The gorgeous Jenny Dell once again graces Joe’s site to look inside the numbers of the Rams-Bucs game. The way Jenny talks about percentages, Merlot Joe Maddon would go wild over here. Then again, who the hell wouldn’t?

Say what you want about the wacky Manchester United fans, but their love for their club runs a lot deeper than any vendetta that some of them have against Team Glazer and its massive debt.

Superstar Manchester United player Wayne Rooney made big headlines this week saying he didn’t want to re-sign with his team because he wasn’t satisfied by ownership’s commitment to signing the biggest and best free agents, despite being offered a fat new deal for himself.

The fans could have fired back at Team Glazer for what many over there view as a tightening of team purse strings, but the opposite happened, the Manchester United fans have come after Rooney.

He’s been ripped for his lack of team loyalty, as one can see from the headline above. A Daily Mail headline called him “Wayne The Whore” (which also is a takeoff on Rooney’s hooker escapades).

It’s an interesting scenario.

What could be remotely similar in Tampa? Hypothetically, say the Bucs had a 10-6 season and offered Davin Joseph a long-term contract, but Joseph said he wasn’t signing because he wasn’t convinced the Bucs would spend enough money on other players.

Would Bucs fans tell Joseph to let the door hit him in the ass? Or would Bucs fans come after Team Glazer with a finger of blame?

The great Derrick Brooks co-hosts a weekly radio show on WDAE-AM 620 every Wednesday at 4 p.m. where No. 55 talks all things sports with Steve Duemig.

There’s always a little Bucs chatter, but it’s hardly a Bucs show.

Yesterday, Brooks was asked about the struggles of the Bucs defense stopping the run and about the defense in general. If its possible for Bucs-loving Brooks to point a finger of blame, then he did just that at the Bucs’ defensive line, specifically the pass rush.

Brooks said he sees good things on film from the defense and believes the run defense will turn around somewhat quickly, but he cautions that the overall learning curve will continue for a long time. Brooks showed frustration with the pass rush, saying that you can “overscheme” the rush and the front four need to line up and “whoop the guy in front of you.”

Brooks repeated that line multiple times, “whoop the guy in front of you.”

It may sound simple and silly, but the analysis is the core of the problem. The Bucs have stopped winning the in-your-face, man-to-man battles on the D-line.

No sacks and flimsy pressure in past three games. The Bucs are lucky to have come away with a win in that stretch.

Yes, the Bucs game with the Lambs will be blacked out, pending confirmation by the Bucs today at 1 p.m. This is expected.

What Joe didn’t expect was the nasty and unfair backlash the Bucs received last week about the blackout.

Lest we forget, it is NFL rules that force blackouts. The Bucs don’t make the call.

Last week, the Bucs announced on a Monday that the Saints game, based on the prior rate of ticket sales, would be blacked out. For some reason some fans erupted in outrage and Joe just couldn’t understand why.

So these same fans would rather have been given false hope that the game had a chance of being televised locally? Joe, and we all should, hope that sports organizations be upfront and honest with fans. The Bucs absolutely were with regards to the Saints game.

So why the hate?

If anything, the Bucs were giving fans more than fair warning so fans could make arrangements and plans otherwise, such as perhaps going to the game or taking advantage of The Blackout Tour.

Long before the season started, the Bucs made no secret that games would likely be blacked out unless there was a surge in ticket sales. With sluggish ticket sales in this rotten local economy, it became clear that there were only two games that had any chance of selling out, short of an unforeseen uptick in ticket sales: Pittsburgh and New Orleans.

The Steelers game did not sell out, though it was close, thanks to the always rabid Steelers fanbase who would travel to far reaches of the globe to watch the Steelers. The New Orleans game was always dicey in that Saints fans don’t travel nearly that well.

Joe was flabbergasted when some fans reacted the way they did when the Bucs announced it would be blacked out, barring a massive rush to buy tickets at the last moment.

Were these same outraged fans paying attention at all the past few months?

