Trey Wingo, Herm Edwards and Mark Schlereth debate the outcome of the Saints-Bucs tangle.

JoeBucsFan.com photo by Kyra Hallett

Now Joe listens to all the Bucs player shows on WDAE-AM 620 so he can share anything interesting with readers and learn more about the team.

This truly is a public service, since often these shows are about as exciting as a Larry King-Tony Bennett interview, but Aqib Talib’s appearance on Wednesday night was a little entertaining. Talib’s voice is unique, and he kept it real talking to callers.

Some highlights:

Talib is very concerned about his swag, and other players’ swag. His pink breast-cancer-awareness socks got a hole in them against the Bengals, and Talib isn’t sure he’ll get a replacement pair before the Bucs wear their pink accessories again against New Orleans.

When it comes to cornerbacks, you could hear in his voice that Talib is awe of the film he’s watched of Deion Sanders.

“Deion just had that unnatural speed that covered up anything you wanted to cover up. But then on top of that he had technique,” Talib said. “So I mean, you rarely see people who could do it all. Deion to me, in my eyes, he was one of the few corners in the league that could do it all.”

On his teammates, Talib said Cody Grimm let down the secondary with a weak touchdown celebration. “We gotta work on his swag.” And Talib said after three touchdowns Mike Williams needs some much better endzone swag, as well.

Talib talked about he craves going up against the best receivers in the game. And Talib gave a very humble answer when asked what personal goals he has for the season. Pro Bowl? Number of picks? “I always just want to be better than the previous year in every respect,” he said.

Raheem Morris took a break out of his busy day earlier this week readying the Bucs for their game this Sunday with the defending Super Bowl champions to appear on perhaps the only Yiddish sports radio show Joe has heard of, “The King David Show,” with former Bucs quarterback Shaun King and Toby David heard locally on WQYK-AM 1010.

Shaun King: I was one of the only ones who was waving the Bucs flag saying you could be successful this year.

Raheem Morris: Don’t worry Shaun, you are one of us.

King: What is the difference this year?

Morris: The guys in the building. They are dedicated. We wanted to play together, grow together. We are not there yet but the confidence is helping us. We are getting there. We feel good about it.

Toby David: There’s a lot of negativity from the media and the fans. How do you silence the critics?

Morris: We haven’t done that yet. We are young, humble and keep fighting. We are not worried about the critics. I pride myself in not listening to the critics. We do it our way which is the best for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

King: You speak of your youth movement. You have a young quarterback. Tell us about Josh.

Morris: He is young. You don’t want to get ahead of yourself. He’s done a great job of what he has been able to do. He is wise and he is clutch but you have to continue to grow and get better every week. Once you say you have it, that’s when you don’t. His leadership role is coming out more and more every week. He is demanding more from his receivers and his teammates and that is the process you have to go through to be great.

King: What Bucs fans would like to know is how you were able to get Mike Williams [so late in the draft]? Tell us about Mike Williams.

Morris: He has done a good job. Got to give credit to the scouting department, Dennis Dickey and Doug Williams was around at the time, and Mark Dominik. They did the research and they did the digging. I also give a lot of credit to [Williams] for letting us get that personal and let us dig like that. But he has put himself into position to be successful. I am very high on him. He works hard every week but we have to continue to push him.

King: I know you have a couple of rookie tackles and it’s hard for rookie tackles. Ndamukong Suh was drafted right before Gerald McCoy. Suh has 18 tackles. McCoy and Brian Price have combined for nine. How hard has it been for those two to get acclimated?

Morris: Winning is part of that. If you aren’t winning, you are more worried about stats. Price came on slower because of his hamstring injury but he is coming on and getting stronger. They will take us to the new millennium of this Tampa-2 defense. It’s exciting where we can go with them.

King: The run defense is 30th in the league. How do you get better?

Morris: Practice. We have to go every single day and work at it. Look who is running the ball on us. Look at our gap. What is hurting us is giving up huge running plays and not being explosive on offense. Those are some things we have to get better at.

King: You have two white guys starting at safety Sunday. We need a nickname for them. How about “Bruise Brothers” and you dress them up in hats and all black and sunglasses?

