If the Bucs opened the season today before several empty seats, Erik Lorig would be your lone Bucs fullback.

That’s because fullbacks Robert Hughes and Cody Johnson have been sent packing. That’s the word from Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune.

This, as Cummings suggests, is a curious move. Could the Bucs be looking to move tight end Drake Dunsmore to fullback? It’s a possibility, Cummings believes. Joe already has written that the Bucs possibly could keep four tight ends with Zach Pianalto and Danny Noble in the mix.

If they’re all out of consideration for fullback/tight end role, then here’s another area for Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik and coach Greg Schiano to shop for when the dust clears tonight.

It’s gotten to the point that Joe doesn’t know what to predict. If it isn’t the back and forth (unfounded) rumors of guys getting cut, it’s the shock of productive guys like Tiquan Underwood being waved goodbye.

Strange, this cutdown day has become.

This one has Joe shaking his head in disbelief.

Per Stephen Holder of the Tampa Bay Times, receiver Tiquan Underwood was sent packing by the Bucs today.

@HolderStephen: Agent for Tiquan Underwood says he was released by #Bucs today. That was one of the tougher decisions I presume

This, in Joe’s eyes, demonstrates what a folly training camp if not preseason can be. Underwood did nothing but make plays, day in and day out, game in and game out, never put the ball on the ground.

Yet he is sent packing.

Joe cannot remember being this taken aback by a release. It makes Joe start to wonder the value of watching training camp practices and preseason games.

Yes, Joe is stunned at this news.

The prospect of a Bucs opening-day television blackout has Mike Florio so fired up he’s again taken to his national stage to talk about the Bucs relocating. That’s right, leaving the Tampa Bay market.

Florio, an NBC Sports personality and the curator of ProFootballTalk.com, says Team Glazer has exhausted every means necessary to drive attendance and must seriously consider relocation.

The failure to sell enough tickets at the stadium comes despite a string of efforts to sell all non-premium seats, from taking full advantage of the new league rule that allows teams to cut their “manifest” to 85 percent, to uncharacteristically spending million on free agents like Vincent Jackson, Carl Nicks, and Eric Wright, to hiring a new coach, to cutting the prices on parking and concessions for the home opener, to honoring Ronde Barber.

By the way, it’s the first freaking game of the year.  And Cam Newton is coming to town.  Division rival.  The team that once claimed Chris Simms’ spleen.

It was supposed to be a slam dunk for Week One.  And still the team is 9,000 tickets short.

Look, we like Tampa.  The city did a great job hosting the Super Bowl.  But regardless of the reason — local economy, apathy, whatever — if fans continue to fail to show up for the games, at some point the team needs to be moved to a place where the fans have the money, the time, and the inclination to attend games.

Joe must say that even though the 9,000 ticket figure was confirmed by the Bucs this afternoon, it still lacks very important perspective. For all anyone knows, the Bucs typically will sell 5,000 to 10,000 tickets in the six days leading up to the blackout deadline for opening day. And what ticket sales are typical in the final 72 hours before opening-day kickoff — after the blackout deadline — is unknown. That could bring thousands more sales.

Last year, the Bucs drew 51,000 and change for opening day against the Lions coming off a 10-6 season. There’s no reason to think that this season’s opening day attendance won’t show a significant increase of 10 to 20 percent.

As of now, the Bucs are an organization on the rise operating in a poor Florida economy. They’re not going anywhere.

As a few of Joe’s readers have pointed out, just because you play like a stud in the second half of the final preseason game doesn’t mean you won’t be an accountant the next week.

So it seems to be the case with safety Sean Baker. After picking off two passes and recovering a fumble against the Redskins, it may have been too late for Baker as he was given his walking papers by the Bucs today, so reports the resilient Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune.

Joe will try to keep track of all the comings and goings of the Bucs through the late afternoon. Joe’s dying for a cold beer.

And thank you to all of Joe’s readers for continuing to hit that pesky F5 button!

Joe has gotten plenty of e-mails and Twitter messages about how close the season-opener is to being sold out.

Joe has learned the answer: not remotely close.

Per — you guessed it — Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune, the Bucs need to sell 9,000 tickets in the next seven days just to reach the 85 percent non-premium seating threshold to ensure the game is televised locally.

That’s about one-fifth of the stadium.

Team Glazer has just about done whatever it can to see the game soldout short of handing out tickets for free on the beaches and in the shopping malls.

