Roughly eight hours after Marcus Johnson was busted for DUI when caught sleeping at the wheel of his new car just a matter of feet from One Buc Palace this morning, likely returning from his London trip, Marcus Johnson has been cut by the Bucs, so reports the great Mike Florio, the creator,  curator and overall guru of ProFootballTalk.com.

Since teams technically aren’t permitted to impose discipline on players who run afoul of the league’s substance-abuse policy, Johnson could file a grievance in an effort to recover the balance of his base salary of $620,000.

As Florio points out, if this were Donald Penn falling asleep after a couple of belts combined with jet lag, you think he’d be cut so quick? Joe doesn’t think Johnson has had time to sober up yet, much less get someone to bail him out.

Bucs fans are a frustrated lot.

Eleven losses in a row will do that to any fan base.

Throw in the low budget operation of the team, the ugliness of the losses and a glorious Super Bowl just 6 1/2 years ago, and Joe is expecting loud boos to rain down soon on the Bucs from the remaining Bucs fans at the C.I.T.S. (community investment tax stadium).

Those jeers didn’t come down too hard on the Bucs against Carolina. But that’s likely to change quickly.

Joe doesn’t expect the boos to be heard over the cheers of tens of thousands of Packers fans in two weeks. But after that it should get ugly unless the Bucs win some games, which is highly unlikely.

Do the Bucs want Josh Freeman to take that sort of emotional beating?

Imagine the Saints are leading the Bucs 27-7 at halftime on Nov. 22, and the Bucs run into the locker room to a chorus of boos. And then what happens when Freeman throws a second half interception, or the Bucs have an ugly 3-and-out?

Freeman will hear some language and venom that may scar his 21-years-young self.

It would have been one thing if Freeman would have started this season. Fans might have been more patient with his development. But at this point Joe believes Bucs fans are nearing angry mob status.

If Freeman takes over soon, he’ll need to be mentally strong way beyond his years. Joe wonders why Raheem The Dream, given all the talking he does, never describes Freeman as mentally tough.

Joe reads Buccaneers.com daily. The fine fellows over there, Scott Smith and Jeff Kamis specifically, are good people and very friendly to Joe. And their video features are top shelf.

Now Joe undestands the stories and features at the official Web site are too promote the team and send messages to fans. It’s all love and kisses, unlike at some NFL team sites that employ columnists and bloggers who are highly critical of the home club. Narcissistic Jerry Jones even pays three team columnists who routinely blast the Cowboys’ decisions.

Joe finds it interesting that the latest story on Buccaneers.com is telling fans to be patient in waiting for Josh Freeman’s starting debut. Here’s an exerpt from the story:

That does not necessarily mean that Freeman will start or even play again the next time the Buccaneers take the field against Green Bay following their bye week. Freeman could play against the Packers, or he could be held back until later in the season, or possibly even into 2009.

Notice the italics. Interesting.

Even more interesting is when you consider the tease to the story off the Bucs home page reads, “Josh Freeman’s late-game cameo in London does not necessarily mean he’s ticketed for the starting lineup soon, but the job is clearly his in the near future. …”

All Joe’s saying is it’s clear the Bucs are trying to send a message. Right now, that message is not to expect Freeman in the starting lineup yet.

Seems as though backup offensive lineman Marcus Johnson is feeling the ill-effects of jet lag. As a result, he will feel the ill-effects in his wallet.

Johnson, as of this writing, per TBO.com, is locked in a cage in Hillsborough County after he was found asleep in his car just before 4 a.m. this morning. His bail is set at $600.

Cops found Johnson at the intersection of Dale Mabry Highway and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, just a short distance from One Buc Palace. It’s likely Johnson was leaving the Bucs facility after returning from London.

Cops administered a field sobriety test on Johnson, which he did not pass.

