Joe has long held the belief that as long as Chucky (and Bruce Almighty) are on the Glazer’s payroll, Raheem the Dream is safe.

However, the way the Bucs are stinking the CITS up, that may not be the case any longer. As one can expect, the great Phil Mushnick of the New York Post puts it all in perspective.

Imagine spending, oh, $40,000 on PSLs, plus ticket costs, to attend a game like yesterday’s Jets-Bucs.

Bingo. If Bucs fans, and the dwindling number of season ticket holders, are to the point that they are throwing their hands up while throwing up, that Bryan and Joel feel paying three coaches will be financially feasible more so than losing thousands of season ticket holders, Raheem the Dream is toast.

It’s as simple as dollars and cents.

CBS-TV and Sirius NFL Radio analyst Rich Gannon is horrified at the brutal Bucs offense.

Joe touched upon this yesterday when he heard Rich Gannon on the CBS broadcast of the nauseating Bucs loss to the Jets, that Gannon observed the Bucs practice Friday and was unnerved how the offense loafed.

Given a more broad if not impolite forum on his radio show “The Blitz” with co-host Adam Schein on Sirius NFL Radio Monday morning, Gannon trashed Bucs offensive coordinator Greg Olson without naming names.

“I was really disappointed in the tempo of [the Bucs] offense in practice Friday,” Gannon said. “It was not good. The precision just was not there.

“Then, it was mindboggling to me how [Olson] put the ball in the hands of a rookie quarterback who threw five interceptions in the previous game and what does he do? He throws it right to [Jets linebacker] David Harris on the first play from scrimmage, throws it right over the middle against the league’s best pass defense.

“It was just a bad, bad performance by the Bucs offense.”

While Joe points out that Gannon is an intimate of Chucky and has bragged — with Chucky on the air with Gannon on Sirius NFL Radio — that he hangs out with Chucky in Chucky’s bunker at the Ice Palace, can anyone truthfully argue with anything Gannon said?

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times documented some other barbs Gannon tossed at the Bucs offense Sunday.

* “If I’m Raheem Morris, I’m thinking about changing quarterbacks. If you’re going to win this game, Josh Freeman, to me, doesn’t look like he’s going to give you a chance.”

* “If you’re the Bucs offense, I’m not sure you want to go into the locker room for halftime. You might just want to stay out here and get some work. … I don’t know how you face your defense after what has transpired.”

Don’t worry Rich, Joe was equally repulsed.

Joe also has the notion that the Bucs will no longer allow TV network types to watch practices.

Tucked in a Sunday pregame story about the revival of the Bucs defense was a bizarre quote from Tanard Jackson in the St. Pete Times.

Per Jackson, Raheem The Dream said he wasn’t sufficiently stimulated by his head coaching gig before defrocking Jim Bates.

“He said he was getting a little bored as a head coach, and it’s good to see him back in the room, teaching like a position coach,” Jackson said of Morris. “I’m sure he’s having fun with it. If you know Raheem, you know he’s having fun doing it.”

Now Joe doesn’t want to make too much of a second-hand quote. But it sounds awfully troubling. Why would Raheem The Dream even spit out the sentiment that he was bored as the head coach of an severely challenged NFL team?

In case you want to look again at a car wreck…

"Does this friggin' guy Greg Olson have any clue on how to covert a third down?"

It’s getting harder and harder to defend Raheem the Dream for Joe, who really likes the Bucs first-year coach.

A lot of the problems are totally his doing. At least he was wise enough to take care of some matters, such as defrocking defensive coordinator Jim Bates.

But with each bumbling loss Joe winces more. NFL.com analyst Bucky Brooks seems to agree with Joe. Brooks believes Raheem the Dream may be back next year but the next three weeks Brooks believes the Bucs have to start making major strides for Raheem the Dream to survive.

Cody Seltrecht, Wisconsin
Hi, I am very upset with the buccs team,coach,owner,and everything. What is with Tampa? Is Freeman Really our franchise QB? How bout are coach? You can just sum it up for me please. Thank you!

