Buccaneers coordinator of pro scouting Shelton Quarles, also the last Bucs middle linebacker to get a Pro Bowl nod, says Tampa Bay again will play its share of rookies in 2011.

“I think our first four guys, or five  guys, [from the 2011 draft] will have an opportunity to play on Sundays for us right away,” Quarles said on WDAE-AM 620 yesterday. “We were the youngest team last year. I think we had 10 rookies start for us during the course of the season. It was the first team in NFL history to have 10 rookies start and have that team end up with a plus-.500 record.”

Of course, hearing this confidence in the rookie class prompts Joe to wonder which 2010 Bucs will be shown the door.

None are retiring, and the Bucs say their goal is to re-sign all their own free agents. Plus, the Bucs surely have high hopes for their three 2011 picks from the sixth and seventh rounds, and a pile of guys are returning from injury. It’s a long list, from the big-name guys to Demar Dotson and Kareem Huggins.

Joe’s planning on legitimate surprises come final cuts.

Love and support for Aqib Talib keeps pouring in from all angles. (Joe will have more on that tomorrow.)

The latest comes from Kellen Winslow, Jr., the Bucs’ leading receiver each of the past two seasons. He had a chat with NFL.com before appearing live on Total Access tonight. For those with Outhouse Networks cable television, Total Access is the NFL Network’s nightly show.

In the extensive NFL.com Q & A, Winslow was asked about Aqib Talib and explained that Talib is the second most important player on the Bucs.

Bucs CB Aqib Talib is in the middle of a tumultuous offseason. How important is he to your team?

KW: We need that guy to win. Talking about Super Bowls — we need him really more than anyone besides Freeman. He’s that good. He locks down receivers. He’s got to iron out what he’s got to iron out, but we need him as much as anybody.

Now Joe has written before that the Bucs don’t need Talib. They had success without him and he’s unreliable at best.

However, Winslow’s point is clear. Talib is a massive talent, and the Bucs need him to completely — not partially — straighten out his act. Joe believes Talib will get one more chance in Tampa, despite the St. Pete Times’ unsourced and unwavering claim that the Bucs have already decided to cut him.

Never boring and sometimes ridiculous, yet always a top-shelf HD production, it’s the unexplainable and unmatched JoeBucsFan TV. If you haven’t seen it, take a look.

A guy the Bucs might need to be at his absolute best in 2011, especially if family shenanigans shelve Aqib Talib, E.J. Biggers says he’s going all out to be ready.

Speaking today on the Ron and Ian Show on WDAE-AM 620, Biggers said he’s in his native Miami working out four days a week with fellow NFL players.

“Very [football] intensive. In the mornings we’re on the field either doing field work, conditioning and position drills, then right after that we go in the weight room. So it’s kinda like a two-a-day workout, but it’s back to back and we do that four days a week,” Biggers said. “The weekends you have to yourself and then it’s back at it on Monday.”

Among other topics, Biggers called Talib a “great teammate” who helped him “from Day 1.”

Click the pretty arrow below to listen to the entire interview:

[audio: biggers.mp3]

Although nothing has officially been announced, there likely will not be a Bucs Fan Fest this year, thanks to this asinine lockout railroaded upon innocent NFL fans by NFL strongman Roger Goodell.

Of course, this could all change at a moment’s notice as it has become all too apparent in recent months to Joe that to try to gauge how a judge will rule is like trying to guess the color negligee Rachel Watson is wearing on a given day.

Now the Bucs were working out at  … Joe’s not saying, but video star Anwar Richardson of the Tampa Tribune and workaholic Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times found out where and it was enough to chase Josh Freeman, leader of the Bucs and organizer of the workouts, to seek a new, private location.

(Column intermission: Speaking of Holder, last Friday afternoon Holder went off on a shocking, emotional rant on Twitter, which was partially if not fully directed at Joe for the Jeff Faine/workouts issue. Holder chastised “bloggers with too much time on their hands” with “starting fake controversies.” Read: “Jack Sheppard chewed my arse out because I wasn’t on top of the story and I have to find a scapegoat.” Also, if the Faine issue was so “fake” as Holder stated, how was it his own paper and fellow colleagues were knee-deep in it quoting Faine initially on the subject and later running his letter of apology? If this issue was “fake” as Holder would have Bucs fans believe, then his own employer was running fiction stories as well.

As for “bloggers with too much time on their hands,” well, Holder is so up to his neck in work, he passed on going to St. Louis to cover court proceedings of this asinine NFL lockout like many dedicated NFL reporters, and instead offered his services to cover the non-basketball association finals, a sport that doesn’t even have a Tampa Bay franchise! That’s like a Browns beat writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer covering the Stanley Cup Finals!)

