In a million years Joe never would have thought he’d be nervous because Ryan Sims was going to miss a game. But that’s where Joe finds himself just a few hours before the start of iced cold beer time on this lovely Friday.

The Bucs announced today that Sims is out for Sunday, along with Jeff Faine, Jeremy Trueblood and Earnest Graham.

Brian Price is done for the year. Sims is on the shelf. Kyle Moore is a waste rushing inside. And the Bucs might rely on newcomer Alex Magee heavily in Atlanta, and possibly a little bit from defensive tackle Al Woods, who found his way to Tampa this week. Woods was a fourth-round pick in 2010 by the Saints but didn’t make the team.

Don’t worry too much, at least Barrett Ruud is patrolling the middle to help stuff the run. Oh, uhhh, skip that.

In his Passing On The Game blog, former Bucs DE Steve White shares a few thoughts on this new development along the D-line.

It’s kind of ironic because I was just talking about why the loss of Brian Price to IR was so big the other day and now that Sims is going to be out people will get to see what I mean. That’s not a knock on Alex Magee though. Actually I don’t know much about him and I couldn’t say how he will fit in with our defense until he gets some snaps. But I would say its pretty damn scary when you think about the fact that he and Al Woods now make up the second team defensive tackles even though neither have taken a snap for Tampa and both were recently learning how to play in a 3-4 rather than a 4-3 defense.

And yes, it DEFINITELY matters.

I don’t know if both Magee and Woods will be up but even if they are I have a hard time believing that Woods would be able to learn the playbook quick enough to be ready to play meaningful snaps for the Bucs on Sunday. Magee on the other hand has been here for a few weeks so he should at least have some of it down pat. Its not like Sims was necessarily a world beater either but at least he knew where he was supposed to be on every play.

As for missing Trueblood and Faine for the second game in a row, Joe is very pleased that the O-line that had success in Arizona — Donald Penn, Ted Larsen, Jeremy Zuttah, Davin Joseph, James Lee — will get another shot together.

Joe believes they earned it, and trotting out a banged up Faine and/or Trueblood serves no purpose in the eighth game of the season.

If the Bucs continue to be successful along the O-line, Joe wonders if Trueblood and Faine would be accept backup roles in a team-first way.

Pat Kirwan and Josh Horowitz take a look at the Bucs-Falcons game for the lead in the NFC South in this CBSSports.com video.

The Bucs are 5-2. In many football crazy towns, this would be cause for shutting down businesses. This season in Tampa Bay, the Bucs’ winning ways have been met with yawning, skeptical raised eyebrows and blacked outgames.

In another rare video appearance by vaunted Tampa Tribune columnist Martin Fennelly, he and his colleague eye-RAH! Kaufman discuss in this TBO Bucs vlog why Bucsmania has not overtaken Tampa Bay.

One the main reasons for the Bucs’ upswing this season has been the lights out play of Bucs rookie receiver Mike Williams.

Some suggest Williams is a leading candidate for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, and Joe certainly cannot disagree.

But if Joe had to take an educated guess, that award will go to St. Louis quarterback Sam Bradford. Dude is getting it done and he has absolutely no one to throw the ball to. Guys off of the street. Glorified UFL receivers.

But hold on, says Peter King of Sports Illustrated. He Twittered this morning that, while he believes the award is Bradford’s to lose, King, if the season ended today, would vote for Pittsburgh offensive lineman Maurkice Pouncey.

@MPCharles25: Any shot of maurkice pouncey as Off. ROY?

@SI_PeterKing: Very little, because Bradford’s been so good. But MP’s my midseason OROY.

Joe never thought of Pouncey, but yeah, he’s playing well.

Would Joe like to see Williams get the award? Sure. But if the Bucs somehow make the playoffs, Joe’s guessing that Williams will instead be comforted by his playoff bonus.

Oh, and yesterday, Joe tried to post a video of Peter King talking about the top teams in the NFC this has him specifically mentioning the Bucs. For some reason the video is having issues but here’s a link to view it.

Listening to Raheem Morris at his news conference yesterday, it almost sounded like the coach views Arrelious Benn as more of a deep threat than fellow rookie Mike Williams, who’s on pace for a 1,000-yard season.

Morris talked about Freeman’s 53-yard bomb to Benn in Arizona being the No. 1 option on that play and that Benn is suited for that kind of call.