Bucky Brooks, NFL.com
Cody, The Bucs are a team in transition. Therefore, I wouldn’t scrutinize their record this year, and focus primarily on the progress of their young players. If they can make strides with their youngsters this year, they can orchestrate a big turnaround in 2010. I would expect the ownership to have patience with Morris, but he needs to get his team to play hard down the stretch to ensure his return.

Joe was willing to give Raheem the Dream a major mulligan. But learning that the Bucs half-assed it in practice last Friday, well, well that falls directly on the feet of the head coach.

How cool must it be to be Nebraska defensive tackle/Heisman Trophy finalist/manbeast Ndamukong Suh? There hasn’t been a human being who Bucs fans have universally drooled over since Rachel Watson!

And it isn’t just Bucs fans who are pitching a tent over Suh. If the Bucs somehow win the derby for the first pick in next spring’s April draft, Bucs general manager Mark Dominik has already said Suh is atop his list (provided Dominik is still with the Bucs).

Dominik confessed to Peter King of SI.com that he too wants Suh.

Ndamukong Suh is the best defensive player to come out of college football this decade. As I said on “Football Night in America” last night, I spoke with the GMs of both one-win teams this weekend — Billy Devaney of the Rams, Mark Dominik of the Bucs — and there’s little doubt that Suh will be at the top of the draft boards of both teams. Usually there’s some doubt who the premier player in the draft will be four months out, but not this year.

“He’s got to be at the top, or very near the top, of every team’s draft board,” Dominik said of Suh, the Nebraska defensive tackle who finished fourth in the Heisman race (Lord knows why). One GM of a losing team who has scouted Suh told me he has “Richard Seymour strength and Warren Sapp quickness.”

Said Dominik: “The only thing that worries me is living up to the hype. If he gets six sacks as a rookie playing defensive tackle, someone’s going to call him a bust because of the high expectations. How’s he going to handle that?” Logical question … but every top pick who ever gets picked has to deal with the weight of expectations. The book on Suh is he’s a mature kid. He’s just going to have to take it.

If the Bucs finished tied with the St. Louis Lambs, the Lambs will have the first pick in the draft. Would the Lambs draft Suh? Joe fears they may.

Reserve linebacker Adam Hayward saved the Bucs from a shutout.

As if the Bucs offense — in particular offensive coordinator Greg Olson — shouldn’t be embarrassed enough with that shameful display of an offense yesterday, the Bucs have a linebacker to be thankful for.

A backup linebacker no less!

Joe hates the whoofing and hollering and chest-beating and preening the NFL has become. If Joe wanted to see a circus he’d go to down to Sarasota where the Ringling Bros. exists.

Joe wants to see football, not the WWE!

But it was the mouthing off — and frankly the Bucs had zero reason to shoot off their mouths yesterday — from scrub linebacker Adam Hayward that saved the Bucs from a shutout, so Joe has learned from Rich Cimini of the New York Daily Newsand Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post.

For it was Jets linebacker Bart Scott who retaliated from Hayward’s smack that gave the Bucs a first down which eventually led to the Bucs lone score, a measley field goal.

Vaccaro details how the on-field hassle went down.

On third-and-nine, with 101/2 minutes left in the third, Donald Strickland sacked Josh Freeman for a two-yard loss, and so the Bucs’ streak of haplessness was about to go on indefinitely. But then, in the mash of bodies among offense, defense and special teams, one Buc player told Scott to — direct quote — “Shut up.’’

“And I lost my cool,’’ Scott admitted. “I was dumb.’’

What he did was grab the guy’s helmet off, one of the easiest 15-yard unsportsmanlike flags that’ll ever be flung. The Bucs finally had a first down; eight plays (and one more first down) later, they also had their only points.

“The guy” Vaccaro writes about was Hayward, so notes Cimini.

The Bucs’ punt team was going on the field after a third-down sack in the third quarter, but Scott started jawing with a member of the Bucs’ punt team, Adam Heyward [sic]. Scott ripped off Heyward’s [sic] helmet and was flagged for unnecessary roughness. It gave the Bucs a first down (their first of the game), and they drove to a field goal.