Randy Sparage and Erik Kramer of FoxSports.com break down why the Bucs got lit up by the Patriots. Kramer, a former Lions and Bears quarterback, claims Josh Johnson “is not NFL ready.” He details why.

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=4571240c-e388-49e1-a179-eb777a692774&#038;from=IV2_en-us_foxsports_videocentral" target="_new" title="Online OT: Pats pound Bucs">Video: Online OT: Pats pound Bucs</a>

The brutal Bucs are so miserable, despite the NFL draft being months away, Joe is already paying attention to the Christmas in April event for NFL teams.

Part of the reason is that the Bucs are in race for the first overall pick.

Joe was channel surfing early yesterday evening and came across an interview with former Bucs and current University of Tennessee defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, appearing on his son’s show, “The Lane Kiffin Show,” on SportSouth.

Kiffin was asked about superstar safety Eric Berry. In short, Kiffin said if the Bucs don’t draft Berry they are out of their minds.

“I know something about the NFL,” Kiffin said. “I spent 25 years there. If people don’t draft Eric Berry with the first pick, they are making a mistake. I understand if you have to pick a quarterback, OK. If you don’t, you are crazy if you don’t pick Eric Berry.

“I spent some time down in Tampa Bay. They are having a tough time. They may have the first pick. Raheem Morris worked for me, I know him. I know Mark Dominik. I’ll tell them: They need to draft Eric Berry, I don’t care if it is with the first pick. He’s that good of a player. They need him.”

Whether the Bucs draft Berry or not, this little nugget will be interesting to file away and check back in a few years to see if Kiffin was right.  

Joe generally enjoys Tom Balog’s offerings in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Thankfully, it’s one of the few Gulf Coast papers south of Tampa Bay that still employs a Bucs beat writer.

(Memo to publishers and editors: See the recent circulation numbers? You aren’t going to get more readers by offering less. You think you’ll get more readers by covering sleep-inducing, stupid-ass zoning board meetings as opposed to getting fresh, original Bucs coverage? Keep dreaming, and to here’s hoping you have some sort of golden parachute when your gig evaporates.)

But today, Balog is terribly off base on this Josh Freeman situation and Joe has to set Balog straight, as much as Joe likes him.

Freeman will have two weeks of practice taking starters reps, although the team will have only two practices this week, on Wednesday and Thursday before taking a long weekend break.

Um, Bucs offensive coordinator Greg Olson is using Chucky’s playbook. You really think Freeman can master this in two weeks? Com’ on.

Freeman will have the rest of the season to get oriented to life as an NFL starter as the Buccaneers begin the discovery process across the final nine games, to see what they have in the 21-year-old from Kansas State.

Like the Bucs can’t do this next year when Freeman is more qualified to start an NFL game? What’s the rush? Like the Bucs will contend for a Super Bowl title in 2010 if Freeman starts now?

Freeman was the 17th overall pick taken in the 2009 NFL draft,  to become the franchise quarterback of a team that has never had one.

Just because the Bucs made a mistake in reaching for him in the first round because Freeman’s bride Raheem the Dream was in heat over “Tito” doesn’t mean Raheem the Dream should make a collossal mistake by rushing Freeman. Thereby ruining the kid, which will surely kill Raheem the Dream’s career. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

He will be entrusted to leading the Buccaneers to enough victories to enable Morris to keep his job after this season.

What Freeman does this year or maybe even next year has no bearing on Raheem the Dream’s job. If anything, waiting til next year to start Freeman might give Raheem the Dream an extra year of job security. No coach is going to get fired based on a quarterback’s first year as a starter, specifically a quarterback drafted in the first round.

If Freeman is rushed and melts down and never recovers as a result, then Raheem the Dream’s gig is certainly toast. Also remember that if Freeman is named a starter, he will go against Dom Caper’s defense with the Packers. Capers is the architect of the famed Steelers zone-blitz, a system perfected by Dick Lebeau.

Going against a Capers’ defense is not the time to rush a quarterback into service for his first NFL start.