“[In college,] he made big plays with his speed. You know, I forget what his 40 time was, but he certainly plays faster than that,” Morris said. “He plays bigger than he is. He plays strong and powerful. In this game, big men usually win a lot of battles.”

Joe expects the Bucs to look a lot more for the homerun shot against the Falcons. Atlanta is 27th in the league against the pass, with Carson Palmer carving them up for 412 yards in their last game and Kevin Kolb for 326 before that.

As Joe has written before, just the mere presence of LeGarrette Blount changes the Bucs’ whole offensive philosophy.

Adam Schein has recently been sighted trying to board the Bucs bandwagon. In this FoxSports.com video, Schein discusses how the Bucs will fare in this edition of Cosmic Schein.

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video/?vid=a65df960-e6f2-48e8-adf4-b95e334f2d42&#038;from=IV2_en-us_foxsports_videocentral_player" target="_new" title="Cosmic Schein: NFL Picks">Video: Cosmic Schein: NFL Picks</a>

The entertaining D. Orlando Ledbetter, of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, churned out a story that details Matt Ryan’s struggles against the Buccaneers.

In the four games, he has an average quarterback rating of 61.05 and has thrown six interceptions against two touchdowns. Tampa Bay has also sacked him six times.

“To me, it’s not a surprise that they are leading the league in interceptions,” Ryan said. … … 

Ryan doesn’t think the Bucs have his number.

“These guys have been in that system for a long time. Ronde Barber specifically has been in it for a long time,” Ryan said. “He understands what he needs to do and is really good at it. I feel like we have a good feel for what they do.”

Joe doesn’t expect the Bucs to have some sort of defensive epiphany on Sunday. Joe expects Atlanta to say ‘open wide’ to the Bucs and run Michael Turner and Jason Snelling down their throats.

Turnovers, Josh Freeman and LeGarrette Blount are surely what will lead the Bucs to victory, if they win.

In theory, players go out and play their absolute best — mentally and physically — on every play.

In reality, that doesn’t happen. So players need motivation, coaching and everthing possible to help them achieve maximum performance.

eye-RAH! Kaufman, the Tampa Tribune NFL writer, penned a story today that takes on the topic of Raheem inciting Bucs opponents with his “best in the NFC” comment. Among other things, Kaufman dredged up one of the great Warren Sapp quotes of all time.

The Panthers stirred up controversy with the Bucs in 2003 when Brentson Buckner declared teammate Kris Jenkins was a better defensive tackle than Warren Sapp, saying, “Kris can revolutionize the position. Sapp did it, but Kris is a new breed.”

Sapp’s reply to Buckner?

“Don’t throw rocks at the throne.”

Seven years later, Morris finds himself in Atlanta’s crosshairs.

“We’re always bringing up the bulletin-board stuff … that’s like a myth,” Morris said Thursday. “I’ve never seen Ronde Barber play harder because somebody said something negative about him. Your Sunday game day comes from within — it has nothing to do with what somebody said about you.”

As for Morris calling the bulletin board stuff a “myth,” Joe doesn’t buy it. That stuff matters on some level. It shouldn’t, but it does.

Considering Ronde Barber himself has talked about how naysayers on and off the field have motivated him through his career, Joe buys Raheem’s comment even less.

Pat Kirwan, a former NFL personnel executive and now a superanalyst for NFL.com and NFL Radio, is head over heels on the Josh Freeman bandwagon, but he’s not going there yet with the Bucs.

Talking Bucs football on 770AM in Fort Myers on Wednesday, Kirwan shared his Freeman love and opinion on the Bucs’ playoff chances.

“The quarterback is ridiculously good for a young kid,” Kirwan said. “Half Ben Roethlisberger half Warren Moon. He’s got that Ben thing about him breakin’ tackles lookin’ deep. And that’s how he wins these games late with all these fourth quarter comebacks. And he’s got the compusure of Warren. He’s not emotional. He’s very cold-blooded in the way he handles his opponent. I think his teammates start to play like him, which is great stuff.”

Despite Freeman, Kirwan said the Bucs just don’t measure up to the Saints and Falcons.

“Atlanta will run the ball. And that’s the problem team when it comes to [the Bucs’] run defense,”Kirwan said. “Can the Bucs put 32, 33 points on the board in a head-to-head matchup with the Saints?”

The NFC South with have a 10-win Wild Card team, Kirwan says, and he gives the Eages the second Wild Card with nine wins.