Imagine that: a reserve linebacker on a punt team shooting off his mouth when he should have been hanging his head like the rest of his teammates saved the Bucs from a shutout.

Joe didn’t think Bucs offensive coordinator Greg Olson’s play-calling was as atrocious as the loss to Carolina when, with Josh Freeman clearly struggling, Olson called pass after pass in the red zone.

But Rick Cimini of the New York Daily News sees the Bucs offense differently. After watching the Bucs look like a two-bit Wing-T high school team on offense, Cimini did not hold back his words on the Bucs offense.

The Bucs looked utterly lost on offense. The play calling stunk, and their rookie QB, Josh Freeman, looked like he’d never played the position before. The Bucs were 0-for-14 on third down. How is that possible?

Indeed! Joe also wonders how that is possible for an NFL team not to convert one third down in 14 tries — not one! Granted, the Jets have a damned good defense. But not one third down conversion, none?

Greg Olson, do you have anything to say for yourself?

"Hey, that clown over there, Greg Olson, he coaches the offense. I don't coach that rotten offense!"

Not all those who watch the Bucs are given to knee-jerk reactions. Consider longtime St. Petersburg Times columnist Gary Shelton among them.

So when he is beginning to question the job security of Raheem the Dream, maybe the Bucs first-year coach really is up to his chin in trouble.

After seeing a near-full season of the Bucs flop like helpless fish on land, Shelton is beginning to think Raheem the Dream may not be long for the Bucs.

With every defeat, the question seems more reasonable. With every empty seat, with every unsuccessful drive, with every step the Bucs take toward a possible 1-15 season, it becomes easier to wonder about the future of the franchise, and the future of its head coach, and whether those two are necessarily intertwined.

Put it this way: If NFL coaches were politicians who had to run for their offices, would you vote for Morris in 2010?

Answer: Unless he ran more successfully than his Bucs, probably not.

This is the corner Raheem the Dream has painted himself into. Before the season begin, he canned offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski. So yesterday’s offense, which was as impotent as Connie Chung, cannot be blamed on him.

Sure the Bucs defense was more heinous than Susan Boyle with now-defrocked defensive coordinator Jim Bates. At least had Raheem the Dream kept him, he could have thrown Bates to the curb next month in an effort to secure his job.

It’s really difficult for Joe to believe that the absence of Michael Clayton and Sammie Stroughter would be the sole reason the Bucs couldn’t convert a third down in 14 tries.

Now, all the scapegoats are gone, with the possible exception of Greg Olson. The only one really left is Raheem the Dream.

No where for Raheem the Dream to hide.

The heinous, beyond brutal Bucs offense yesterday was not the worst of the season. The way the Giants bitch-slapped the Bucs offense in the third week of the season was the worst.

Freeman has eight interceptions in his last two games and 11 pickoffs in three of his last four games.

Joe wonders outloud that, after 12 games prior to Sunday, there really is no excuse for an offense to look that putrid and lost. The third game? OK. Not the 13th game.

Maybe that’s why the Bucs offense took it easy in practice Friday?

What Freeman and the Bucs offense does at Seattle this week will tell Joe quite a bit about what the Bucs will or won’t do in the offseason. Something tells Joe that Greg Olson, and maybe even Raheem the Dream, will have their immediate futures sealed before bedtime Sunday night.

Maybe.

Consider the Bucs had, at the time, statue Byron Leftwich at quarterback and Sean Mayhem at center, who let in more defenders sailing through the line than a screen door on a submarine.

Yesterday, the Bucs had their franchise quarterback with, aside from a couple of receivers, everyone healthy.

Yet the Bucs offense was so ugly, Susan Boyle was beginning to look good — and Joe had not had any Caybrews at that point!

(Boy, Joe sure needed several Caybrews last night to try to kill the memory of the loss.)