Morris: [Laughs] Cody had a splash play. He’s doing some good things. I’ll let you guys come up with the nicknames. I loved how Sabby has been able to bounce back but we want him to play better. I’m looking forward to the effort I am getting from my young football team.

The Bucs went from super healthy to Sean Jones missing a game, Jeff Faine out a month, and a bunch of other guys are now banged up.

Woody Cummings, of The Tampa Tribune, chronicled the wounded. You can catch his full story here.

Morris said that in addition to Faine, who will miss several weeks, Moore and Mack were the players most in danger of missing Sunday’s game.

Tim Crowder or Michael Bennett would replace Moore while rookie Myron Lewis likely would replace Mack on the game-day roster.

Frankly, Joe thinks more Crowder and Bennett would be a very good thing.

As for Lewis, Raheem puts him on his “ascending players” list, but Joe would prefer to see him get his first significant action in another game. Joe can imagine the drool dripping off Drew Brees with rookies Cody Grimm and Lewis in the secondary.

Three Saints beat writers gathered and churned out a very intelligent video take on the Saints-Bucs game.

Among the highlights, these guys explain why the Saints are “much less of a threat and “aren’t going to forget” about the crushing loss to the Bucs in New Orleans last December.

Unless you’ve got star talent or a massive contract, it’s easy to lose your role on an NFL team when you get hurt.

Essentially, that’s what happened to Maurice Stovall. He went from depth-chart starter early in the preseason to a guy who missed a ton of time with a bad ankle.

Stovall caught more balls from Josh Freeman than any other Bucs wide receiver last year, but now he’s fighting to get a helmet on.

That’s football.

Tom Balog, Sarasota Herald-Tribune beat writer, takes Stovall’s plight a giant step further. In a long feature story, Balog writes the Bucs have all but given up on him.

He’s been healthy for three weeks now, but inactive for Tampa Bay’s last two games and three of the four this season. He had no catches in his only appearance in the road win at Carolina.

You see, the Buccaneers have already moved on without Stovall, who was third-round draft pick in 2006 that has underachieved his entire career. He has 44 career receptions and two touchdowns in 45 games, only 10 starts.

 The depth chart at wide receiver, where everybody is getting playing time except Stovall, tells you as much.

Joe really can’t go there yet with Stovall. It’s only four games into the season. Way to early.

But it’s pretty obvious that Stovall is not going to be ahead of Sammie Strougther, “ascending” Arrelious Benn and Mike Williams anytime soon. And Micheal Spurlock is making big plays.

Stovall’s the odd man out — for now. Remember, the Bucs love his work ethic.

The NFL Network’s Total Access gang of Rich Eisen, Daryl Johnston and Rod Woodson discuss if the Bucs are for real or not in this NFL Network video.

Johnson seems to be a bit skeptical. Woodson isn’t exactly drinking the Kool-Aid yet but he’s intrigued. He believes the Bucs “statement game” is fast approaching.

Watch the video and let Joe know your thoughts on the trio’s observations.

No Reggie Bush. No Pierre Thomas. And the Saints are on back-to-back road games.

On top of that, the Saints are struggling at 3-2.

What a lucky time to get the Saints, if there is such a thing? The football gods are shining on Raheem Morris.

If you’re wondering what the heck is wrong with the Saints and how they could lose to a rookie quarterback in Arizona last week, Joe suggests you check out this intense Times-Picayune look at the Saints’ troubles.

Turnovers and field goals are to blame, Payton asserted. The latter rear their stunted head in the team’s red zone performance. Normally a strong suit for the Saints during Payton’s tenure, the team has slipped to 24th in the NFL, scoring a touchdown only 36.8 percent of the time on trips inside the 20-yard line. The Saints have more field goals, eight, on such drives than they do touchdowns, seven.

Unfortunately, the culprits are more readily identified than rectified. While the Saints’ accomplished roster does not require a return to square one, Payton said there would be additional emphasis this week on fundamentals such as ball security in the red zone. That could mean spirited practices, especially on Friday when the first team offense and first team defense go full-speed, full-contact in red zone drills.