Joe’s not going to quibble with Kirwan and say the Bucs are better than the Falcons or Saints, but it seems Kirwan may not realize the Bucs have five very winnable games on their schedule — @San Francisco, Carolina, Detroit, Seattle, @Washington.

If the Bucs take four of those five games, that might be enough to give them the tiebreaker edge with a 9-7 Eagles team.

Joe’s put this off for too long.

During the Cardinals-Bucs broadcast on Sunday, the announcers said that one of Earnest Graham’s close relatives — Joe’s 99 percent sure it was his mother — is gravely ill and he had been dealing with that.

Graham was not practicing today at Tropicana Field, per TBO.com. And while Graham has been nursing a hamstring injury, Joe hopes he’s not out dealing with more pressing family concerns.

Joe wants to send his best wishes to Graham and his family.

Graham has always been very accomodating of Joe and Graham may be the most active in charitable activities among all Buccaneers. Graham spends his share of time helping in the Tampa Bay area, and around Fort Myers where he grew up. They even named a street for him down there after a resident unknown to Graham peititioned the city to make it happen.

Joe just wants to shoot his best wishes to Graham.

Joe’s been concerned about the secrecy surrounding Brian Price’s hip/pelvis injury that got Price placed on injured reserve and ended his rookie season.

From Joe’s experience, thin information released publicly usually means a serious problem.

So Joe was pleased to hear Buccaneers Radio Network host TJ Rives interviewed today and say that Price wanted to play and was pushing Bucs officials to get on the field. Rives made the comment during the Fabulous Sports Babe Show on 1040 AM.

Rives went on to say the Bucs shut him down and he hadn’t heard of any long term concern.

This obviously sets back Price’s development; he needs the reps. But Joe’s glad to hear somewhat positive news about Price.

Aside from Joe pining for Rachel Watson, Joe so looks forward to Thursday when Joe can gawk at the gorgeous Jenny Dell and hear her babble about football in a BSPN video.

So imagine Joe’s sheer horror this morning when he clicked on the BSPN link to await Jenny’s features when Jon Anik appears. To quote Tony Bruno, “This is an outrage!”

But Joe is dedicated to bring Bucs fans Bucs news. So now, you can listen to watch Anik spout statistical mumbojumbo.

Joe remembers the days of Father Dungy, when fans at the CITS drank twice as many (or more) beers than the Bucs made first downs.

It was neanderthal football. Sid Luckman rolled in his grave. It was nearly irresponsible football, asking the great Bucs defense to both shut out the opposing team, and try to score points.

Bucs linebacker Barrett Ruud knows there is a lot of pressure on the Bucs defense. So he could breath a sigh of relief when he saw what could be a glimpse of the future when the Bucs offense opened it up against Arizona, so documents Roy Cummings of the Tampa Tribune.

With quarterback Josh Freeman’s penchant for staging fourth-quarter rallies and a quick-strike capability emerging on offense, a sense of contentment has begun to grow among the players on defense.

“It’s comforting,” Ruud said of the offense’s newfound ability to score regularly and carry its share of the responsibility for winning. “It’s something I haven’t had in a while.”

Joe has written this before, but he was more than geeked over what the offense looked like, and may look like at Atlanta Sunday. The addition of LeGarrette Blount has completely opened up the offense now that defenses actually have to concern themselves with a run.

The Bucs offense, with Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn and Kellen Winslow, really has a chance to blow up like we’ve never seen before.

Bring on Sunday!

Mike Florio, the creator, curator and overall guru of ProFootballTalk.com, the guy who predicted the Bucs would be completely putrid, has devoted an entire video to the state of the Bucs.

Joe suspects this will annoy many Bucs fans.

Roddy White fired some smack at Aqib Talib, as Joe wrote earlier, and the Falcons wide receiver also went after Raheem Morris and Josh Freeman.

Chris Harry of Fanhouse.com delivered the news.

“Their coach is digging them a big hole, saying that stuff, man,” Falcons wideout Roddy White told FanHouse. “Best team in NFC? C’mon. They lost to New Orleans — bad. And they still have to play us. It looks like they got a pretty good quarterback down there, but he ain’t no Matt Ryan. The defense is creating turnovers and all that. That’s cool. But we feel as though we’re going to be ready and prepared.”

That’s not bulletin board material for the Bucs locker room. It’s freakin’ wallpaper.