Look, blackouts suck. For everyone. It has little to do with people not caring about the Bucs. People simply cannot afford to go in these trying times. A third of Tampa Bay’s homes are underwater. Foreclosures are at record levels.

What, people should lose their house and buy Bucs season tickets? Seriously? Many people are working weekend jobs just to save their homes. So they should quit their second jobs to go to a Bucs game and have no home to come to later?

Unemployment in the immediate Tampa Bay area is 13 percent. Lakeland and Sarasota, where many Bucs season ticket holders came from, is worse off.

And as Joe has written before, it’s not just a Tampa Bay thing. Oakland, despite its massive fan base, cannot sell out games. San Diego, one of the better NFL teams with a dynamic quarterback, struggles to avoid blackouts.

Hell, if it wasn’t for Anheuser-Busch and a deep-pocketed TV station buying thousands of tickets in St. Louis, the Rams would have had blackouts.

Shoot, watch the next Florida State home game, a team that school boosters claimed had rivers of new revenue since Jimbo Fisher took over, and notice the tens of thousands of empty seats for maybe the best team in the state. Two years ago, those same seats were filled with garnet-attired fans.

The blackouts aren’t some devious plan by Team Glazer to alienate the local fanbase.

Rick Stroud looks at why the Bucs acquired Kansas City defensive end Alex Magee and offers an update on fellow defensive lineman Gerald McCoy in this St. Petersburg Times video.

The Bucs under Raheem Morris respond pretty well to a good beating.

That bodes well for Sunday’s game against the Rams.

Raheem’s Bucs have been clobbered six times in the 21 games since Morris took over. (Clobbered equals losing by more than two touchdowns.) Here’s the ugly/pretty evidence:

Loss to Giants 24-0
Loss to Eagles 33-14
Loss to Patriots 35-7
Loss to Saints, 38-7
Loss to Jets, 26-3
Loss to Steelers 38-13

In the games immediatly following those losses, the Bucs went 3-3 and the three losses were by a combined 13 points.

It’s safe to say that something good happens at One Buc Place after the Bucs get blown out. Perhaps whatever that is should go on every week.

Ryan Sims, pull up your pants.

Brian Price didn’t practice today and Raheem Morris said Price is hardly a sure thing for Sunday, per the Bucs official Twitter feed.

DT Brian Price has a pelvis injury and is considered week-to-week. He may not be able to play on Sunday vs. the Rams.

First it was a hamstring injury for Price that limited through the preseason and early in the regular season. Now he’s got a pelvis injury. Years ago, Joe knew a wild 180-pound woman, so Joe knows those pelvis injuries can take time.

Joe was hoping/praying the Bucs would find a way to slow down the running game against the Rams on Sunday, and Price would get several chances to rush on 3rd-and-long, what seems to be the strongest part of his game.

Looks like he’ll be on the shelf a while. In the world of NFL teamspeak, the “week-to-week” designation is always worse than “day-to-day.”

This week Bucs safety Cody Grimm was nominated as the NFL Rookie of the Week  Joe had a chance to chat briefly with Grimm. Largely regarded as a smart football player, Joe tried to learn where the seventh-round draft pick got his football smarts or if football is just part of his DNA.

JoeBucsFan: You have been described as a very smart player. Where does that come from? Is it because of talking football over the years with your dad [Hall of Fame offensive lineman and Arizona Cardinals assistant Russ Grimm] or is just instincts or is it from massive amount of watching tape? Where do your football smarts come from?

Cody Grimm: I’d say it’s from a lot of those things but mostly a love of the sport helps me out. When I was in high school we’d watch a lot film [of games] and when I got to college, obviously, we’d watch a lot of film and that helped me out a lot.

Joe: You did this on your own or in groups?

Grimm: No, no, no. We did it as a team. Coaches would watch it with us. Pretty much, I always wanted to do something in football whether it was as a player or coach. I tried learning it and I was interested. When you love something you want to learn about it. I think that’s what helped me out there.

Joe: So studying football only stoked your fire more?

Grimm: Yeah. It’s like going to a class you are interested in. You are going to pay a little more attention in class. That’s what football is to me.