There’s a lot more to the story. Again, Joe suggests you check it out. Good stuff.

For Joe, absolutely the best news for the Bucs is the putrid Saints running game, led by Ladell Betts (good four years ago) and fumbling rookie Chris Ivory, and now newly signed Julius Jones (good four years ago, too).

Joe doesn’t expect the Bucs’ rushing defense to get fixed in a hurry, but there’s no Cedric Benson on the other side this week.

The gorgeous Jenny Dell of BSPN breaks down the Saints-Bucs game this weekend. It’s easy to see from this video how Jenny became a cheerleader at UMass.

There’s a quote running wild on the Internet and on talk radio that has morphed into the Bucs officially saying they don’t expect to sell out a home playoff game.

This really isn’t so. Here’s the original quote in The Tampa Tribune:

But it doesn’t end there, because team officials are bracing for blackouts of every home Bucs game.

“We are expecting a blackout for this (the Saints game) and the remaining slate of home games,” Bucs director of communications Jonathan Grella said. “Obviously, it’s a challenge we’ve been facing for awhile now.”

Grella said the team’s sales department is “understanding of the pace of ticket sales” and projected that the Bucs’ remaining home games will not sell out.

Joe read this initially and saw it as being very straightforward, simply meaning the Bucs are so far from selling out games with the current numbers of season tickets plus the pace of single-game sales, that it’s obvious it’ll take more than, say, a 6-4 record to fill the stadium.

The quote doesn’t say the Bucs don’t think they can sell out a playoff game.

In Joe’s opinion, the Bucs would have no problem selling out a playoff game following this season.

First, it would a miraculous football story of epic proportions if the Bucs made the playoffs, let alone get a home game. Second, there likely would be plenty of visiting team fans gobbling up those playoff tickets, unless the Bucs played a West Coast team.

Mark Dominik gave an exclusive interview to NFL Radio on Wednesday, only transcribed right here by Joe, and Dominik explained that he’s transitioned from his Jimmy Johnson phase into his Tony Dungy phase.

Mark Dominik: Let’s be honest, we are 3-1 and we played some close games. But one thing we all attribute this success is that we have been building chemistry on this football team. That is how we tried to build the football team. I had a Jimmy Johnson philosophy in changing the roster around and making some hard decisions. Before, we were claiming guys off of practice squads. We have now set ourselves up into what I call the Tony Dungy philosophy in that we will go all young and grow together.

Now this made Joe laugh a bit. Joe’s not sure what “philosophy” Mark Dominik’s past mistakes came under, but that doesn’t matter now. The Bucs are 3-1. Josh Freeman is for real. And Dominik is a budding rock star on the NFL front office circuit for his two drafts.

So Joe has to wonder what philosophy is next?

If the Bucs manage to go 8-8, a tremendous achievement for their talent level and experience, does that mean Dominik would then turn to a get-over-the-hump, get-a-few-premier-free-agents philosophy? And try to accelerate a Super Bowl march with a mix of “ascending players,” as Raheem Morris likes to call them, and established stars?

Surely, Team Glazer remembers its glory years of stockpiling studs and paying a steep price for them, in draft picks and/or cash. It paid off with the ultimate prize and a packed stadium.

For now, Joe just hopes a new philosophy is in play at the end of the season. That would mean the Bucs finished the season strong.

Father Dungy, along with Rodney Harrison and Dull Patrick, discuss the past weekend’s winners in this NBCSports.com video. Father Dungy picks Raheem Morris as his winner.

The first punter didn’t work out, 2010 sixth round pick Brent Bowden.

Then Australian rookie Chris Bryan got cut after Sunday’s win in Cincinnati.

Now the 3-1 Bucs turn to Robert Malone, another rookie, who didn’t stick with Jacksonville after the preseason.

Joe’s not surprised that the Australian guy got cut. He was struggling. Plus, master communicator Raheem Morris couldn’t seem to bond with the guy after they chatted following Bryan’s poor outing against the Steelers.

 “He gave me that accent. I didn’t really know what was going on. I kinda told him I’d talk to him Monday,” Morris half-joked during a bye week news conference.

