As those watching on the Internet on television saw, Cody Grimm came up to make a tackle today and got tied up, in part with Geno Hayes, and was carted off the field. It looked like Grimm’s spikes might have stuck in the turf, his leg straightened and then he took a shot on the knee.

Corey Lynch stepped up into the free safety role and did a very solid job on Tony Gonzalez in man coverage.

As for Grimm, Joe has no official word on his injury, but Grimm was on crutches in the locker room and not putting weight on the affected leg. However, Grimm’s knee was not in a brace and he was telling teammates he’d be “alright.” The Bucs likely will update Grimm’s status tomorrow.

Of course, Joe knows Grimm’s injury will bring wild cries for Tanard Jackson’s return. Hopefully, the Bucs won’t need to go there.

Bucs coach Raheem Morris likes to talk about “Next man up,” meaning whoever replaces a fallen starter just has to suck it up and do his job.

Today, two players lived up to Raheem’s motto.

The first of course was Dekoda Watson. Entering the game with Quincy Black as a starting outside linebacker, the Bucs were ranked 31st in stopping the run.

Today, with Watson as an outside linebacker, filling in for the injured Black, the Bucs looked like the Bucs of old, holding stud Dixie Chicks running back Michael Turner to a mere 20 yards on 11 carries. That, Joe is certain, is manly. The Dixie Chicks ran right — obviously trying to take advantage of Watson — almost exclusively in the first half, to no avail.

Then in the second half when the Falcons were driving and Cody Grimm was carted off the field with a knee injury, safety Cory Lynch came up big. He batted down a Matty Ice pass on third-and-15 from the Bucs-15 that was headed for the open arms of Jacquizz Rodgers.

“Next man up” sure worked for the Bucs last year. It sure worked for the Bucs Sunday.

Man Up.

Joe will have plenty to say about the Bucs’ entire defensive line, but Joe can’t hold back how impressed he is by Brian Price.

It just can’t be forgotten what this guy went through to get on the field this season and, per Price’s quotes more than a week ago, he earned the starting job before the Bucs-Vikings game while only playing at roughly 65 percent.

Well, Joe talked to Price after today’s game, in which Price recorded his first sack and was very disruptive behind the line of scrimmage, and Price says he’s still playing at about 65 percent.

Pressed on how that’s possible, Price said he feels his “motor getting stronger” and a little more comfortable on the field. But Price said he invests a lot of energy managing and blocking out his pain and focusing on everything but once he enters One Buc Palace or the stadium on gameday.

Joe can’t wait to see what this guy can do at full strength.

Bucs 16, Dixie Chicks 13
The Bucs finally got what loads of fans have been screaming for liked caged animals — the “signature win.”

No more can it be said that these Bucs are pretenders. Not that it made sense to say that previously after winning 10 games last year, but now there’s no debate, not even from the fringe radicals in the fan base.

The Bucs, who hardly played their best football today, spanked the hated Falcons on both sides of the ball.

Best of all, the ghost of Jim Bates never surfaced, a pass rush emerged, and the Bucs finished off the game driving LeGarrette Blount down the throat of the Dixie Chicks.

Stick with Joe through the night for all kinds of analysis and reaction from the Bucs locker room.

OK boys and girls, have at it. Let your feelings be known about how the Bucs are playing against the Dixie Chicks today. As always, any and all commenters who post addresses of pirated streams of the game, even spelling the addresses out, will be banned. You are welcome to post your e-mail address and share the pirated feeds amongst yourselves.

Now behave! 🙂

Q.: But Joe, why don’t you have live chats?

A.: They were more pain in the ass than worth it for Joe. The software for the live chats only allowed 15 unmoderated users. Any more than 15, each and every comment had to be approved. Joe’s trying to do work (read: watch the game) and too may people were b!tching about how their comments were not posted quick enough, so Joe decided to deep-six the live chats for Bucs games.