Joe: Since you were a linebacker at Virginia Tech and now are a safety with the Bucs, whenever you talked to you dad, did you ever think, “What the heck do you know about defense, you’re an offensive lineman?”

Grimm: (laughs) Nah, he knows a good bit [about defense]. It’s funny, when he talks about our games — when you are a coach in the NFL you have to know as much about the defense as you do the offense if you are an offensive coach because, obviously, you want to know what [the opposing defense] is in and try to take advantage of it.

Joe: Since the Bucs play the Cardinals later this year, you think he’s trying to pick your brain to get an idea or an advantage of your defense?

Grimm: (laughs) Nah, nnnoo!

Joe: Your pick-six against Cincinnati, it was obviously a huge play in the game and something you’ll personally treasure for a long time. What did your dad have to say about that?

Grimm: Nothing really, just, “Hey, good job.” He’s proud of me, that’s pretty much it.

Joe: Did your dad needle you about the play, something like, “Nice play but you have a long way to go to match me kid.”

Grimm: (laughs) Nah, nah, no. Obviously, my dad was a great player. I’m just trying to play the best I can. I’m a DB; he’s a lineman.

Joe: Does it ever get old for you when people ask about your dad, as if you are always in his shadow?

Grimm: No, I don’t really mind it. People always ask if [having a Hall of Fame dad] there are pros or cons [to the relationship]. I think its all pros. I’m happy of his achievements. I’m not trying to live up to his shadow or anything. I’m just trying to play the best I can and see what happens.

Ahhh, it wasn’t that long ago when the Bucs’ defense routinely feasted on young quarterbacks, especially at home.

Joe remembers when Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan visited Tampa in his rookie season and the Bucs made him look like a lost sheep.

So maybe the Bucs are being served up a shot at the good ol’ days on Sunday against the Rams.

Just like the Bucs, the NFL schedule makers blessed the Rams with four of their first six games at home. The Rams are 3-3 and haven’t won a road game.

Their road struggles are a big deal in St. Louis, per today’s Post-Dispatch.

The challenge for the Rams is to transfer what they’re doing at home to the road, where they’ve lost 16-14 at Oakland in Week 2 and 44-6 at Detroit in Week 5.

“We’ve got to find a way to do that because we do seem to be much more comfortable playing here than on the road,” quarterback Sam Bradford said. “I think that’s one of the steps from being an average team to being a good team — being able to play well on the road. So if we do want to become a good team, then we’re going to have to learn to play well on the road.”

For a young team with a rookie quarterback, a certain amount of ups and downs are inevitable. Spagnuolo would like to smooth out some of those bumps on the road, where momentum changes in games can get the home crowd into it and make the environment even more difficult.

In Oakland, the Rams were up 7-3 and had some semblance of control in the game. But when fan favorite Bruce Gradkowski replaced Jason Campbell at quarterback to start the second half, the crowd got into it. When Gradkowski experienced early success they really got into it, and things snowballed from there.

If the aftershocks of a Bruce Gradkowski sighting rattled the Rams, then surely Josh Freeman and 40,000+ screaming Bucs fans should send have them seeking the nearest bottle of Valium.

The Bucs should and need to win on Sunday. The Rams are vulnerable, young and very beatable, and the Bucs are at home.

If the Bucs can’t take out the Rams in Week 7, then how many games can fans really expect them to win this season?

Do the Bucs have a few too many slackers on defense?

Geno Hayes spoke Monday about how it was obvious that some of his teammates weren’t watching enough film, during his appearance on Total Access on the Buccaneers Radio Network.

Essentially, without Joe quoting all the detailed Xs and Os discussed, Hayes explained that it’s apparent on film which players are recognizing things before they happen and which aren’t. And that’s a direct result of film study, he said. Host and former Buccaneers tight end Dave Moore backed up Hayes saying it was always obvious in his day who was and wasn’t watching enough film.

“That’s why the average player plays under four year,” Moore said. “Some guys are professional and some aren’t.”