Joe understands how Freeman and perhaps his teammates want a modicum of privacy to concentrate on the matters at hand and Joe understands. But with the NFLPA embroiled with NFL owners in this labor hassle, players have to win over close-minded fans who somehow are of the mind that the players are the root cause of this lockout.

Drew Brees, who has been sort of a mentor for Freeman, gets it. Maybe because his name is on the lawsuit against the NFL, but Brees is inviting fans to participate in a Saints workout, per a release from the NFLPA, the Saints are holding a raffle with four winners getting a chance to practice with the Saints. For any winners based away from New Orleans, round-trip airfare and a night at the Ritz-Carlton is included.

How cool is that?

Now Joe isn’t suggesting Freeman and his teammates try to pull off something that elaborate. But what Joe thinks would be cool is to have a Fan Fest of their own. Invite fans on a Saturday morning to watch a work out and make it interactive, pull some fans out of the stands (at a local high school field), let a couple of kids toss a ball around with Freeman, or maybe see if some kid can out race Ronde Barber or have a guy challenge E.J. Biggers to defend him catching a pass?

Stuff like that.

Joe not only thinks it would be cool for the fans, but it would be yet another way for the players to bond with their supporters and become part of the Tampa Bay  community.

It would just be one day. It would be go a long way to salve the wounds left by this heinous work stoppage.

"Who am I? Rodney fuc*n Dangerfield? Jimminy Christmas. Yeah, I had a 'fix-it-each-year type of situation' Glazer because I'm trying to win fuc*n football games. I could have drafted Freeman, too, you know. I love that guy."

Listening to Bryan Glazer’s tone at a fancy sports gala in Tampa last night, broadcast on WDAE-AM 620, Joe sniffed Glazer’s weariness over the final years (five years?) of the Chucky era.

Glazer was asked by emcee Rock Riley about the decision to hire Mark Dominik and Raheem Morris, and Glazer explained that the duo believed in the Dungy-era way Glazer wanted a return to.

“We wanted to get back to that,” Glazer said. “[a team that can] win mulitiple championships.”

Glazer said it was important to make sure the Bucs approach “wasn’t a fix-it-each-year type of situation” any longer.

Poor Chucky. He won games with his veteran, Band-Aid approach, but winning wasn’t enough to save his job.

Team Glazer wanted a legitimate contender with scary young players and thought it was too much to ask of Chucky.

Nothing got Bucs fans tossed from bars quicker than when they threw beer glasses at a TV, outraged over the play of Bucs linebackers.

Just mentioning the name “Barrett Ruud” so incenses Bucs fans some are liable to blindly run into traffic, screaming at the top of their lungs about how he is a disgrace to powder puff college women’s flag football linebackers.

Quincy Black largely gets a pass because these same angry fans claim Black is invisible.

Geno Hayes, the third of the Bucs starting linebackers, is a mixed bag. Joe believes Hayes is simply inconsistent. He will make a few splash plays but then get burned on routine plays.

But that’s not quite accurate, so say the educated geeks (Joe says that fondly) at FootballOutsiders.com. The spreadsheeters compared computer printouts and determined that Hayes is one of the best run-stoppers in the NFL.

Stop Rate is defined as the percentage of a players Plays that were Stops. Plays are any time a player shows up in the play-by-play on defense: tackles, assists, forced fumbles, etc. Stops are plays that stop the offense short of what FO considers a successful play: 45 percent of yards on first down, 60 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third or fourth down.

Obviously, Stop Rate isn’t a perfect stat. It measures the plays that a player makes, not the plays he misses or the plays he doesn’t even get a chance to miss because he is being properly blocked away from the ballcarrier. Still, it gives you a good idea of where players were making their plays and thus why certain defenses were good or bad at certain parts of the game in 2010.

The tables below are limited solely to running plays, including scrambles. We give Run Stop Rate as well as number of Plays and number of Defeats, plus yards per play, which is the average length of a run past the line of scrimmage when this player had a tackle or assist.

In the link above, Hayes is the fifth-best run-stopper at linebacker in the NFL, just behind Terrell Suggs, Roger Goodell’s nightmare James Harrison and Lance Briggs.

Per FootballOutsiders.com, of the 36 rushes Hayes defended, opponents only got 2.1 yards. That’s a damn good average.

In a related note, the FootballOutsiders.com whizkids also ranked cornerbacks and it should come as no surprise that Ronde Barber was ranked third overall in the NFL.