Mark Dominik snagged Connor Barth on his third try to land a kicker. And Barth has been extraordinary, so Joe has faith this Malone guy will pan out.

Last time the Saints came to the CITS, it marked the end of the heinous Jim Bates Experiment.

When the Saints come marching in Sunday, it may just bring a tear to Joe’s eye. For the last time the Cajuns arrived at the CITS, it marked the end of a hideous Bucs era and may have been the turning point into the winning (?) team the Bucs have become.

Sure, there are 12 more games yet to play, so it’s premature to say the Bucs will have a winning record this season.

If they do, they can point to a man Joe went to college with — New Orleans coach Sean Payton – and his quarterback Drew Brees for helping turn the Bucs into winners, as explained by eye-RAH! Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune as he posted on the TBO Bucs Twitter feed.

The last time the Saints came to town, they administered a 38-7 beating that prompted head coach Raheem Morris to take over the defense.

Raheem Morris taking over the Bucs defense meant the end of the heinous Jim Bates Experiment, the worst era of defensive football in the sometimes sordid Bucs franchise history. Under the jailbreak that was the heinous Jim Bates Experiment, the Bucs set a record for most games (six) giving up 25 or more points in a season.

After the Saints left that day, Morris shortly thereafter defrocked Bates of his title as Bucs defensive coordinator.

Since, in 10 games, only the Jets and Steelers have scored 25 or more points against the Bucs.

So nice job, Payton. Nice job, Brees. You helped make the Bucs into the team they are today. Bravo!

Now lose Sunday!

The Bucs’ offensive linemen are a competitive bunch, so says Donald Penn.

No, Penn was not referring to competitive eating.

In the weight room, it’s Jeremy Trueblood and Jeremy Zuttah leading the way with an unwillingness to be outmuscled by teammates, Penn told a fan caller into the Total Access access show on WDAE-AM 620 Monday.

“”Trueblood is such a big competitor. He wants to lift the most out of everybody. And if you lift more than him, he will not let you hear the end of it,” Penn said. “Don’t get Zuttah involved because Zuttah thinks he’s the strongest person in the world. He’s the same way. …We hold each other to a high standard.”

Penn went on to heap more praise on Zuttah for his work ethic and subsequent success at center filling in for Jeff Faine in Cincinnati. ((Hmmm. Joe recalls a certain Web-only publication, behind the security blanket of paid content,  painting Zuttah as a lazy slug this summer.))

Penn went on to name his three toughest defensive ends in the league: Dwight Freeney, DeMarcus Ware and John Abraham.

But Penn, who said he’s “always talking to the other team” keeps his constantly running mouth shut around those guys.

“I love to trash talk because I feel it puts me in my zone. It loosens me up. It gets me going. It relaxes me, too, ” Penn said. “I love to talk trash, especially when the guy can’t do nothing about it. …Oh, no. I don’t talk trash to [Abraham]. I try to keep it cool. I pick and choose my battles.”

Joe can only imagine that as a proud instigator, Penn must have endured an incredible barrage of fat jokes last season. Goodness. 

Penn went on to say the Bucs’ O-line has been preparing for the Saints and their complex blitz packages since the offseason. … He also said they did the same type of prep for the Steelers.

Hats off to Roy Miller for calling the Bucs’ run defense as he sees it.

The Bucs’ rushing defense was miserable the last two weeks, and Miller told St. Pete Times beat writer Rick Stroud he finds it offensive.

“I cannot speak for everybody. I had two mistakes that make me sick,” defensive tackle Roy Miller said. “I gave up a couple yards on the two plays I made my mistakes on. Just as a defense, as a unit, we’ve got to pick it up and find a way to stop then.

“It’s disgusting. Just to know I had a part in that, that’s disgusting to me. Like I said, I had my mistakes, I had two bad plays. One is enough. When you have inconsistent play here and there, it adds up. It’s not that we don’t have the guys or the talent, we’ve just got to find a way to get it done.”

The Bucs are ranked 30th in the NFL against the run and No. 9 in pass defense.

Joe loves the accountability by Miller, who had even more to say. The talk is nice, but can it be fixed this season? Joe suspects that it will take quite a bit of time to turn around the run defense. Thankfully, the Bucs have time before they play the Falcons.