The element that will best determine Raheem the Dream’s ability to return next year will be if Chucky is hired by any NFL team, not what Freeman does this year.

Joe begins his day this beautiful Tuesday morning with a first, a bit of JoeBucsFan.com history:

To the best of Joe’s knowledge, albeit trying to think before his morning requisite supply of caffeine, covering nearly 14 months and some 3,300 posts, Joe has never linked to a John Romano article.

The streak has now been broken because the St. Petersburg Times scribe finally blasted a pitch out of the park. It also helped Romano’s cause that the premise of his column reinforces something Joe has been pounding home, specifically the past couple of weeks.

There… is… no… need… to… play… Josh… Freeman. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

The decision to force him into action just because the team is horrid beyond words is a gamble far too massive solely to pacify the impatient.

Joe has also pointed out by rushing Freeman, Raheem the Dream is commiting career suicide. Romano suggests Bucs general manager Mark Dominik’s career is also in Freeman’s hands. Romano picks it up from there.

The point is that Dominik and Morris cannot be swayed by emotions in this matter. An 0-7 record should not matter. Newspaper headlines and radio callers should not matter. Empty seats at Raymond James Stadium should not matter.

The only consideration should be whether Freeman is ready. That’s it. And the only people who can make that determination are the coaches and executives who have been monitoring his every move for the past six months.

It is their necks, so it has to be their call.

If they doubt that, they might want to ask Bruce Coslet how his career worked out after starting Akili Smith in his fifth game as a pro. Or they might want to check with Marty Mornhinweg, who put Joey Harrington in the lineup in his third game. Ask Dom Capers about David Carr or Mike Nolan about Alex Smith. The roadside is filled with NFL coaches whose careers were dinged by first-round quarterback flops.

Also remember that for whatever twisted reason, Raheem the Dream decided to let offensive coordinator Greg Olson revert to Chucky’s playbook in the weeks after Raheem the Dream fired offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski.

So Freeman — and the entire offense — spent all of the offseason and preseason preparing for a run-first, throw-deep offense, only to have that plan scrapped before the first month of the season was finished and decided to go toward a Chuck(y)-and-Duck offense.

Chucky’s playbook was also so complex, it often took veteran quarterbacks two years to fully digest it. Imagine a rookie trying to grasp that in just a handful of weeks?

Yet another reason Joe prays Freeman doesn’t start until 2010.

By STEVE WHITE
JoeBucsFan.com analyst

Steve White spent every season of the Tony Dungy era playing defensive end for the Bucs. He’s spent countless hours in the film room with the likes of Warren Sapp, Rod Marinelli and more. Joe is humbled to now have White, also a published author and blogger, as part of the JoeBucsFan.com team. Below is White’s weekly Bull Rush column that breaks down all things defensive line. It’s simply a can’t-miss read for the hardcore Bucs fan.

I know it’s generally hard to take anything positive away from a 35-7 loss, but I am actually more optimistic now about the Bucs defensive line after Sunday’s game against the Patriots than I had been previously this season.

The guys up front really didn’t play that poorly and in a few cases played better than average, and I could see this group actually getting better during that game.

The one thing that stood out for me from the start is that for whatever reason the Bucs finally let the strong side defensive tackles put their inside hand down. I can’t begin to explain to you just how much something seemingly that small can contribute to improving our defensive line play.

When you have your inside hand down as a shaded defensive lineman you have the ability to meet force with force and push blockers back into the backfield. When you have your outside hand down you are almost relegated to just going laterally with the blocker.

The guy who seemed to benefit most from the change was Chris Hovan.

Hovan has always been an above average pass rusher from inside since coming into the league, but since joining the Bucs and becoming a nose tackle his opportunities had been limited. Now that he gets to line up to the strong side (on the outside shoulder of the guard) a good part of the game he has the opportunity to show those pass rush skills off once again, especially on play action pass.