White’s not just running his mouth, he’s going after arguably the Bucs’ primary leaders.

Yes, the Falcons are an excellent team, probably better than the Bucs. But Atlanta also squandered a 24-3 halftime lead at home to Cincinnati in their last game. And the Bucs played them down to the final seconds in Atlanta last year.

The Bucs are surely capable of shutting up White, even if they struggle to stop the run.

Rick Stroud of the St. Pete Times penned a story today about the roots and growth of the relationship between Raheem Morris and Josh Freeman.

Many Bucs fans have heard all about that before, but Joe found one nugget at the end of the story particularly intriguing. Morris explained some of his motivation to head from the Bucs to Kansas State, where he met Freeman.

When Morris left the Bucs for Kansas State, he was an assistant defensive backs coach on a staff that included defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, defensive line coach Rod Marinelli, linebackers coach Joe Barry and defensive backs coach Mike Tomlin.

“At that time, Monte was the only one who had ever called his own plays,” Morris said. “I wanted to call my own plays, which is why I went to Kansas State. Everybody thought it was a great opportunity for me.”

Clearly a very smart career move for Raheem and probably a bit risky at the time leaving the Bucs for the college ranks.

Coffee-slurping, popcorn-shoveling, oatmeal-loving Peter King discusses the race to the playoffs in the NFC in this Sports Illustrated video.

It seems Tampa Tribune reporter eye-RAH! Kaufman might not have taken Roddy White’s comments yesterday as a slap at Aqib Talib, but that’s surely the way Joe read them.

Some don’t think Joe doesn’t know what an insult is, but that’s another story.

White says he’d rather be covered by Talib than Ronde Barber, in part because Barber “watches film.” Here’s the quote Kaufman captured:

White sounds like a man eager to take on the challenge of facing Talib.

“On the other side of the ball, you have a guy (Barber) who’s made (five) Pro Bowls,” White told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Talib hasn’t made any. I’d rather go against Talib than the guy who watches film and is real crafty and knows that if the inside receiver goes to the flat, then he’s going to jump the inside route.”

Funny how White thinks Talib doesn”t seem to know how to jump an inside route. Yeah, right. Keep thinking that, Roddy.

Talib surely has given up some big plays, but he’s known around the Bucs for his attention to detail.

Why White wanted to throw some darts at Talib is unclear. But it looks like the trash talk between these two started yesterday.

“Oh, Joe. I love when you tell it like it is.”

St. Pete Times columnist Tom Jones wants you to know that ESPN personality Trey Wingo meant no disrespect to Raheem Morris when Wingo called the Buccaneers “Radio Raheem’s company” during a SportsCenter highlight on Sunday.

And Jones is so bent on making sure Wingo comes off as nothing more than a playful ESPN talking head, Jones devoted a whole column at TampaBay.com to explaining why Joe is an irresponsible moron for writing that Wingo’s comment was an insult of Morris.

Now Joe has to step out of character for a moment, since Jones personally went after the “Joe” who wrote the post. That would be me, Steve Isbitts, one of the two guys known as “Joe” around these here pages.

Forgetting about all the incorrect assumptions Jones makes in his piece (will get to a big one later), the big problem is Jones is unwilling to assign any responsibility to Wingo for how his audience might have interpreted “Radio Raheem’s company.”

Who died and left Tom Jones insult-determiner-and-chief?

A comment is not insulting until Tom Jones says it is? Please.

It was the take in the original JoeBucsFan.com post here that Wingo’s line was an insult of Raheem Morris and was a comment “born from the color of Morris’ skin.”

Jones and Wingo think that was inflammatory and borderline calling Wingo a racist. (Yes, I talked to Wingo today).

Frankly, I wasn’t calling Wingo a racist at all; just keeping it real. I firmly believe Wingo doesn’t drop the one-liner if Morris isn’t a black man, hence the reason the comment was “born from the color of Morris’ skin.”

Bucs fans would be kidding themselves if they thought that those who called Sabby Piscitelli “the next John Lynch” last year didn’t make that comment, in part, because Piscitelli is white.

Does that mean someone who made that comment is racist? No. But the comment is “born from the color” of Piscitelli’s skin. …(No word on whether Lynch was insulted.)

Call me crazy, but it seems clear that it’s insulting to nickname the Bucs head coach for either the profanity-spewing Radio Raheem character in the 1989 film “Do The Right Thing,” or for the mentally challenged, football-loving Radio in the 2003 movie “Radio.”