The FOX football gang of Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan and Jimmy Johnson discuss the Bucs’ success and, specifically, the development of Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman in this FoxSports.com video.

It doesn’t take a guy running around with a white cane to see that Bucs rookie wide receiver Mike Williams is a helluva player. Even Joe can tell.

Well, just how good of a rookie is Williams? eye-RAH! Kaufman, of the Tampa Tribune, has some evidence, as he posted on the TBO Bucs Twitter feed just how solid of an NFL start Williams has had.

According to the Bucs, 27 WRs were drafted in 2010. Tampa Bay’s Mike Williams has 3 TD catches — the other 26 have combined for 1.

That’s pretty damned impressive. Joe can’t imagine what Williams will be like with Freeman in, say, two years.

Now if the Bucs can only get a decent running back in the draft soon.

Bucs general manager Mark Dominik made an appearance this morning on “The Opening Drive” for a lengthy interview with co-hosts Ross Tucker and Peter King, heard exclusively on Sirius NFL Radio.

Naturally, Joe transcribed the interview.

Peter King: I will come forward with what I thought of your team before the season which I am sure is great fun for the people in Tampa, that you would take your lumps and you would get your team well-positioned for the future by [losing] and be in a position for a good draft choice next year. And I have been made a total fool of by Raheem Morris and Josh Freeman and that your team is now winning and your team is more feisty than anyone ever would have heard of,  and a guy like Michael Spurlock who nobody every heard of makes a great play on a catch on the sidelines to set up a winning field goal… where were all of us so wrong?

Mark Dominik: Let’s be honest, we are 3-1 and we played some close games. But one thing we all attribute this success is that we have been building chemistry on this football team. That is how we tried to build the football team. I had a Jimmy Johnson philosophy in changing the roster around and making some hard decisions. Before, we were claiming guys off of practice squads. We have now set ourselves up into what I call the Tony Dungy philosophy in that we will go all young and grow together.

Ross Tucker: I thought you would take your lumps with the rookies you drafted at wide receiver and defensive tackle because those positions are so hard to learn. Are you surprised you have had this much success this year?

Dominik: I know it’s a lot to ask [to win with young players]. Our quarterback doesn’t have 16 starts. We tried to look at leadership and the maturity of kids we have taken. Cody Grimm, for example, is a great kid. He’s very mature and he takes football so seriously. What he did last week, I was not surprised because those are the type of kids we are going after. That is why we are in the position where are.

King: He had a rough day when the Steelers came to town but you knew he had the personality a tough day wasn’t going to ruin him.

Dominik: That’s right. But if you look at the film of Cody in that game, sure [getting turned around by Mike Wallace] was a bad play. But after that play, he played a decent game. So you want to build on that. You want him to brush that [Wallace] play off and he is the type of kid that will do that.

King: What a fantastic play he made on Carson Palmer last week, baiting him and baiting him and he waited and waited and waited.

Dominik: It was a coaching move to make it look like it was a Tampa-2 set and [Grimm] held his water and broke at the right time. It was a great move by Cody which gave us some wind in our sail.

Tucker: Can you explain the logic of trading for Kellen Winslow and signing him to such a contact? Barrett Ruud has not gotten a contract extension. I know each player is unique but what are some of the factors?

Dominik: When I spoke with Raheem about building a football team, tight end is a high percentage completion. For us to get a tight end like Kellen was a great opportunity. No matter who the quarterback is, good teams through the years have a very good tight end. Dallas had Jay Novacek. The Giants had Mark Bavaro. You name it. So when I traded for Kellen, I thought it was a sizable investment with the draft picks we gave up for him and I wanted to keep him around. I hope I make the good decisions on who gets the long-term contracts and it is fair for everybody.

King: The most interesting story on draft day was what you did in the fourth round on Mike Williams. I can’t tell you how many people’s jaws dropped that you did that, so many people, I’d say two-thirds of the teams, maybe more, had him off their draft boards because of his problems at Syracuse. Very few teams went to investigate him to the level you looked at the kid. But you believed in him when you did your research. What did you see in him as a person that it was a safe pick?