Super Bowl-winning coach Brian Billick and Fox reporter Laura Okmin take a look at the Dixie Chicks-Bucs game.

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=7fddfd39-2251-444d-9796-e5ec1a4d0b38" target="_new" title="">NFL on FOX: ATL/TB Preview</a>

Your inactives for the Dixie Chicks at the Bucs today:

Bucs

Sammie Stroughter, Allen Bradford, Larry Asante, Anthony Gaitor, Quincy Black, Derek Hardman and James Lee.

Dixie Chicks

Kelvin Hayden, Darrin Walls, Stephen Nicholas, Brett Romberg, Mike Johnson, Jonathan Babineaux and Cliff Matthews

Week 2
Dixie Chicks at Bucs
Kickoff: 4:15 p.m.
TV: Blacked out locally. Those living outside the Tampa/Orlando TV markets can watch the game on DirecTV 717. The game can be viewed on NFL.com at midnight via Game Rewind and is available after midnight via NFL Sunday Ticket’s “Short Cuts” after midnight.
Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network (in Tampa WFUS-FM, 103.5 and WDAE-AM, 620); Sirius Channel 94.
Weather: Per Accuweather.com, the game is expected to start under partly cloudy skies and 87 degrees but thunderstorms are expected to arrive in the second half. The rains should be gone by the end of the game with the temperature at 84 degrees.
Odds: Per SportsBook.com, Bucs -1.5.
Outlook: This is pretty simple. Despite the Bucs thrilling come-from-behind win (again) against the Vikings last week, it shielded a very ugly truth that the Bucs rush defense, as NFL Network analyst Steve Mariucci said this morning, is “porous.” The Bucs rush defense is 31st in the NFL. That is simply horrible. On the other side of the ball, there stands bruising running back Michael Turner. So if you are Dixie Chicks offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey, what do you do? You do the math. Of course he’s going to pound Turner at the Bucs until or unless the Bucs rush defense proves they can stop him. Of course, that’s a pick-your-poison move. Put seven guys in the box, and watch what Matty Ice does with Tony Gonzalez, with Roddy White, with Julio Jones. … Now when the Bucs have the ball, the Dixie Chicks secondary is likely their weakness. Joe believes Pat Kirwan is on to something. Clearly Josh Freeman shines in a no-huddle offense. Why not let Freeman get the lead early and then start pounding LeGarrette Blount, thereby playing keep-away and also milking the clock?

Derek “Old School” Fournier of WhatTheBuc.net believes if the Bucs are to be considered one of the NFL’s top teams, they need to take care of business today against the Dixie Chicks in his weekly preview of Bucs games.

Just a quick programming note for those new around here.

Joe’s at the Bucs game today and will be banging out all kinds of postgame takes and locker room reaction from players. So come back through the night for loads of interesting stuff.

During the game, Joe will have his popular open game thread for those who want to interact while the Bucs and Falcons slug it out. And, of course, Joe will post inactive players here and some pregame stuff later.

Hopefully, Joe will celebrate a Bucs win tonight with a frosty beverage!

Jason Horowitz and Pat Kirwan break down the Dixie Chicks-Bucs game in this CBSSports.com video.

Here’s how you take on the NFL.com video linked here. Jack up your speaker volume and expand the video to full-screen mode.

It’s Raheem Morris in the locker room following the Bucs’ win in Minnesota. Among other things, Raheem implores his young team to “believe in your coaching.”

It’s a moving glimpse into the Bucs’ locker room. And if you were wondering how to spell the Bucs’ new slogan, it’s on Raheem’s fancy new lid.

Back for his weekly trip to the end zone of the NFL universe, popular radio personality Adam Schein travels through football space and time outs. Check out what Schein has to say about the Bucs this week. Consider yourself sucked in to the latest episode of Cosmic Schein!