As the game went on Hovan even got a little tilt in his stance and really started working some moves. Allowing him to put his inside hand down is going to really pay off for us going forward. You could see a difference in Ryan Sims and Roy Miller also when they were to the strong side especially holding up better on double teams. But Hovan, to me, is by far the best pass rusher of the bunch, and so that is why I say most of the benefit will come from him.

By the second half Hovan had his feet staggered and even had a little bit of a tilt, looking a lot like how our strong side tackles used to line up.

I was also very encouraged by the play of our defensive ends. In his second start of the year, Greg (Stylez) White had his second sack of the year and was once again text book in playing blocks with his hands and escaping.

Jimmy Wilkerson dominated the Patriots tight ends for most of the day and was stout playing the run. Tim Crowder showed a lot of flash as a pass rusher at both left end and right end and had a real nice hustle play on a wide receiver screen. Even Michael Bennett got into the act and got a hit on Tom Brady and rushed well in an increased role. All told our defensive ends were some stat sheet stuffers yesterday.

There were still some areas that concerned me, however.

For one, the Bucs still need better rushes on play action pass.

Secondly, while we did have one really excellent “EX” game from White and Hovan (defensive end penetrates, tackle loops outside for contain), which forced a holding penalty, by in large the timing is still off on most of our pass rush games.

Third, I am still not understanding how we can have a three-man rush where Jimmy Wilkerson is not on the field. Any time a team takes their leading sack man off the field on third down there needs to be a very good reason for that and so far I can’t come up with one.

And finally we have a goal line defensive alignment that I defy any coach, player, or fan, to show me can be successful against any, if not most, goal line running plays. (I am serious about that, we can get on a chalkboard or in a film room or wherever. But until then you won’t convince me that goal line scheme can, let alone will, work.).

But those are all what I would call “fixable” areas.

At this point, its more than apparent that we have enough talent on the defensive line to be successful. What we need going forward is a little more consistency from the guys and a little more tweaking in the scheme and we should be able to take off for the rest of the year.

Emphasis, of course, on SHOULD.

Maoist Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports believes Josh Elliot of BSPN would fare just as well as a Bucs quarterback as Josh Johnson or Josh Freeman.

The wolves are starting to growl at Raheem the Dream’s door. If Mike Silver of Yahoo! Sports, a friendly fellow despite being a Maoist, is taking you to task, then the walls may just be caving in.

In short, Silver believes Raheem the Dream is in over his head and the Glazer Family has tarnished NFL warden commissioner Roger Goodell’s dream of spreading the gospel of the NFL into London.

So let me get this straight: England quite generously gave us “The Office.” And for one forgettable Sunday, we returned the favor by giving 84,254 fans at Wembley Stadium “The Awful.” Yes, British friends, you did get to see Tom Brady do his thing in the New England Patriots’ 35-7 victory over the 0-7 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and you also got to see what happens when an NFL franchise stops spending aggressively to retain or acquire players and hires a rookie coach (Raheem Morris) who lacks the experience to deal with such a dearth of talent. As of Sunday’s debacle, the Bucs are now on their third quarterback of 2009 and their second Josh, with first-round rookie Josh Freeman seemingly set to step in for Josh Johnson. Should Freeman struggle – and you know he will – might I humbly suggest “SportsCenter” anchor Josh Elliott, who at least could inject some humor into a miserable situation?

A SportsCenter anchor as quarterback? Well, it’s not like the Bucs couldn’t go 0-7 without him as starting quarterback.

Jim Nantz and Phil Simms talk about the Bucs loss to the Patriots.

Raheem the Dream should turn his back on people in ivory towers who are screaming to rush Josh Freeman into service before he's ready. It's not their jobs on the line if Freeman is scarred and ruined.

Count former Bucs beat writer and current SI.com columnist Don Banks amid a growing number of Fourth Estate members who indirectly want Raheem the Dream to commit career suicide.