Dominik: When we watched the tape, we were convinced of his talent. We couldn’t let one or two things keep us away. Did he have a DUI or a violent [arrest]? No. We went back to his junior high school coach. We spent a ton of time to get a feeling on him. Those conversations gave us confidence to draft him and he’s a wonderful guy and we are pleased to have him.

Tucker: What does a general manager do during the week, what do you do today?

Dominik: I watch college tape. We got new film in, which is always exciting, and then I will look at tape of one or two free agents [to be] on other teams. Mondays I look at our game tape. You can never be a good football man if you don’t know your own football team. So today, I’ll watch a little bit of college tape and do a little bit of research on free agents on pro tapes and then I’ll watch our practice.

King: Cadillac Williams, he has not been productive this year. You have had some road blocks running the ball. How do you fix it?

Dominik: With Cadillac, we brought in [LeGarrette] Blount and [Kregg] Lumpkin and we have to get those guys up to speed. We may have put a lot of weight on Caddy’s shoulders and in this day of the NFL , you should not have one guy carry the load. Part of it was, I think we put too much weight on Cadillac. We need to distribute the wealth and I’m thinking you will see that with our football team.

King: Josh Freeman, tell us about that story about him coming into your office this spring. Can you repeat that story and how that translates into him being a leader?

Dominik: Back in February, I’m looking out the window and I’m on the phone talking with one of our owners, Joel Glazer, who called to talk football and I said, “You will be happy to know Josh is throwing balls to receivers.’ And Joel said, ‘Shouldn’t they all be?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, they should be, but he is.’ It shows how he wants to be a leader. Josh put in a phenomenal offseason, he never missed a day. He calls the wide receivers to come in and throw more. Even Sammie Stroughter called me one day and asked if he should fly in from Oregon and if there was anyone around to throw balls to him. That’s what I like to see. Josh is also a good closer for us in games. it’s very exciting.

King: Gerald McCoy and Brian Price, you surprised a lot of people that with all of your needs, you went defensive tackle and very heavy at one position. I saw Price getting carted off. What is his status?

Dominik: Gerald has played well but he does not have a lot of stats to show for it. There were plays where Kyle Moore made a tackle or a sack and Gerald was getting double- or triple-teamed. That’s the kind of production we are looking for, he’s taking double-teams. I’m very excited about how Gerald is learning how hard it is to play in the NFL at defensive tackle. You are freaking held all the time.

King: I think the Bucs are one of the best stories in the league, by far. Who would have thought that on October 17 that the Super Bowl champion Saints would travel to Tampa and the Bucs would have a better record than the Saints? It’s the theatre of the absurd but it’s why we love the NFL, we never know what will happen. I was mind boggled the Steelers came to Tampa and it was not sold out. I was mind boggled that on Monday there was an announcement that the game will not be sold out. Tell me why in your mind you are not getting to generate the buzz on your team. It is people fell out of love with pro football or it is the economy?

Dominik: The NFL is at an all-time high as far as viewership. The Rays struggled with the same thing this year and sadly, they just lost their series last night. The unemployment down here is at 12 percent. We are not disappointed in our fan base. It’s just the economy. We are a tourist industry so when people don’t have the money to enjoy our beautiful beaches or come here for the weather or our parks, it really hurts our economy and it costs a lot of jobs.

King: Is it disheartening to the team?

Dominik: It’s not disheartening to the players. They hear the crowd. The fans step it up. Our fans are loud. We are excited for those who can come to the games. I know it’s early in the season.

Tucker: If you get rid of Ronde, you will be the youngest team in the league.

Dominik: (laughs) We are keeping him around so long as he intercepts the ball.

King: He is amazing. I admire him so much.

Dominik: He is amazing and his next interception will No. 40.

Former Bucs QB Jeff Carlson

By JEFF CARLSON
JoeBucsFan.com analyst

Former Bucs quarterback Jeff Carlson (1990 & 1991) writes The QB Blast column here at JoeBucsFan.com. Joe is ecstatic to have him firing away. Carlson is often seen as a color analyst on Bright House Sports Network, and he trains quarterbacks of all ages locally via his company, America’s Best Quarterback.

