It was obvious the Panthers came into this game looking to run the ball more than they usually do, and again the Bucs’ No. 1 ranked run defense stepped up.

Cam Newton was averaging 5.6 yards a carry before today. The Bucs held him to 40 yards on 11 carries.

Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams combined for just 61 yards on 22 carries.

It’s such a team effort on the Bucs’ run defense. The question is who isn’t making plays, versus who is.

Gary Gibson, Daniel Te’-O Nesheim, Roy Miller and Gerald McCoy were in the backfield, as was Ronde Barber on a savage run blitz, and the linebacker corps was punishing.

Thankfully, a handful of mistakes in the Bucs secondary — a particularly rough day for Mark Barron — weren’t exploited.

Should-be Hall of Famer Ronde Barber, the graybeard of the Bucs, seemed as happy as a high school kid on prom night after the Bucs’ thrilling overtime win as he spoke on the Bucs radio network moments after the game.

“This one is at the top of the list,” Barber said of the win, a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. “We didn’t play well, we had three turnovers and we didn’t match up on defense well, and we win. We put ourselves in a tough situation at the end but we have proved to be a resilient team all year and proved that at the end.”

On the final defensive stand that set up the game-tying drive: “We knew going out there it was our one opportunity to do something right today. Without that (last stop), this game is obviously different.”
On Vincent Jackson: “I tell you what, Vincent Jackson is worth every penny we paid him. And I will give it to [quarterback Josh Freeman]. He will admit he was not at his best but at the end, I will tell you I wouldn’t want anyone else throwing the ball for us.

“We will take the ‘W.’ It was a hard-fought win. Hope we can build on it.

“The confidence has been there. We just have to continue to do our job. Coach Schiano puts a lot of emphasis on doing things right and that paid off at the end.”

How happy was Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman after the Bucs’ thrilling, come-from-behind, overtime win? Just minutes after the game while appearing on the Bucs radio network, Freeman was panting like Joe would just after a sheet-thrashing tryst with Rachel Watson.

“This is a great team win. Just one win, just like any other win. I think we came together as a team. I sure as heck didn’t play my best game, we were struggling but guys sacrificing their bodies, whatever it took to make plays at the end. Defense did the job at the end. Nobody flinched. Everybody kept playing. Tiquan got blasted but held on. Dallas Clark stepped up and make two huge plays for us. We have to learn from our mistakes and learn not to make these games so close.”

On the winning play: “It was a play we put in earlier this week. I had to go to [Clark] earlier than I wanted to but I’m glad I did.”

On the two-point play to send the game into overtime: “It was a run-play option. Initially [the Stinkin’ Panthers] came out in a blitz and we switched to a pass. We didn’t flinch. We didn’t move. Vincent came up big and split a double-team look.”

On the win: “The Carolina Panthers, they are a good football team. You don’t want to give Cam Newton the ball back. Our focus was to run our offense, one play at a time. It was an all-around team effort.

“It’s a big win on an emotional scale, but it’s just one win. We have to go out and execute better.”

Doug Martin has 1,000 yards rushing on the season after today’s 24 carries and 138 yards.

Think about that for a minute. That’s 1,000 yards in 10 games.

TEN GAMES!

There was no LeGarrette Blount sighting today, no pretending that the Bucs aren’t going to ride the Muscle Hampster hard on the march to the playoffs (maybe). Yeah, there’s the lurking rookie wall to look out for, but it seems the New Schiano Order isn’t concerned regardless of what they say.

And Joe’s fine with pounding the Muscle Hampster. Let’s see how much the new bell cow can take and prepare to shut him down if the Bucs fall out of the playoffs, or limit him later in the season if necessary. Right now, this season is about winning. The postseason is in reach. Frankly, the Bucs control their own destiny with six games to play.

Keep milking the bell cow.

Yes, Josh Freeman rose to the challenge at a time when he couldn’t fail, but Joe’s got to hand out a game ball to the Muscle Hampster. And yes, Joe’s convinced Muscle Hampster’s goal line fumble was a lousy call that thieved a touchdown from the Bucs.