Asked by a caller what Bucs do their homework, Hayes said he doesn’t know what kind of film study guys do on their own time but added that he, Ronde Barber and Barrett Ruud watch a tremendous amount film. Hayes added that Barber has “his little office” and is a fixture in it watching film and always ready to talk football with him.

Moore told listeners that Hayes is on pace for more than 20 tackles for a loss this season, up from 14 last year. “That’s no coincidence. That’s film study,” Moore said.

Given how young the Bucs are, Joe is hardly surprised that their film study work ethic is coming under fire.

More than a year ago, Hayes admitted that he didn’t want much film as a rookie in 2008, and Derrick Brooks later got him on the right path.

Joe hopes the Bucs have enough vocal veterans — and the coaching influence — to quickly impact the young Bucs about what it takes to succeed in the NFL.

When the Bucs have the ball run down their throats for weeks in a row, and on the heels of many games in 2008 and 2009, it’s hard not to view the defense as soft.

Former Bucs offensive lineman Ian Beckles, co-host of The Ron and Ian Show on WDAE-AM 620, was flat out calling the Bucs defense “soft” following Sunday’s gashing at the hands of the Saints.

Beckles singled out Gerald McCoy as extra soft, and explained that the Bucs are running a defense that calls for undersized players, but when soft meets undersized that makes for the ugly results the Bucs are experiencing.

During the Buccaneers Radio Network Total Access show on Monday night, also on WDAE-AM 620, linebacker Geno Hayes, without being prodded, went out of his way to say the Bucs aren’t soft while explaining the problems with the run defense.

“It’s all about us killing ourselves,” Hayes said. “It wasn’t something that [the Saints] were doing, you know, really just going down our throats and forcing like was were just a soft team. It wasn’t that. It was really us being out there and not making the tackles that needed to be made and not being in the gaps sometimes. And just really getting a little lost in the adjustments as far as making checks and things. But other than that, it wasn’t anything they did that was real big.”

Now Joe’s not sure how “soft” is defined. But surely the Bucs aren’t the opposite of soft.

If Hayes is correct (and Joe hopes he is), and the Bucs were merely lost and clueless at times and not soft, then that means the run defense should be fixable quickly. That would be a good thing and something fans should look for on Sunday against the Rams.

“The Professor,” John Clayton, discusses what the Bucs may do to address a subpar rush offense in this BSPN video.

Yesterday the Bucs were the lone team to acquire a player at the trade deadline when the Bucs traded an undisclosed conditional draft pick to the Chiefs for the immortal defensive lineman Alex Magee.

Certainly, the Bucs need all the help they can muster on the defensive front, but Joe’s not sure how Magee will help much. But the fact he came from the Chiefs moved Anwar Richardson of the Tampa Tribune to post on the TBO Bucs Twitter feed about how One Buc Palace is seemingly a halfway house for Chiefs rejects.

Bucs have become a safe haven for former Chiefs. Michael Bennett, Jimmy Wilkerson, Ryan Sims, Mark Bradley and now Alex Magee.

Well, Joe knows that Mark Dominik once worked for the Chiefs and that he was reported to be a finalist for the open general manager’s job there that eventually went to Scott Pioli, just about the same time Team Glazer hired Dominik to run the Bucs.

So perhaps Dominik is using his strong ties to the Chiefs to hopefully find a diamond in the rough in Kansas City?

If an article published Tuesday on Deadspin.com is to be believed, Joe is happy to announce he never had the pleasure of meeting former Bucs quarterback Jeff Garcia in the Bucs locker room.

It seems, allegedly, Garcia had a gland problem of some sort and used to wet in towels on the sidelines since there were no porta-potties available.

Garcia also claimed a former Bucs teammate used to regularly wet himself in his pants during games.

Said Garcia, “My first year in the league, I tried the towel thing. It was in a preseason game. Second half. I figured, ‘Well, I’ll try it with a towel. Just pee into the towel.’ I had to go pretty bad. As soon as I felt the warm pee touch my leg, I shut it down. I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ It’s just nasty. I couldn’t follow through with it. Players try all sorts of tricks to relieve themselves out there. My teammate in Tampa would just pee his pants and say it’s not going to make a difference because of all the sweat.”