Let’s give the coordinators of the offense and defense some credit for the Bucs’ winning record.

While it isn’t perfect on either side of the ball by any means, there have been a few standout designs or calls that have given Bucs players opportunities to make plays. And the great news is, the players have stepped up and made the plays to make the difference.

A few weeks back against the Carolina Panthers, in their first division game and on the road, Ronde Barber had his second interception in as many games and got the deserved credit for always being in the right place. But Raheem Morris must get much of the credit for that critical interception because it was the design of the coverage that had Barber had in the right place at the right time.

Carolina came to the line in a three-receiver “bunch” group to the right side. As a quarterback, I’ve never liked the bunch look much, simply because it gives the defense too much power to disguise blitzes and/or coverage. The Bucs dialed up something I hadn’t seen before and, with the outcome of the play, probably something Matt Moore hadn’t seen either.

As the receivers came off the line and scattered in different directions as usual (seam, curl and flat), Tanard Jackson, who started in the regular safety position for a Cover 2 look (deep in the seam), faded all the way outside to the flat area. Aqib Talib faded back from his outside flat space and covered the  curl from behind. Ronde started the play faking a blitz and dropped back as the underneath and inside defender, holding the seam as Jackson went wide. The backside safety also gave Ronde help deep over the top, allowing him to sneak outside to the curl.

Moore was right to think that the curl would be open–and he would have been if Barber stayed with the seam route. But that help from the other safety allowed Barber to jump in front of the curl in what may have been one of the easiest interceptions of his career.

The “cool” design that allowed Barber to once again be in the right place at the right time needs to be recognized. Most defensive coordinators get famous for designing up blitzes and create big pressure to confuse blocking schemes and cause quarterbacks havoc before they throw the ball. This single coverage shift isn’t like designing the “46” Defense that made Buddy Ryan famous, or the Tampa 2 that Tony Dungy and Monte Kiffin put on the map, but there aren’t that many opportunities to see a coverage that confuses the QB so that he throws the ball right into the chest of the defender. 

Ronde gets the stat added to his illustrious career, but give the defensive coordinator the assist on that one. 

On Sunday, Cody Grimm evened the score against the Bengals by taking his first career pick “to the house” because Morris designed up a look that had his safety close to the line of scrimmage at the snap and immediately after the snap had him turn and sprint to the flat, where Carson Palmer thought he would have a safe completion with no underneath coverage.

Normally, a linebacker is out in the curl area and squared up to the quarterback, so he just throws to the outside of the LB, but the Bucs covered it with a safety that was out of position at the snap. By sprinting to the spot and turning around at the right time, it allowed him to steal the pass and score.  Again, this credit has to be shared between player and coordinator.

On the offensive side, there is much to be concerned about with pass protection and blitz recognition by Josh Freeman.

Beating the blitz by throwing it up deep is great when it works, but is a low percentage proposition in general. The Bucs will certainly need to be better prepared to address quick pressure, and Freeman needs to recognize when there is one too many blitzers than there are blockers. They got away with a few balls that spent too much time in the air as Freeman got pressured from different angles.

What I liked was the “Dig” call to Mike Williams that resulted in a wide-open catch (even though the ball floated in the middle of the field) that would have set up a score if Williams didn’t fumble. This was a very good changeup after his success outside. It is great to know the Bucs have a guy that will go up, fight for and win the ball, but this can’t be the plan week in and week out.

This coming week will be very interesting to see how the Saints defense decides to attack the issue and how the Bucs’ week of practice time was used to fix the problem. 

The Saints have to be getting a bit nervous over their average start, while the Bucs can play with confidence over their unexpectedly hot start, but I think New Orleans will bring the pressure again this Sunday and make the Bucs prove that they can make the big plays when they count once again.

Let’s hope both coordinators have another little wrinkle up their sleeves to stop the defending World Champions.

Boy, if the Bucs can beat the Saints (who are playing more like the Aints) this Sunday, the bandwagon is going to fill up. “The Professor,” John Clayton, is already chugging the Bucs Kool-Aid as he gushes in this BSPN video about Josh Freeman and Mike Williams.