Not bad for an old man (for NFL standards). Not bad at all.

A peppy Bryan Glazer spoke with conviction about the Tampa Bay region’s shot at the 2015 Super Bowl tonight at a fancy banquet that featured a roundtable Q & A with Tampa Bay franchise owners Glazer, Stu Sternberg and Jeff Vinik.

The event was broadcast live on WDAE-AM 620.

Emcee Rock Riley asked Glazer what he thought of Tampa Bay’s chances of snagging the 2015 Super Bowl, and Glazer unveiled a fighting spirit.

“I feel great about them. …We’re going to work our butts off to get the Super Bowl back here in 2015,” Glazer said. “[After years of cold weather cities,] the owners are ready to go back to warm weather. Us versus Phoenix, I promise you our nights are a lot warmer than theirs.”

Nice to hear Glazer take a shot at Arizona. Actually, it nice to just hear Team Glazer at all. Two interviews in one day today — that’s got to tie a record.

Hardly earth-shattering news on the Super Bowl’s return, but it’s probably a great idea for the Bay area to snag it in 2015, before the NFL has success hosting in cold weather and starts thinking they’ll dodge ice and snow every year.

In an extremely rare occurrence, Bucs co-chairman Bryan Glazer sat down for a brief interview with Joe’s good friend “The Big Dog,” Steve Duemig, this afternoon live on WDAE-AM 620. Among the things Glazer talked about was why he hired rock star general manager Mark Dominik and coach Raheem Morris, how in-house decisions are made and who was responsible for drafting Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman. Hint: “… it was Raheem.”

Steve Duemig: You made the decision to re-sign Mark Dominik and Raheem Morris and extend their contracts, tell us about that.

Bryan Glazer: We made the decision to hire them two years ago. Mark, he has been with the organization for 16 years, as long as I have been here. We saw him work his way up from a scout and we learned to trust him. Raheem, we have known for close to 10 years. They shared what we wanted to do going forward and that is to build a lasting contender, not just one or two years in a row.

Duemig: You have done that in the past with Coach Dungy.

Glazer: It takes some patience. You have to have everyone on board. But that was the feeling from day one. We knew there would be bumps in the road, we knew it would be painful but we knew that the team would be successful.

Duemig: It seemed there was a quick turnaround. Were you surprised by the 10 wins last year?

Glazer: It did not shock us. The previous season, we could have won more games. We lost a few games in the last minutes. When people — and I won’t mention any names — said we would win two or three games, I’d laugh. We had the talent and Josh was getting better and it was a wonderful year. Most fun I’ve had in a long time.

Duemig: Consistency, it’s important to have a solid quarterback, you don’t want to change that.

Glazer: Yes, and you see the teams that have longevity and long success, you see a franchise quarterback.

Duemig: Was that the owners’ decision to draft [Freeman] or was that management’s?

Glazer: At the end of the day, it was Raheem more than anyone else. His one year [at Kansas State where Freeman was the starting quarterback] he got to know Josh and he told us the whole story. From there, it was an easy decision.

Duemig: How much do you get involved — it is rare to get a chance to talk to you. I know from your history you let people do their job but you have the final say.

Glazer: That is correct. We hire good people to do their job. Yes, we are in the room when they make the decision but at the end of the day, yeah, it’s our decision but we trust our people.

Duemig: Has there been a bump in season ticket sales?

Glazer: We we had some success. Fans have gotten to know the team a little more. There is a way to go but we are excited and optimistic.

Duemig: With the advent of HDTV, have you had or are there any discussions in owners meetings to try to keep fans in the stadium?

Glazer: We talk about that all the time. We have to make the in-game experience more fun than the home experience. At home, you are just steps from the refrigerator. In-stadium, there is no way to match that experience. But it is a challenge. It’s a challenge for all teams, not just football.

Duemig: How do you do it?

Glazer: We are talking about some things that I can’t mention now but we know it’s a challenge. People can stay home, they can go to the beach, they can go to the movies. We have to get people to come to the game. A game situation has to be fun. This is a good market. Look at the Lightning and what they have done. The Rays too. This may be the most exciting 12 months for Tampa Bay sports. Fans will enjoy themselves at games and have a good time.

Perhaps more than any other Buccaneer, Joe’s aching to see Bucs second round pick Da’Quan Bowers take the field. What an X factor this guy could be. Key word: could.

Bowers was relaxed and confident for an Internet radio interview with a site called DraftCountdown.com this week. The sack artist was very upbeat, though Joe was a bit troubled when Bowers said he thought he could participate in 80 to 90 percent of drills right now if the Bucs opened camp.