Banks, like Vacation Man, is panting for the Josh Freeman era to begin. Of course, it’s not Vacation Man’s cash or Banks’ money that will be thrown down the crapper if Freeman is rushed and ruined because of their impatience.

If you’re the Bucs, don’t you have to go to Josh Freeman now? Tampa Bay (0-7) has its bye next weekend, and then a game at home against Green Bay in Week 9. Why not see what the rookie quarterback has to offer? It’s not like Josh Johnson has provided a spark or convinced anyone that he’s the future in Tampa Bay.

Your move, Raheem Morris. What have you really got to lose at this point?

Joe can answer Banks’ two questions simply:

Don’t you have to go to Freeman now? In a word, no.

What does Raheem the Dream have to lose? Since Raheem the Dream is married to Freeman, only his career.

The Bucs cheerleaders were more popular in England than the Bucs. The same could be said about the locals.

Joe decided to check out a couple of London papers to see the reaction of the Bucs game yesterday.

Mostly, the scant stories dealt with anger toward the Glazers, love for the Bucs cheerleaders and, at best, disdain for the NFL.

The sites were loaded with kickball coverage, however.

Take this comment from a kickball fan in the Times of London.

What a load of rubbish. How can anyone call that a sport? Even if you discount the stupid armour and vomit inducing glitz it is about as exciting as netball. How is it possible to score a touchdown but not have to actually touch the ball down?

When you consider gridiron started as something like rugby, what the Yanks have done to it represents everything I dislike about them.

Well, once upon a time in football, players indeed had to “touch the ball down” when they crossed the goal line. Joe’s even seen films of such a practice. That’s how a score in football became known as a touchdown.

Then there’s this cat, another kickball fan posting on the London Sun website, who turned his nose up at the Bucs game.

I forced myself to watch this stuff in order to find out what all the fuss is about. I wish I hadn’t.

It seems to consist of about 3 second bursts of action punctuated by about a minute or more of interruptions for timeouts, adverts, music, dancing and incomprehensible analysis.

I could go on, but can’t be bothered. It’s a load of tosh. Compare it to the Liverpool vs. Man Utd game. No contest.

Probably the most interesting article Joe came across was a non-game story in the London Evening Standard which claims the Glazer Family’s debt on its kickball team is now at £699 million, or using a British pounds conversion calculator to United States dollars is $1.141 billion.

That’s billion with a “B.”

The London Evening Stardard even quoted that clown the Tampa Tribune and its expatriate reporters try to prop up as some Bucs spokesman of import and Joe will let the quote speak for itself.

The Glazers do have their supporters among Tampa fans. One is Paul Stewart, who founded the Bucs UK fan club and runs the Bucpower.com web site from Staines in Surrey. He attributes the lack of success to a “rebuilding year” caused because the Gruden regime “left the cupboard bare.”

He disagrees empathetically that owning Manchester United has caused the Glazers to ignore the Bucs. “The funny thing is everyone in America thinks they are spending all their money on Manchester United and everyone over here thinks they are spending their money on the Bucs and ignoring Manchester United. They can’t win.”

Joe doesn’t have near the NFL street cred as Father Dungy and Rodney Harrison. Last night on “Football Night in America,” the duo discussed the rotten NFL teams, of which the Bucs are among them.

Both talked about how piss poor the bad teams are and it doesn’t take Stephen Hawking to figure out the two were pointing fingers at horrible coaching. Harrison, as usual, was much more blunt than Father Dungy but Father Dungy’s words were actually more biting.

“When you don’t get great quarterback play you’ve got to play smart and you’ve got to play hard and I’m not seeing a lot of smart football from these teams and that’s why I think there’s not much hope.”

Let Joe define “smart football:” It’s a code phrase for good coaching.

Barrett Ruud is devastated by his missed tackles against New England, so he told Stephen Holder of the St. Pete Times.