The truth of the matter is, the Bucs offense is regressing. Certainly quarterback Josh Freeman is. Joe was originally going to give Freeman a pass. Hey, rookie learning curve. But it wasn’t just Freeman. The whole lot of the Bucs offense smelled worse than Joe’s bedroom the morning after attending a chili cookoff.

Even Rachel Watson would be hard-pressed to find something to watch in the lowlights of the Jets-Bucs game.

Despite that, Joe has a few from the good people of the NFL Network.

First are lowlights replete with the voice of the Bucs Gene Deckerhoff.

Then there is Aqib Talib’s fumble recovery.

Buccaneers.com also has the postgame press conferences of Raheem the Dream and quarterback Josh Freeman.

You know the wheels are coming off a losing team when players are questioning each other’s effort.

First, it was Josh Freeman talking about the Bucs’ second-rate practice on Friday, validating what TV analyst Rich Gannon saw.

Now, after todays beating at the hands of the New York Jets, Cadillac Williams tells Tom Balog, Bucs beat writer for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, that the Bucs aren’t giving their all. 

Running back Carnell Williams thinks the players around Freeman are having a negative impact on him, when he sees the missed assignments and penalties by veterans around him who should be setting a better example.

“He’s a young guy, he kind of sees guys sluggish around, things like that, man, it’s going to have an effect on a quarterback,” Williams said.

"Mike Shanahan just sent me a box of cigars. And his card said he'd keep Raheem as defensive coordinator."

Anyone who has worked for a professional sports team knows that every season management needs a hook — some sizzle, if you will — to sell the season ticket holders to get them to renew.

A franchise also needs something for all potential ticket buyers to buy into.

So as losses pile up for the 1-12 Bucs, the Glazers are being backed into a serious corner. At 1-15, they would have little to sell the fans for the 2010 season and would be staring down the barrel of major revenue loss that would hurt the franchise for years to come.

This year the sell was relatively easy: change (fire Chucky), youth (Raheem The Dream and the veterans purge) and hope (Josh Freeman). 

But after a 1-15 season, this year’s talking points will carry no weight with fans, other than the jury still being out on young Freeman. 

Ndamukong Suh would be glorious, but not enough to sell tickets.

And that’s where the Glazers are primed to get squeezed. At 1-15 they’ll know the only way to add sizzle is to become a player in free agency, and that’s precisely what they don’t want to do. And some speculate they don’t even have the loose cash to get it done.

That’s where it ultimately may become cheaper and a safer bet to fire Raheem The Dream and hire a big-name coach, which would guarantee at least a season of strong ticket sales and go a long way with fans.

While the Glazers are surely Bucs fans and would likely love to see the Bucs win the final three games so they can save money on a first-round pick and sell year 2 of the current rebuilding plan to fans, Joe is sure they will make decisions for 2010 with a business-first mindset.

And, if the Bucs fall to 1-15,  Joe isn’t so sure the Glazers would see the value in selling another season of the current regime.

"Josh, look, I keep telling you. Keeping it simple with downhill running and play-action was Jeff Jagodzinski. There's no place for that old-school crap around here any more."

Former Bucs defensive end Steve White, a hardcore Bucs fan and writer of the popular Bull Rush column on JoeBucsFan.com, is not happy with the Bucs’ apparent allergy to running the football.

On his blog, White offers some powerful takes on the Bucs offensive playcalling.

… This, ladies and gentlemen, is not rocket science. If it were there would be a lot fewer coaches in the NFL. When you have a young quarterback and your defense is playing well and ESPECIALLY if you are playing in warm weather, weather that the Jets were unaccustomed to, YOU RUN THE MUTHAFUCKING BALL. And I don’t mean run it on first down and then maybe throw it if you don’t get much. I mean you commit to running the ball on first and second down and hell maybe even if its 3rd and medium you run it then too. That is what football is all about.

What it’s not about is selling out your defense and keeping them on the field all got damn day just so you can showcase your new toy to the detriment of the team overall. I don’t know how anybody on the offensive staff can even look any of the defensive coaches or players in the face after this game.