This Carolina stinker turned into one glorious rose. 

The Bucs left no room for error in the fourth quarter, and it turned out they didn’t need any against the stinkin’ Panthers. Vincent Jackson earned his $11 million and change, and Josh Freeman channeled his 2010 wonderboy magic to pull a great finish and overtime dominance out of an otherwise ugly performance — and a horrendous theft job by the zebras.

Now 6-4, the Bucs are legitimately in the playoff hunt and conversation.

And that guy Doug Martin, well, by Joe’s math, the kid’s now a 1,000 yard rusher in just 10 games.

Stick with Joe through the night for so much more on this wild game.

All right Bucs fans, time to get your Gene Deckerhoff on. It’s the Bucs at the Stinkin’ Panthers and the Bucs are do to deliver a beatdown on an inferior opponent.

If the Bucs are truly a good team and are trying to make a run at the playoffs, this is the kind of game you win. Show the Stinkin’ Panthers who their daddy is. Make Cam Newton bury his head in a towel and bawl.

If the Bucs can pull off a win today, they will be 6-4 for Thanksgiving. Who here would have guessed that in August?

Week 11
Bucs at Panthers
Kickoff: 1 p.m.
TV: Locally, WTVT-TV Channel 13. DirecTV Channel 705.
Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network (in Tampa WFUS-FM, 103.5 and WDAE-AM, 620); SiriusXM Channel 136.
Weather: Per AccuWeather.com, it will be chilly but not too awful. Kickoff temperature is expected to be 54 with winds around 10 mph under mostly cloudy skies. It won’t warm up much after that as the temperature near the end of the game will climb to 56.
Odds: Per Sportsbook.com, Bucs -1.5
Outlook: OK, so the Bucs are in a playoff run. Logically speaking, that means the Bucs are a good football team, no?? If one believes in this premise, then the Bucs should knock off the Stinkin’ Panthers. Good teams beat the teams they are supposed to beat. The Stinkin’ Panthers are lousy. Superman has ingested quite a bit of kryptonite. Cam Newton, though dangerous, has proved to be mortal. Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or Eli Manning or Ben Roethlisberger he is not. Oh, the Panthers have some talent on the field. Steve Smith is as dangerous as any receiver in the NFL and we all know just how stout the Bucs pass defense is (cough, cough). Then there are the Panthers linebackers who who are as good as any linebacker unit in the NFL. This, Joe believes, will be the key to the game. The Bucs’ offensive line has been ripped to shreds by injuries and now backup Jamon Meredith is a monster question mark. The Panthers linebackers have to be licking their chops at the chance to face such a depleted offensive line. Panthers stud rookie linebacker Luke Kuechly all but said as much, stating this week the Panthers’ objective was to try to stop Doug Martin and make the Bucs a one-dimensional team. They know the Bucs, to be polite, are thin up front.
The enemy speaks: Below are some quotes from Panthers coach Ron Rivera and Kuechly about the Bucs-Panthers matchup today.
Kuechly: “We have to finish games, that’s been a trend. We play well at first but haven’t been able to finish a team at the end. We need to play well all four quarters. … [The Bucs] are clicking right now. They are running the ball extremely well right now and when you run the ball, your offense jumps. … [Moving from Will linebacker to the middle] I have become more comfortable as the season has progressed and the more reps I get, the more comfortable I get. I’m still not 100 percent comfortable. … We have to make a team one-dimensional and stop the run. So we have to take care our gaps.”
Rivera: “[The Bucs] offense is on track. Their quarterback is playing extremely well right now. He is limiting his mistakes and making great decisions. Doug Martin is becoming the running back that I think Coach Schiano envisioned him to be. I think [the Bucs] receivers are in sync. Their offensive line, despite injuries, have solidified themselves and look good. … Doug Martin is playing the way a lot of people thought he would be. He doesn’t play like a rookie. He makes a lot of good decisions. He is the complete running back.”

It was interesting to Joe to hear various Bucs defenders talk about Carolina quarterback Cam Newton. The feedback to Joe spanned from indifference to awe.