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=2792af14-46ff-4a99-b34d-915b1030ff10" target="_new" title="">Cosmic Schein: Week 3</a>

Drugs, drinking and driving, weapons, arrests and dealing with prosecutors were all part of Preston Parker’s days at Florida State University — before he got booted from the football team and landed at Division II North Alabama.

Last year, Parker made the Bucs as an undrafted rookie, and last week against Minnesota, he had his first breakout game with six catches for 98 yards.

Speaking last night on Total Access on WDAE-AM 620, Parker talked a bit about turning his life around.

Parker said he landed at North Alabama thanks to his former coach Bobby Bowden and Terry Bowden, then the new head coach at North Alabama.

“I never doubted I wouldn’t make it to the NFL. I just kept pushing. I knew everything happened for a reason. That was supposed to happen, me getting dismissed. I learned a lot of things from Florida State, to North Alabama to Tampa. And I’m still learning things, but I’m a much wiser guy, a better guy,” Parker said.

“I’m making a lot of better decisions. Young and dumb, you know what they say. I’m glad I went through it, Because if I wouldn’t have gone through it, it would have been a much bigger disaster than what happened at Florida State.

 “Just being in Florence, Alabama. There’s one KFC there, and there’s two workers that work there 24/7. They only have two workers, and they don’t have no barbecue sauce. So it gave me time to get my thoughts together and see where I wanted to go in life. I knew I wanted to go to the league, so it let me know what I had to do to get here.”

Parker explained how at North Alabama he got involved in a non-football student committee to analyze campus issues and help improve them. He also said his focus there was football and grades.

And Parker shared his 2010 draft-day story of Bucs wide receivers coach Eric Yarber calling him during the seventh round to say the Bucs wanted him on board with them immediately following the draft. Parker said he committed instantly because the Bucs were the first to call and he wasn’t about to wait for other offers or try to negotiate a contract.

Joe’s glad to see the young man turned around his fortunes. 

When the Bucs opened the season against the Lions, Matt Stafford carved up the Bucs defense in the first half like a chef cleaning grouper. One reason was the Lions had multiple weapons for Stafford to throw to.

Well, now comes Matty ice and the Dixie Chicks. With Roddy White, Julio Jones and Tony Gonzalez to throw to, it will mean all hands on deck for the Bucs secondary.

Good thing for the Bucs reinforcements are coming in. Second-year corner Myron Lewis, who has seen limited playing time in his two years with the Bucs due to a string of injuries, has been deemed healthy enough to play Sunday, so writes Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times.

The 2010 third-round draft choice out of Vanderbilt has been slowed by injuries since the preseason, when he had a hamstring injury.

He’ll play, according to Morris, in specific situations.

“We’ll get him out there in some of our three-wide receiver sets or four-wide receiver sets,” Morris said. “We’ll give him a chance to get out and get going.”

The Bucs have high hopes for Lewis but it’s hard for any player to fulfill expectations if he cannot get on the field. That has been Lewis’ problem. Joe believes the Dixie Chicks will provide the same type of problem to the Bucs that the Lions did to open the season.

The more corners the Bucs have available, the better.

Trent Dilfer has pored over Bucs game film and determined that Greg Olson is an underrated offfensive mastermind, so he claimed in a BSPN.com story tucked behind the cloak of paid insider content.

Perhaps Olson is an emerging genius, but one reason Dilfer offers is Olson’s commitment to pounding the rock. Huh? This caught Joe’s eye, since Olson hasn’t felt like that kind of guy during his tenure.

“Greg Olson, offensive coordinator, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

“… … This  reminds me of Olson, who uses similar formations over and over, but employs new little wrinkles that make what Tampa does deceptive and difficult to prepare for.

“He also has two other traits from the list above that are great.  He’s very QB-driven and builds great protection schemes that have  helped Josh Freeman develop faster that many thought he would. He has integrated young wide receivers such as Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn quickly. Lastly, he is stubborn with the run. Even when the blocking is so-so, he got LeGarrette Blount his touches last year, and it paid off. He has continued that in 2011, and the winning drive against Minnesota last week was a classic case in point, as he pounded Blount successfully because it was working,  even when you’d assume pass was the call. I love what Olson is doing.”