“It always starts in the mirror,” he said. “And it’s not going to be good when you play, individually, like I did. That’s where I start. There’s just too many bad plays. And it’s been consistently bad plays. All I can do is work harder.”

Joe’s feeling the debilitating growing pains of linebackers Geno Hayes and Quincy Black, too. 

Are these guys getting better? Or are they just out there because the Bucs stink and they’re in over their heads as young players who weren’t high draft picks to start with? 

Jim Bates was known for taking a hand-on approach with linebackers during his time in Denver. And linebackers coach Joe Barry has a Super Bowl ring with the Bucs when he filled that same role in 2002.

So, of course, the Bucs struggles at linebacker couldn’t be a result of coaching. Right?

Joe will take a moment now to remind Bucs fans of a quote from general manager Mark Dominik  in early August.

Dominik on linebackers: “It’s probably our strongest position on our football team, suprisingly I bet to a lot of our fans. That our depth and our talent is pretty good there. So that’s a good battleground to watch during training camp if you want to see some real competition.”

Joe was never sure what Dominik was thinking when he said that. And Joe is still at a loss for words.

Perhaps it’s just of those things that Raheem The Dream says “fans never really understand.”

Paul Severino and Cris Carter of BSPN discuss the Bucs loss to the Patriots. Joe can’t understand how a guy with as much cash as Carter has can’t afford a white shirt. Despite the lack of color coordination, Carter totally agrees with Joe about not playing Josh Freeman.

In his postgame news conference following the Bucs loss to the Patriots, Raheem The Dream admitted he called Mark Dominik on a sideline phone in the fourth quarter to discuss the decision to put Josh Freeman in the game yesterday.

Joe was flabbergasted at the time.

What was to talk about with Dominik, in the middle of a NFL game, that wouldn’t have been discussed before the game? Bizarre stuff.

The moment was caught for all when TV cameras filmed Raheem The Dream on the phone and then marching over to Greg Olson to give the Freeman order.

Luckily for JoeBucsFan.com readers, Joe has worked with Wembley Stadium officials and obtained a transcript of the fourth-quarter phone conversation:

Mark Dominik: Hello?

Raheem The Dream: Man, Why didn’t you pick up your cell in the third quarter? I needed to ask you if I was allowed to kick a field goal?

Dominik: Sorry. I was busy re-writing our plan.

Raheem: That’s OK. Look, we’re down by 28 points. Am I allowed to put Josh Freeman in the game?

Dominik: Well, the plan doesn’t say anything about this.

Raheem: Dude, screw the plan. We’re on our fourth edition of that thing and we haven’t won a game. I want to give Freeman a few reps.

Dominik: Your call. But I gotta go. The Glazers are going to rip me a new one for racking up all these roaming charges in London. You know how they like to keep the cell phone bills down.

SI.com's Peter King also thinks Bucs fans got the short end of the stick with a home game in London, denying Bucs fans a chance to watch Tom Brady and gawk at Bucs cheerleaders.

Last week Joe brought you the story of the Unknown Author of the Bradenton Herald who wrote how Bucs fans were robbed of a chance to watch Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Peter King of SI.com must have gotten wind of the Unknown Author. King too believes Bucs fans were hosed out of a home game, as he explains in his must-read Monday Morning Quarterback column.

I guess I don’t mind foreign football, though I have doubts it will work. But if I were a fan in Miami, New Orleans or Tampa in the past three years, I’d have a big problem with it.

The New England-Tampa Bay game Sunday in London was a home game for the Bucs. The Bucs haven’t hosted the Patriots in a regular-season game in Tampa Bay since 1997, and under the current scheduling format, which calls for NFL teams to play at out-of-conference foe at home once every eight years, the Patriots won’t be in Tampa ’til 2017. Tom Brady will be 40 then. Who knows? He may still be playing, but I’d bet Brady will never play a regular season game in Tampa, ever.