Now ultimately this falls on the head coach though. Raheem Morris may not call the offensive plays but he for damn sure hears them in his head phones. Well it’s time to start vetoing a bunch of this bullshit.

White goes on to offer much more perspective on the playcalling. Joe recommends you check it out.

And don’t miss White’s hard-hitting, Xs and Os Bull Rush column right here on JoeBucsFan.com on either Monday night or Tuesday.

"Sorry Capt. Lou. I was wanting to take a knee a lot earlier. I didn't want to get any of your players bruised or hurt."

Yep. That’s a tough headline to write. Not even Joe Henderson of the Tampa Tribune could bring himself to write such a sentence.

But that was certainly the inference in the column Henderson typed just after the heinous offensive performance the Bucs turned in today.

Henderson all but claims Raheem the Dream quit on the Bucs, but this Joe can read between the lines.

He cites various examples of how the Raheem the Dream, or perhaps offensive (keyword) coordinator Greg Olson, tanked on this game.

What can you say about a game plan that appears to have been made up on the back of a napkin? To wit, trailing 19-3 in the third quarter the Bucs recovered an onsides kick. Bold move, successful, nice play.

But then on fourth-and-2 at midfield on the same series, they chose to punt.

What’s it gonna be?

Exactly, if you are going to try an onside kick, why piss a good play like that away by punting on fourth down?

Henderson also crucified the decisions — Henderson didn’t cite who made the decision but the buck stops at Raheem the Dream’s feet as he is the head coach — about taking a knee at the Bucs-35 to end the half, and ran off the field even though there was a defensive penalty.

Joe wrote earlier today how he thought Raheem the Dream did a good job of turning around the defense since he defrocked defensive coordinator Jim Bates,

But it’s examples like Henderson documented where Joe wonders if Raheem the Dream being hired as the Bucs head coach wasn’t a mistake from the word “go.”

Joe can take a team taking its lumps in order to build a winner. But to quit on his own players, Joe finds that shameful. Joe thought more of Raheem the Dream than to do that.

The Bucs practiced all week for the Jets blitzes. Even Bucs rookie quarterback Josh Freeman claims they were ready.

Freeman even had gone on Sirius NFL radio earlier this week and stated the Jets had 163 different blitzes. And those blitzes were only used on third downs.

Well, the Jets now have a lot more. Freeman said on the Bucs radio network that the Jets and their head coach/defensive wizard Capt. Lou Albano threw the kitchen sink at him.

“They had blitz packages and different blitzes than they ever showed on tape,” Freeman said.

In short, what Freeman was saying was Albano devised various blitzes to confuse the rookie quarterback, who seems to be regressing rather than progressing.

“Got to give them credit,” Freeman said about the new blitzes the Jets came at the Bucs, and Freeman, with.

A lot of times today, the Bucs looked unprepared. Maybe it wasn’t just because they half-assed it in practice Friday, which Rich Gannon of CBS reported, and which Freeman confirmed.

The Bucs are at a crossroads. One only needed to listen to defensive end Jimmy Wilkerson on the Bucs radio network following the game.

Wilkerson sure didn’t sound like a guy who will bolt the Bucs even though he is in the final year of his contract with the Bucs. Wilkerson kept talking about next year when trying to put this putrid offensive effort into prospective.

“We have got to get a win to start some moementum going into next year,” Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson wouldn’t let the offense take the heat, even though thanks to the miserable offensive showing, the defense got worn out in the heat by staying on the field too long.

“We have to do better, we have to play 100 percent of the game,” Wilkerson said.

Jeff Faine says the Bucs are not losing due to a lack of effort.

Speaking on the Buccaneers Radio Network following the game, Faine was asked if the Bucs offense is so putrid due to the fact the Bucs are loafing.

Faine denied it.

“I’ve been on losing teams where the effort from my teammates made you sick to your stomach,” Faine said. “That’s the not case here. Not at all. The effort is there.”