OK, Joe’s got to think of who was the pantswetter with the Bucs. This allegation from Garcia offers up all sorts of one-liners, too many to list.

The bad Dexter Jackson springs to mind.

Joe is sure he is not alone. Since we all have so much respect for Steve White’s work, Joe is confident his readers have noticed White’s frustration with how rookie defensive tackles Gerald McCoy and Brian Price are being used.

Add Joe’s good friend Justin Pawlowski of WDAE-AM 620 to the list. Pawlowski, “The Commissioner,” and host of the popular “Blitz” on Saturday afternoons, isn’t holding back. He believes the Bucs coaching staff is not developing the rookies well at all, so Pawlowski wrote on his blog on the station’s website.

I learned that the coaching staff is not developing the young talent on the team. Over time, young players are supposed to get better. Other than Freeman, who I still think has a long way to go, the young players on the Bucs are not getting better. From Quincy Black to Gerald McCoy to Arrelious Benn to Roy Miller, unless these players get better, the Bucs will not succeed. Typically, teams have veterans to help these young players progress, but the Bucs do not have those veterans, so that puts more pressure on the coaches to develop these players. Around draft time I said that it didn’t matter who the Bucs drafted if they don’t develop them properly. So far, that is holding true.

This is a frightening thought to Joe that all of these solid draft choices won’t get any better. Surely this can’t be the case? If it is, well, it makes Joe very chagrin.

Father Dungy decided to reach across denominational lines today to spread his Word and appeared on the only Yiddish sports radio show Joe is familiar with, “The King David Show,” co-hosted by Shaun King and Toby David on WQYK-AM 1010.

Father Dungy stepped to the pulpit and preached largely about the NFL in general but also gave his blessing to Bucs coach Raheem Morris.

Toby David: Do you see any parallels between the Bucs now and when you first came to the Bucs?

Father Dungy: I do. I like the direction of the building that is going on. They made some good moves in the draft. They are building the team they way they want to build it. We had growing pains too. They are doing some good things with some good building blocks. I like the direction they are going.

Shaun King: They can’t defend the run. At times in Indianapolis, you struggled with the same thing. What can they do to shore that up?

Father Dungy: A lot of that is experience. They have two young tackles. They are between styles. Last year they got away [from the Tampa-2] and now they are reteaching that. All of this will come. I see a lot of guys trying to do too much and not trusting in the system. Some of it is growth. One of the things is needing better players. That will come also.

King: When you got here home game were blacked out. When you left, there was a season ticket waiting list. We have come all the way around. What can the organization do to reconnect with the fans?

Father Dungy: There were two things we wanted to do. When we came here there were 25,000 or 30,000 here at a game. There was one game with the Seattle Seahawks where there were only 25,000 in the stands and the next year when we played Miami you couldn’t get a ticket. Building a winner is part of that and will bring fans in but we wanted to be a part of the community and I challenged the players to be part of a community. The organization and players need to be part of the community.

Raheem Morris has lobbed kudos at his offensive line a couple of times recently, and Davin Joseph, Jeremy Zuttah, and Donald Penn have all been singled out.

Jeremy Trueblood, Keydrick Vincent and Jeff Faine have not drawn the head coach’s public love of late.

It seems Donald Penn gets the highest score among the linemen, as Raheem gave the Bucs’ big investment props last night on The Raheem Morris Show, on WDAE-AM 620.

“Donald Penn is really playing Grade A ball right now,” Raheem said.

Raheem hasn’t pointed fingers any fingers at the running game, simply saying its struggles are from many causes. But it seems to Joe like Raheem leans more towards the rushing attack’s problems being a deficiency at running back rather than along the line. 

JoeBucsFan.com photo by Kyra Hallett

Last year the Bucs special teams was literally keeping them in games and flat out beat the Saints.

This year, it’s a different story.