The awe factor came from Bucs defensive end Michael Bennett, who dismissed Newton’s struggles through his sophomore season in the NFL.

“Nothing against the cam newton, we just want to beat the Panthers.

“I don’t know that if he is struggling,” Bennett said. “His yards are still good. You don’t win the Player of the Year if you are not a great player. He has just made a few mistakes. He is an explosive player and at any time, he can be explosive.

“But I’m not worried about what he is doing wrong. No offense to Cam, but I want to beat the Panthers.”

Adam Hayward didn’t really want to talk about Newton and he admitted he wasn’t laying awake at night worrying about what Newton is doing wrong.

“I know we just have to stop the whole team,” Hayward said. Newton “is turning the ball over, that is a big part of why they are not playing well. We just have to do our job and not worry about that.

“The way we look at it is, Cam Newton is just another quarterback and if we keep him from getting on a roll, we will be taking care of business.”

What could be more fun that watching the Bucs-Panthers game tomorrow with fello Bucs fans and the Kilt girls!

Joe’s got plenty of jerseys and hats to give away, and the Kilt’s food is awesome. Click through above or below to learn more. There’s indoor and outdoor seating, plus WiFi access, easy parking and great game viewing. Tilted Kilt also has the Sunday Ticket so you can keep track of all your fantasies that aren’t wearing skirts.

The Bucs, not satisfied standing pat, decided to try to beef up their interior defensive line as they signed Matthew Masifilo to the 53-man roster today.

Previously, Masifilo was on San Francisco’s practice squad. He was signed by the Niners as an undrafted free agent out of Stanford this spring. He has been on the Niners practice squad all season.

In the preseason, Masifilo had seven tackles and a fumble recovery.

The way Bucs running back Doug Martin has burst onto the scene in recent weeks has Bucs fans giddy with excitement, not just the present but what the future holds for the Bucs’ running game.

Bucs fans are so happy with Martin, they are launching a futile effort, trying to label Martin with gloss other than the outstanding moniker Martin carried with him from college, “The Muscle Hamster.”

(Doug, embrace it, man. It has caught the nation. You can make loads of cash off this. Imagine the gear you could sell. Hamster T-shirts, hamster headgear, hamster coolies, hamster figurines. The list is endless.)

Joe isn’t quite ready to label Martin the best in the NFL, but he’s damned close. Of course, Adrian Peterson lead the NFL in rushing and Martin is fifth.

This does not matter to former Bucs stud, all-around good guy and fan favorite Earnest Graham. The former Bucs all-purpose running back took to Twitter and proclaimed Martin to be the NFL’s best.

@EarnestGraham: There is one RB in the league that is in better shape than Adrian Peterson…..That is Doug Martin. His conditioning is second to none.

This is interesting to Joe, the conditioning. Now, Peterson is famous for his conditioning but if the Bucs are going to make a run at the postseason, they will need Martin at full speed.

Sooner or later, Martin (and Lavonte David and Mark Barron) are going to hit that rookie wall. Even Bucs coach Greg Schiano has mentioned he is monitoring Martin for this as this is the time of the year the wall hits.

Schiano said part of being able to deal with that wall is conditioning. If, what Graham writes, is true about Martin, it will go a long way to help Martin manage both the mental and physical fatigue that comes along with that nasty wall.

Does any Bucs fan feel like a loss is coming in Carolina on Sunday?

Joe doesn’t know one, other than Josh Freeman-basher Boomer Esiason calling a Panthers upset on CBS Radio this week. And that fact alone is evidence just how far the Bucs have come.

A year removed from a total collapse fans expect a third consecutive road win against a division rival. Even Ronde Barber says he’s a total believer.

“Here we are three weeks in a row feeling pretty good about ourselves. It’s one of those things where a team starts getting some confidence and, you know, you feel like you’re going to win every week,” Barber said on the Buccaneers Radio Network. “I don’t know if you ask everyone else that they believe that, but for me these past couple of weeks have really felt like this is the week where we’re going to just keep rolling regardless of what happens in the game. And that was the really the case [against the Chargers.]”

