. There was issues on discipline on so many different levels in this organization when we took over. Have we made huge strides? No doubt. Are there still huge strides to be made? Absolutely. And we’ll continue to do that,” Schiano said.

How long did it take Jim Harbaugh to have a disciplined team? What about John Fox when he arrived at the quarterback-challenged mess in Denver? Things aren’t exactly falling apart in Buffalo or Miami? Raheem’s Bucs were pretty darned disciplined to win 10 games in 2010 with 10 rookies seeing significant playing time.

Joe’s not sure Schiano understands the modern-day timetables of the NFL. That’s awfully odd for a coach who insisted he has the “components” in place to win now.