Ticket prices have been dropped. There is free parking for the opener. Concessions were cut in half for the opener. Still, it appears, NFL fans and Bucs fans as well would rather sit at home and watch the NFL Sunday Ticket and the Red Zone Channel and monitor their fantasy football teams while on the couch in air conditioning with cheaper beer and food.

Many have stated that thanks to technology, the at-home experience is far better than the in-game experience. Consider the Tampa Bay area to be Exhibit-A for that theory.

In short, if you want to watch the game live and don’t want to wait until midnight to watch the game via NFL.com or the condensed rebroadcast on NFL Sunday Ticket, you better buy a ticket.

It seems E.J. Wilson, who prior to the New Schiano Order had some of the most (ahem) interesting Twitter posts that were sent out at 2 a.m., is no longer a Bucs player.

The ubiquitous Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune, rather than those relying on now-deleted Twitter postings from an MSMer, is doing gumshoe journalism and is tracking down agents of players believed to be on the bubble, including Wilson’s.

@RCummingsTrib: Add DL E.J. Wilson to the list of those released by the Bucs. Agent confirms the surprising news. Wilson looked very good during camp

Yes, Wilson had some strong practices and games, including the win over the Patriots in preseason.

Sadly for Wilson, Joe will long remember his politically incorrect Twitter ramblings in the middle of the night (like how he hated women because all he wanted was sex and women wanted a relationship) than Joe will of him making any plays on the football field.

The Interwebs on cutdown day is crazier than a drunk Lindsay Lohan.

Word was rampant earlier today that the Bucs waved goodbye to safety Keith Tandy. Well, hit those breaks again boys.

Apparently not satisfied with word of mouth, Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune has been texting and calling each of the Bucs known bubble players and their agents to determine if they are still collecting a check from Team Glazer.

And, yes, Tandy’s agent says he’s still a Bucs safety.

@RCummingsTrib: Keith Tandy’s agent, Adisa Bakari, jsut told me Tandy has not been cut by the Bucs.

It’s getting to the point that Joe might just go out and have a cold beer (or three) and wait until 10 p.m. (anyone believe the Bucs will release the final roster at 9 p.m.?) because the rumor mill is starting to get crazy.

The injury to right guard Davin Joseph has really set forth an ugly chain of events

To paraphrase Joe Theismann, unless the Washington Redskins’ backup defensive linemen are Supermen, the Bucs’ reserve unit on the offensive line is a shambles.

The Bucs’ backup unit couldn’t pass block and couldn’t run block Wednesday, Joe isn’t entirely sure they could block someone from stealing their beer.

Naturally, with a smashmouth run game and wanting to keep Josh Freeman’s jersey clean, if there is another injury to the starting unit of the Bucs offensive line, it could result in dire consequences.

So it is clear Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik will be surfing the waiver wire hoping to find someone, anyone, who can stop a cool breeze when used in a pinch.

Not so fast my friends (thank you, Lee Corso). It’s not as if the Bucs are the lone NFL team scraping the barrel for offensive line help. Like the Bucs, both the Packers and the Steelers have had injuries to the front line (for the Steelers, this is a rite of summer).

So if you are X-offensive lineman who just got cut by Y-team, who exactly would you want to play for, a team that has a realistic goal of a Super Bowl within its sights, or a team that is just hoping to get to .500?

Sure the Bucs — depending on what day and what source one checks on salary cap space; a subject Joe loathes more than the thought of a nude Rosie O’Donnell — could overspend to get a backup lineman, but what general manager in his right mind is going to overpay for a guy who may never play?

UPDATE: It seems the Bucs braintrust, like Joe, was revolted by what passed as an offensive line Wednesday night and  is cleaning house of its backup offensive linemen.

Again, per workhorse Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune, Jamarcus Hardrick and (Hey) Moe Petrus are now unemployed.

Joe is happy for the time being. Why? You don’t know how hard it is to work in a Curly Howard line in a football story, do you?

Thanks for your service, No. 35.

UPDATE: Though Joe is skeptical to take agents at their word — agents have agendas — Cody Grimm’s agent says he has no knowledge of Grimm getting cut.

Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune spoke with Grimm’s agent this afternoon and was told that he has not heard anything from the Bucs.

@RCummingsTrib: Reports of Cody Grimm’s release may be premature. Neither Grimm nor his agent have heard of a release, according to agent Eric Metz.

So the plot thickens. Has Grimm been released or not? Surely if he was, Joe assumes the Bucs would have said something to either Grimm or his agent. Stay tuned …

This one surprises Joe a bit.