Two years ago, the league moved Miami’s home game with the Giants — likely the only Giants-Dolphins game in Miami ’til 2015 — to London. That would make it a full generation, 19 years, between Giants games in south Florida.

And when the Chargers played the Saints in London last year, it meant no San Diego trip to Louisiana until 2016. So Saints fans in New Orleans will never get to see LaDainian Tomlinson.

What I’d suggest: The league should stop scheduling cross-conference games for foreign soil, or limit them. The Tampa fan probably wouldn’t miss an Atlanta game nearly as much as he’d miss Brady’s only appearance ever in Raymond James Stadium.

Joe is of the mind the NFL and warden commissioner Roger Goodell should just scrap this nonsense of playing regular season games in London. Nobody, but a few scant owners, wants it.

One of those owners is Redskins tyrant/owner Danny Snyder. Maybe Snyder should start worrying about his rotten franchise first before he decides to take over the world?

Vacation Man, of BSPN, and Joe don’t always see eye-to-eye. This is another example.

Right now, not even the most ardent Bucs fan can say with a straight face this team has a shot to win, say, three games.

If Josh Freeman is the starter against Green Bay — Joe wants that delayed while Vacation Man has been pining for Freeman — does anyone really believe the Bucs will win that game against one of the NFL’s best defensive coordinators, Dom Capers?

And Green Bay isn’t that great of a team. Good, not great, certainly beatable (without Freeman as the starter).

Vacation Man sort of sees the handwriting on the wall, that the Bucs very realistically will toy with a winless season. Right now Carolina appears vulnerable, but not unless the Bucs beef up the run defense.

Vacation Man goes so far as to suggest Raheem the Dream may be out of a job if the Bucs don’t win two or more games.

Gerald in Bradenton writes: Do you think coach Morris will be there next year, or is his job in jeopardy?….(the play calling has been horrible)

Pat Yasinskas:The Bucs didn’t hire Raheem Morris just to fire him after one season. They’re hoping he’s there for a long time and things turn around. That said, Morris needs to win a few games and the Bucs need to show progress. If they go 0-16 or 1-15 and don’t show much hope for the future, it would be tough to keep Morris.

Joe doesn’t believe this will happen, once again, until Chucky’s salary is off the books (just how much will Chucky slurp Danny Snyder and the Redskins tonight?). The Glazers are not going to pay for three coaches (Chucky, Raheem the Dream and the potential next head coach).

What Joe will say is the Bucs, whether it’s Mark Dominik or Raheem the Dream or as high up as Bryan and Joel seriously need to take a long look at both coordinators. Joe will have something later today where a couple of fellows with significantly more NFL street cred than Joe are questioning the coaching of the Bucs.

Going back to the Chucky playbook is borderline crazy. On defense, this team from game-to-game either gets roasted by the pass or has the ball jammed up its rear end.  Joe thought the Bucs did a fine job yesterday of defending the run, which shocked the hell out of him.

Pass defense was a different story.

Despite a few spurts, Josh Johnson seems to be regressing rather than progressing. That is unless defenses have already figured him out. 

In the first half, Johnson was horrid, looked lost and out of it. Not long thereafter, he was removed when Josh Freeman made his NFL debut.

In some cases, quarterbacks will begin bickering when that happens. Jealousy sets it which Joe can understand.

But when pressed by Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times, Johnson said he understood the move.

“I told him, ‘You don’t have to say anything. I understand,’ ” Johnson recounted later. “(It was) the same situation as Byron (Leftwich). If we don’t win games, maybe Josh (Freeman) is going to play. I understood what was going on when I first was (named) the starting quarterback.”

Joe has written this before and will write it again: Josh Freeman at this point is not an upgrade so there’s no reason to rush him. None. Zero. So what’s the point?

If Freeman’s not ready, he’s not ready, unless fans are in a sinister mood and really want to hasten ruining the kid’s career and pissing away millions of the Glazer’s money.