Faine was also asked if maybe there is a problem with Bucs rookie quarterback Josh Freeman, who has seemed to regress rather than progress, with 11 picks in his last three games, including three today.

“No, he’s going to be a special player, I see it,” Faine said. “His future is going to be bright. He’s just going through growing pains. It’s just too bad it’s happening now. No, there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just learning. He’s young.”

Faine also gave a lot of credit to the Jets who were all over the Bucs.

“They were doing a great job of shedding their blocks and getting into the backfield and disrupting plays.”

Joe hopes the Glazers are reading JoeBucsFan.com today, or at least listening to the Buccaneers Radio Network.

Josh Freeman just confirmed that the Bucs had a crappy practice on Friday. “We had a slow day Friday,” Freeman said on 620 WDAE-AM following Sunday’s blowout loss to the Jets.

CBS color analyst Rich Gannon, during the first quarter of the game, blasted the Bucs for what he observed to be a lifeless practice on Friday. “They weren’t going full speed,” Gannon commented.

Joe feels bad for stating earlier that Gannon might have been pounding the Bucs mercilessly to indirectly prop up his buddy Chucky. (Sorry, Gannon. Joe owes you a Caybrew.)

As for the lame practice on Friday, being so weak that a rookie quarterback takes notice no less, Joe can not excuse Raheem The Dream.

So many pundits and intelligent observers keep praising the Bucs for continuing to play hard. Did the offense really play hard today?

And Raheem the Dream spouted all through the preseason that his team would practice harder than any in the league. “Because we have to, ” Raheem The Dream once said.

Shame on the Bucs for not being ready for the 6-6 Jets, and their first home game in three weeks.

* Gene Deckerhoff talking about Jets quarterback Brad Smith in shotgun formation a Wildcat. Damnit, a quarterback in a shotgun formation is NOT a Wildcat. However, Deckerhoff said every team has a version of a Wildcat. Yeah, every team but the Bucs.

* Dave Moore has said the Bucs defense played terrible against the cutbacks with Jim Bates but now, they are under Raheem the Dream. Joe is happy that Dave Moore reads Joe’s posts during the game.

* Bucs defense looks like it’s just about tapped out.

* Elbert Mack has a nice tackle on that Jets completion.

* Good thing for Clemens he can’t hit water if he fell out of a boat, otherwise, Talib would have had a pick-six on the far end line.

* If the Bucs had any kind of offense, the Jets would have just kept the Bucs in the game with that missed field goal.

* Winslow did a whole lot of running after that catch but went a whole lot of nowhere.

* Freeman should take off more often to loosen up the Jets defense.

* Damn, Mo Stovall was open. Terrible pass.

* Revis with an interception. It was just a matter of time.

* Nice job of the Bucs radio network to be broadcasting commercials during Thomas Jones’ touchdown.

* Where was this offense in the first half?

* Man, Freeman is way off target today. King of Turds was open but Freeman overthrew him by eight yards.

* Dave Moore on the Bucs radio network is really ripping the Bucs offense, indirectly Greg Olson: You are seeing things from your quarterback that after this many games you should not be seeing. Translation: Freeman is regressing and that is a reflection on Greg Olson.

* Fitting that Freeman throws an interception to effectively end the game.

* Joe always thought Braylon Edwards was a smooth-talking dirtbag. A personal foul inside the five-yard line sorta reinforces Joe’s thoughts.

* Mo Stovall with a nice catch. Too bad it’s pretty much useless.

* Bucs haven’t converted a third down all day. Beyond pathetic. 0-14 on third downs. Dave Moore was ripping Greg Olson for his play call on third down with 44 seconds left, saying you never call a crossing pattern on a zone defense.

* Brian Clark, wide open, drops a fourth down pass. There’s a reason why he was unemployed this summer.

* Game next week at Seattle will be very telling for both Josh Freeman and Greg Olson. If Freeman continues to regress next week, Joe cannot see any reason to retain Greg Olson. If your franchise quarterback is getting worse by the week, hard to continue going down that road before he’s ruined.