Cody Grimm is a good football player. Not always a healthy football player, but if Grimm is healthy (like he is now) and your fourth safety on the depth chart, then you’ve probably got a very solid safety group. Perhaps the only time since mid-2008 that the Bucs displayed consistent moments of run defense was when Grimm was firing in the box.

But the New Schiano Order disagrees with Joe, and Bucs icon John Lynch. The Bucs’ flagship radio station, WDAE-AM 620, is reporting that Grimm was cut.

Grimm was the most experienced safety on the roster. Perhaps upstart rookie Sean Baker, with two interceptions and a fumble recovery, did enough on Wednesday?

Joe’s down on the Grimm release and hopes the Bucs have another quality body in mind.

Apparently, Greg Schiano likes his defensive tackles healthy.

Brian Price got shipped out to Chicago after he proved to be physically unready (possibly mentally, too.) Now Amobi Okoye is a goner, as well.

Sean Jensen, of the Chicago Sun-Times, reports that Okoye was cut from the Bucs and his old team can’t wait to get him back, which ironically probably doesn’t bode well for Price’s future with the Bears.

The defensive lineman was released by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he’s finalizing a deal to return to the Bears, according to a league source.

A former 10th overall pick, Okoye posted his second-best sack total last season as a Bears reserve, and he signed a one-year, $1.3 million contract with the Bucs during the offseason.

E.J. Wilson? Banged up Gary Gibson? Wallace Gilberry? Those appear to be the remaining depth options at defensive tackle behind Gerald McCoy and Roy Miller. Frank Okam is already gone.

Joe sincerely hopes the Bucs have someone else up their sleeve. Okoye was the second biggest offseason signing on defense, and clearly the need for D-line depth hasn’t disappeared. Schiano himself has said numerous times that the dropoff from the first-team line to the second-teamers concerns him.

Perhaps one of the Redskins interior lineman that gutted the Bucs on Wednesday?

It’s not exactly a flying leap to pat rookie running back Michael Smith on the back for making the Bucs’ roster. Mossis Madu was cut, which means Smith is sure to be named to the Bucs’ 53-man roster when it’s released later today.

Smith, a 2012 seventh-round pick, proved to be a dangerous returner this preseason, and the Bucs’ have a dangerous — to themselves — returner in Preston Parker, who ranked among the worst in the NFL last season and led the league in fumbles at the position.

Whether Smith can run the ball successfully at this level is unknown. He was never really behind the Bucs’ No. 1 offensive line, and the Bucs’ second-team O-line, well, one can’t judge a running back behind that mess.

Joe’s one piece of advice to Smith would be to hold on to the football for dear life. Joe always admired Chucky’s nerve to stick by Clifton Smith when he put the ball on the ground early in his 2008 rookie season, and Smith rewarded Chucky by becoming a Pro Bowl returner by season’s end. 

Joe’s not sure the New Schiano Order would be so forgiving if Smith struggles early with ball security.

Joe realizes that loads of JoeBucsFan.com readers are not rabid, obsessed Bucs fans like Joe. Loyal Joe readers might find it hard to believe, but the majority on these pages only visit a few times per month.

So Joe is just taking a moment to let everyone know the Bucs must chop their roster down to 53 players, or fewer, by 9 p.m. today.

All day long, Joe will be monitoring roster moves that are sure to leak, and the fallout from official cuts. Stick with Joe all weekend as the Bucs should be busy on the waiver wire and setting their practice squad.

Without adding a quality body to the offensive line, the Bucs will be in dire shape if backup guard/center Ted Larsen goes down.

In between watching coverage of the Republican National Convention and waiting for the college football season to kick off (South Carolina at Vanderbilt was a pretty good game last night), Joe decided to watch some of the Bucs-Redskins game on replay on the NFL Network.

No, Joe was sober. Had Joe not had work to do later, he would have emptied his bottle of Bushmills it was so unnerving.

It was late in the first half and the Bucs offensive line had shamed matadors throughout the region. Bucs backup quarterback Brett Ratliff  was sacked five times in the first half — FIVE! — and helped the ground game amass a grand total of three yards rushing (which would have made Greg Olson green with envy).

It was so awful that former Redskins quarterback Joe Theisman, analyst for the Redskins broadcast, was simply appalled.

“Either the Redskins backups on the defensive line are Supermen or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offensive line simply doesn’t know how to block,” Theismann said, channeling the pain that Ratliff was enduring.