Interestingly, on The Jeff Faine Show on WQYK-AM 1010  last night, Faine told a story of how he, offensive line coach Pat Morris and quarterback coach Alex Van Pelt hustled over to Olson at halftime of the Bucs-Vikings game to demand that he stick with the running game.

Would they do such a thing if Olson was “stubborn with the run” as Dilfer claims?

Faine didn’t say what Olson himself wanted to run or what his response was. But Faine said he was asking for the run call that brought LeGarrette Blount’s first touchdown.

“We could tell we were wearing them down,” said Faine, who added he was “proud” the coaches had “the courage and guts” to stick with the gameplan.

Olson has done some great stuff with the Bucs offense, but Joe would hardly call him a run-first guy.

Jeff Faine points out that more than one Buccaneer hit the bench last week

There’s nothing pretty about getting yanked from a starting gig after one game, especially on the heels of the general manager talking you up through the offseason.

That’s what happened to Ted Larsen. The second-year guard Mark Dominik plucked from the waiver wire last year hit the bench last week in favor of  Jeremy Zuttah.

Speaking solemnly on The Jeff Faine Show tonight on WQYK-AM 1010 with multimedia czar J.P. Peterson, Faine gave his take on Larsen’s demotion and likened it to Brian Price getting the nod over Roy Miller after one game.

“It was two things,” Faine said. “Larsen did get banged up early in the preseason. He may have came back too early. … But Zuttah, I have to give him credit. I think he had a little bit of a better camp, a little bit better preseason games. Zuttah is a great competitor. I think the world of the kid. … He’s transformed his body [over his time on the Bucs]. … He hit the weights hard.

“It’s uncomfortable. There’s a little uneasiness addressing it with Ted. Ted’s a starter in the NFL. It’s just Zuttah is a little better.

“The first couple of days when I guy get’s deomoted, It’s hard. It happened With Roy Miller and Brian Price.”

Joe must express that Faine was answering a caller’s question about how the locker room deals with a guy losing his job. Faine was clearly treading carefully out of respect to Larsen.

What Joe found interesting was the Miller-Price analogy. With all the happiness and excitment surrounding Price making a comeback and getting a starting nod, Joe lost sight of the fact that Miller was sent to the bench in favor of a guy (Price) that claimed to be playing at about 65 percent. That must have been brutally hard for Miller to take, as well as very telling about his future on the Bucs.

Wait a minute.

What was rockstar Bucs general manager Mark Dominik doing sniffing around speedy, expensive outsiders this offseason when he had Kregg Lumpkin and Earnest Graham locked and loaded in the backfield?

Per an intriguing take from NFC South blogger Pat Yasinskas of ESPN.com during a live chat today, the Bucs went after Reggie Bush and Darren Sproles “a little bit” but didn’t like the cost. 

Nick (Melbourne FL)

Any reason you can think of that the Bucs did not pursue Darren Sproles? Their 3rd down back situation has 200 year old Earnest Graham there with Kreg Lumpkin a relative no name and surely the Bucs could have outbid the Saints. Please don’t talk about their youth movement. Us fans are sick of the Glazers penny pinching ways.

Pat Yasinskas: From what I know, the Bucs at least did pursue Sproles (and Reggie Bush) a little bit. But they didn’t like the price tag on either.

Now the Dolphins traded for Reggie Bush, and Joe’s no big fan of him anyway. But Sproles? He signed with New Orleans as a free agent for just a few million bucks a year, and he had a reputation for being an outstanding blocker in San Diego, in addition to his other talents. Joe would have loved to see that guy wearing pewter.

Joe assumes at least part of Yasinskas’ report is accurate. And if Dominik saw a need for that kind of player, why didn’t he fill it?