It’s hardly a leap to think Raheem Morris and the Bucs organization finds it insulting. But hey, Tom Jones didn’t bother to get a comment from Raheem or the Bucs for his story. … Guess it doesn’t matter when you’re the judge and jury on what is or is not an insult.

Wingo told me, and Jones, he was referencing the 1989 film character, which is fine and dandy. But the problem is that ESPN’s target demographic, viewers 18 to 35, are far more likely to connect the nickname “Radio” to the 2003 film Radio, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. playing the mentally challenged young man who loved football — versus the old Spike Lee flick that had nothing to do with football.

The call here is that Wingo was totally irresponsible in floating “Radio Raheem’s company” when he should have known it could have been widely misinterpreted by his core audience.

And don’t think for a minute that Wingo doesn’t know the target demographic at ESPN. The whole industry does.

Jones went on to say that a prominent national figure like Wingo surely wouldn’t read local Bucs message boards and know that some commenters have been insultingly calling Raheem Morris “Radio” since he got the Bucs job. …That might hold water if ProFootballTalk.com didn’t write a story about it last year and if ESPN didn’t have a massive staff to screen this kind of stuff.

Regardless, Wingo is responsible for thoroughly knowing the implications of what comes out of his mouth. His ignorance shouldn’t have any bearing on whether or not the comment is an insult.

Jones goes on to blast me as a second-rate journalist for not calling Trey Wingo to get his take. As I told Jones, what was in Wingo’s head is not relevant. The comment is what’s relevant.

Hurling an insult does not require intent. …None of us even know if Wingo wrote the line or was just reading it off a teleprompter.

Finally, Jones closes his attack piece on me with the following nonsense:

Finally, I’m guessing Isbitts is surprised that his post, written on a local blog, caused such a ruckus, and perhaps that’s the lesson here for all of us. Whatever is written on the Internet is not necessarily written into a vacuum. People might actually read it and you better be aware of your words whether you’re writing for a national Web site, a newspaper or hometown blog, or the comments sections of any of them.

This is so out in left field that Joe has asked Jones to edit/delete/correct it.

The reality is JoeBucsFan.com fully expected this to become a national story immediately. So the clueless-local-blog-owner take offered by Jones is baseless and incorrect.

JoeBucsFan.com is partners with BigLeadSports.com, owner of the wildly popular TheBigLead.com. When a story is posted here of national interest, it is immediately sent to that site for consideration. And as readers of ProFootballTalk.com know, numerous posts here are picked up by that NBC Sports property.

There’s also a little something called Google alert that millions of businesses and people use to track things on the Internet. Jones seems unaware of such modern and widely used technology.

The minute “Trey Wingo” was posted here, it was known by this writer that Wingo, his agent and ESPN’s public relations team would be all over it.

So for Jones to say that “I’m guessing Isbitts is surprised that his post, written on a local blog, caused such a ruckus,” is completely wrong. In fact, the opposite is true.

It’s pretty sad that Jones had to sum up his spin-filled work with a complete pile of nonsense.

Yes, that’s an insult.

This news nearly had Joe fall out of his chair.

Just a few minutes ago, WDAE-AM 620 radio personality Derrick Brooks broke the news that the Bucs put in a claim for free agent linebacker Shawne Merriman, who wound up with the Buffalo Bills.

No, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a misprint and Joe is sober.

Wow. The team that eschewed free agents the past two years was going to go after the biggest defensive free agent fish currently out of water/work. Wow.

So what’s this tell Joe? A few things.

1) If shows that Bucs general manager Mark Dominik has come to the conclusion that the Bucs inside rush defense is a sieve and needs help.

2) Probably the most important thing this tells Joe is that Dominik, like Joe, believes the Bucs are in the midst of a playoff race.

Dominik, amid being crucified by many Bucs fans while he doggedly pursued rebuilding the Bucs through the draft, had long said amid the arrows and stones tossed his way, that when it came time for the Bucs to plug holes with a free agent, he would do so.

No one, and Joe’s going to take a bit of liberty here, including Dominik, expected the Bucs rebuilding to bear fruit so quickly. Seeing that the Bucs have a very real shot at a playoff berth in a weak NFC, and the Bucs woefully inept in recent games at stopping the run, this tells Joe that Dominik has fast-forwarded his philosophy of when the Bucs will go outside the organization to boost the roster.