Joe has to imagine Barber has plenty of equally confident company in the locker room.

The Bucs don’t yet have a championship swagger about them on the field like the glory-years teams did. Maybe a great team doesn’t need one. But Joe suspects the Bucs just might start showing some of that swagger in Carolina.

Joe’s not big on most postseason awards, but Joe knows Lavonte David has to be in contention for something as the tackling machine on the Bucs’ top-ranked run defense.

David is fifth in the NFL in tackles (81), pretty amazing for a rookie. But then it feels a little less special because rookie Luke Kuechly of Carolina is third in the league with 87 tackles. Kuechly was the can’t-miss 21-year-old middle linebacker in the NFL draft out of Boston College. He started the season as an outside linebacker but has gone wild since moving to the middle of the Panthers defense.

Speaking on 98.7 FM yesterday, Charlotte Observer Panthers beat writer Joe Person was gushing about Kuechly but said he does have a weakness.

“He’s averaging 15 tackles a game since taking over the middle for Jon Beason. He doesn’t miss tackles,” Person said.

Kuechly has proven “vulnerable to play-action,” Person said, and has yet to show the same prowess in coverage has he has in other phases of the game.

Joe found this to be an interesting nugget, and one that leads Joe to believe the Bucs will try to exploit Kuechly over the middle early and keep him playing a little less downhill.

Definitely something to watch for on Sunday.

Little used Arrelious Benn (4 catches/3 Benn’d arounds) practiced without limitation all week and should be raring to go on Sunday in Charlotte after missing last week’s game with a bum shoulder.

But will Benn be used?

Benn was the primary kickoff returner before the Bucs-Chargers game, and he had been in the role since Michael Smith was buried on the bench after debuting as kick returner on opening day. Benn has one or two strong returns out of 13, and it seems Greg Schiano might have moved on from Benn in that role.

After practice today, the leader of the New Schiano Order appeared inclined to keep new cornerback LeQuan Lewis in that role. Lewis wasn’t good against the Chargers — he fumbled a return, recovered, and then took it to the 8 yard line.

“I’m not sure change is the answer. Sometimes as a coach you want him to have a second chance,” Schiano said while not commiting to Lewis in the role.

Schiano mentioned Lewis, Benn, Tiquan Underwood and WR Chris Owusu as guys that could return kicks. Previously, Schiano talked about Roscoe Parrish possibly expanding his punt returner role.

At this point, Joe just hopes nobody fumbles so the high-powered Bucs offense can get on the field.

Maybe next year one of the cornerbacks the Bucs’ draft will be able to return kicks.

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Lavonte David and his tackles for a loss greatly help the Bucs’ struggling pass defense.

When Bucs coach Greg Schiano was hired as to take over the Pewter Pirates, he went on SiriusXM NFL Radio and was appalled at the Bucs rush defense and said giving up on running plays was simply “unacceptable.”

So Schiano jumped in the defensive pool with both feet to turn around the Bucs rush defense, and he has. The Bucs have gone virtually not from worst to first, but from grotesque to envious.

Now some have suggested that the attention to detail on the run has come at the expense of the pass defense, which has been woeful for the Bucs. However, eye-RAH! Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune dug up a stat that begs to differ.

@IKaufmanTBO: When Buc opponents face 3rd-and-11 or longer, they have converted only 3-of-34 opportunities. That’s why all those tackles for loss are key

It’s an interesting point. Now, sure, if you get a tackle for a loss it stunts a drive by the offense. That goes without saying. It’s almost like a penalty.

But the figure Kaufman offers is striking, and considering it deals with one of the worst pass defenses in the NFL, it’s more striking to Joe.

Let’s not pretend otherwise: the pass defense has cost the Bucs at least two wins, likely three wins and may just be the difference in a playoff appearance or the Bucs watching the playoffs on TV.

If an offense struggles that badly against a pass-awful defense, then Joe can see why Schiano is so adamant that the Bucs focus on choking opponents’ run games.

Watch Herm Edwards and an ESPN roundtable crew take themselves far too seriously in discussing who they prefer, Josh Freeman or Cam Newton.