Micheal Spurlock was supposed to make everyone forget Clifton Smith, who had a strong season in 2009, following his 2008 Pro Bowl effort. Smith and his concussed dome was cut by the Bucs in September, landed in Miami, and was cut by the Dolphins three weeks ago.

The colorful, now environmentally-friendly fellows at PewterReport.com have published a story this afternoon that quotes an anonymous source telling them the Bucs are pursuing Smith.

Joe’s not surprised. Joe shot Smith a Twitter message last night asking him if the Bucs were coming after him. It seemed to make sense with Kareem Huggins going down with an injury.

Smith never replied to Joe, which Joe took as a sign there might be something brewing.

Now some might be thinking, ‘Hey Joe, Smith didn’t respond because he thinks you’re a cartoon-faced idiot.’ This might be true, but Joe highly doubts that, considering Smith is one of the nicest guys around and has always been acocomodating to Joe.

As for bringing him back to the Bucs, Joe’s all for giving him a shot.

One of the coolest sports media people in the Tampa Bay area who sadly happens to work for the most Satanic of media syndicates that is openly hostile to football fans, Victoria Lim of Out House Networks, has penned an interesting story on the Bucs rushing woes.

In short, she writes, per Bucs offensive coordinator Greg Olson, that Cadillac Williams and his 2.5 yards per carry average has not been benched because no one on the roster is better than him.

Olson defended not using Blount and Lumpkin more, sooner.

“We wanted someone to prove they’re better than Cadillac and we haven’t seen it,” Olson said.

In short, Olson notes, per Lim, is that there are many responsibilities that a running back has other than, you know, running the ball.

Now for background, remember that Olson is a Chucky guy, one of the few holdovers from the Chucky era. To this day fans pound their empty beer mugs on the bar in frustration Chucky got rid of Thomas Jones, a running back who still produces yards.

The main reason why Chucky unloaded Jones was that he couldn’t pick up blitzes in order to keep heat off of quarterbacks.

Always remember and never forget that Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman is the franchise. If he goes down, well, Joe doesn’t have to explain how dire things will become.

Right now the absolute No. 1 goal of the Bucs offense is to keep Freeman’s jersey clean. Cadillac can pick up blitzes.

Joe is sure you can complete the rest of this mathematical equation.

Also, in closing, real football fans do not have to be held hostage by Out House Networks. Until they reward the thousands (millions?) of hard-working, honest football fans in the area with the NFL Network, there are other options available for your television viewing pleasure. Let your voice — and wallet — be heard!

As we all know and as Joe has written often, real men have the NFL Network.

"And to think I let him watch the Cowboys with me back in the day ..."

Every family has disrespectful troublemakers. And one in the Raheem Morris clan is no fan of the Bucs.

Joe was stunned to learn yesterday that a relative of Morris launched heinous personal attacks on the Buccaneers organization. It was such an ugly assault that the young man was penalized by the NFL.

It turns out Saints cornerback Malcolm Jenkins, who dished out a flagrant late hit on Josh Freeman’s knee Sunday, is Raheem’s cousin, so said the head coach during The Raheem Morris Show on WDAE-AM 620 Monday.

Jenkins got a personal foul on the play and then another one for throwing a punch at Freeman.

Joe hopes Jenkins will get nothing for Christmas this year from Raheem. Scratch that, Joe thinks a framed Jim Bates would be appropriate.

Like probably every Bucs fan alive, Joe’s a big Mike Williams fan.

Williams continued to show his excellent yards-after-the-catch ability Sunday, and he played through a foot injury and caught four balls. With 23 receptions and three touchdowns on the season, he’s already assured of a very good rookie year, barring a major meltdown.

But, Williams is the Bucs’ No. 1 receiver. And in the telling category of yards per game, among wide receivers Williams ranks 32nd in the league (56.6 ypg.). Considering the Bucs can’t run the ball, this number is a little troubling.

It’s not good enough.

Raheem Morris said Williams is the Bucs go-to receiver during The Raheem Morris Show last night on WDAE-AM 620. Yes, Williams is just a rookie. But if he’s the main man, the Bucs need to get more out of him to keep a winning record.