Theismann was especially rough on Jamon Meredith, who was trying to secure a position as possibly starting right guard, and failing miserably. Theismann said of Meredith, “All you have to do is get in front of someone!”

This is a frightening concept for the Bucs. The team wants to run the ball, smashmouth style, and Joe is good with that. But without injured Davin Joseph at right guard, the Bucs are thinner than wet toilet paper on the line and cannot risk another injury up front.

Just what NFL team does not have an offensive lineman banged up at least once during the regular season?

If the Bucs are going to try to be smashmouth, and if they want to keep quarterback Josh Freeman in one piece, Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik is likely going to have to go shopping, if for nothing else than to add some depth to the offensive line.

After rumors, innuendo and people trying to connect dots from Twitter messages between Bucs players during dinner, it seems we finally have some definitive word on the fates of two Bucs players.

Bucs running back Mossis Madu is no longer a member of the Bucs, so reports Stephen Holder of the Tampa Bay Times.

Larry Asante, as first reported by Rotoworld.com, is also on the outside of One Buc Palace looking in.

Now Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik and coach Greg Schiano must find 20 other players to cut to come down to the league required 53 players by 9 p.m. Friday.

UPDATE: It appears defensive tackle Frank Okam has also been released. On his Twitter account, he is thanking people for wishing him good luck with his next team.

Would Greg Schiano actually praise Sammie Stroughter’s performance today and then cut him tomorrow? We’re all going to find out soon.

The leader of the New Schiano Order went out of his way to say Stroughter played well against the Redskins during his afternoon news conference today.

Schiano also talked about how there were tough decisions to be made at wide receiver.

Joe’s not going to cry if Stroughter gets cut. But Joe would keep Stroughter. He’s probably the most proven and reliable returner the Bucs have.

Joe’s been monitoring ticket sales for the Sunday, Sept. 9, home-opener against Carolina and $30 single-game adult tickets are no longer available on TicketMaster.com.

Perhaps that’s a sign Bucs fans are finally stepping up to honor Ronde Barber’s 200th start and get the game televised?

The least expensive threshhold now available via Ticketmaster.com is $45 a seat. But Bucs season passes at lower per-game rates remain available, according to the Bucs’ official website. And that is to be expected, as teams often will keep a handful of tickets aside for potential season-ticket holders or group ticket buyers at all rates.

In seven days, Bucs fans will learn whether the home-opener is blacked out. Joe sincerely hopes the community is not stained by that occurrence.

Remember, if you’re looking to save cash and start your tailgate early, you can hop on Joe’s roundtrip chauffeured luxury ride to the stadium for only $3.95.

Whew! Joe’s resting a little bit easier this afternoon. No, Rachel Watson didn’t help Joe get a sound night sleep after the dreadful Bucs-Redskins game. Joe is soothed because Stephen Holder of the Tampa Bay Times brings word today that defensive tackle Amobi Okoye is preparing to help the Bucs in 10 days against Carolina.

Okoye, who tipped a pass against Miami three weeks ago and disappeared after that, is in positive management mode with his troublesome knee.

“I came out and did the conditioning test (on July 28) and it felt good after that,” Okoye said. “I played in Miami (in the preseason opener). But I just think the constant beating and beating on it was an issue. It had some swelling and I just needed to continue to rehab it. I’m out there practicing on and off and I’m basically just getting it ready for Sundays. Right now it’s feeling better than it was even before the conditioning test.”

This is great news. Okoye was solid playing more than 50 percent of the snaps for a good Bears defense last season. He was a key acquisition, considering Gerald McCoy’s fragility and Roy Miller’s history of poor play, and Brian Price getting the boot.

If Okoye is ready to play, that means the Bucs won’t have to rely on Miller’s play reaching a level never before seen in a Bucs uniform. Miller may pull it off, but Joe wouldn’t want to have to bet on it.

The Bucs entered this offseason with major concerns at cornerback, with most of those surrounding Ronde Barber’s age and Aqib Talib’s legal troubles.

Concerns remain, except their scope has changed dramatically.

Barber’s a safety and Talib is healthy and free from legal troubles, but the depth is downright scary.

E.J. Biggers remains injured and isn’t expected to practice next week. Myron Lewis is not a good football player. And Anthony Gaitor and Leonard Johnson are as green as can be, as well as undersized. Brandon McDonald, a veteran pickup last week, is hardly inspiring, but at least he’s got experience.

Who’s the nickel cornerback on opening day?

The Bucs, as the roster sits right now, are a cornerback injury away from a serious problem.