“You know. I spoke with Dr. Andrews and he did some research on my knee, and there are no long term effects,” Bowers said. “You know, a lot of people think I had microfracture surgery, which isn’t the case. I had a surgery called chondroplasty, and it’s nothing like microfracture. It was a small surgery. I was walking the same day without crutches.”

Bowers went on to acknowledge concern about arthritis in his knee, but he said he feels great and wants to make sure the Bucs “look like the geniuses that they are” for drafting him.

He also said he’s excited to play left defensive end opposite Adrian Clayborn and explained he has “the quickness of Julius Peppers” and the strength of some guy named “Reggie Bruce.” Joe assumes/hopes he meant Reggie White.

Bowers said he was in Tampa recently to visit Josh Freeman’s workouts and his stated impression of the turnout was 30 to 40 guys.

Joe hopes Bowers gets healthy. Damn, the Bucs could use a healthy dose of nasty coming off the edge.

A lot of Bucs fans were aggravated with Bucs management after it was open to the HBO series “Hard Knocks” coming to One Buc Palace this summer but turned down HBO’s request when the team finally received it.

No one knows for sure why the Bucs suddenly turned a cold shoulder to HBO, much like a Bucs cheerleader would to Joe at a trendy, south Tampa late night hotspot.

But it seems that some perceive the HBO series as not “fair” to players, thus why so many teams want nothing to do with the popular annual peek inside a team’s training camp inner-workings.

That’s the word from NFL analyst Pat Kirwan in a recent NFL.com chat.

NFL.com
Pat, why do you think so many teams are reluctant to do Hard Knocks?

Pat Kirwan, NFL.com
I had this discussion with Bill Cowher — he turned down Hard knocks multiple times. I believe, as does Bill, there is a sensitivity between player and coach that isn’t for public consumption. The fan might find it interesting watching a player get cut. But I don’t find it fair to the player. I also think other teams can learn too much about you on the show. Example: New England watched and learned a lot more about Danny Woodhead than they would have known without the show.

Kirwan did go on to write that he is a fan of the show and if the Jets can’t be on again, he’d hope the Packers would agree to be the subject of this season’s series.

Being unfair to a player is an interesting take that Joe never thought of: One of the more voyeurish elements of the show is when a team basically tells a player his dream is over and his services are unwanted.

It’s creepy watching that. Sure, it can be entertaining, but flip your shoes to the young man’s position. Is that a moment in your life that you want rebroadcast every year on NFL Network for the nation to see?

Joe remembers years ago being assigned to cover a minor league baseball game in the Chicago suburbs and a pitcher who was hanging on by the skin of his teeth had an awful outing, scorched worse than batting practice.

Said pitcher, a half-hour after the game ended, was alone in the corner of the clubhouse, his uniform still on, head buried in his hands likely knowing his career was over, his dreams shattered.

It was a jarring scene for Joe and the memory vivid as if it happened this morning. The pitcher couldn’t have felt worse if he learned his mother had passed.

Joe can understand why many teams wouldn’t want that scene broadcast. It’s uncomfortable enough for Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik to break that news to a young man. Joe can understand why he wouldn’t want to make a bad scene worse.

In what may go down as the sports radio show of the year, Joe’s good friend, “The Big Dog,” Steve Duemig, has landed the biggest of big fish in the Tampa Bay sports sea.

Team Glazer will make a rare live radio show appearance on WDAE-AM 620 in an owners summit with “The Big Dog.” Team Glazer — either Bryan or Joel but certainly one of the two — will join Rays owner Stuart Sternberg and Bolts owner Jeffrey Vinik to discuss sports in the Tampa Bay area.

Just the fact Team Glazer will appear is earth-shaking news. Along with Sternberg and Vinik, this makes for an unprecedented local sports radio show.

Set aside time from 6-7 p.m. today and tune in to WDAE-AM 620 for this local sports radio history-making show. Those outside the Tampa Bay radio market can listen to the live streaming audio of the show at the station’s website.

A lot has happened in the past year to the Bucs. They went from the return of the Yucs to 10 wins and a near-playoff berth, largely on the shoulders of rookies and second-year players signed and drafted by rock star general manager Mark Dominik.

There were many who were throwing rocks at the Bucs including popular sports radio personality Adam Schein. Now, Schein happily eats a plate of crow and is ranking the Bucs as the No. 11 organization in the NFL in his recent column on FoxSports.com, a far cry from the bottom of the barrel he had the Bucs ranked last year.

13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 37
Owner: 4
Quarterback: 8
Coach: 7
Front office: 8
Coaching staff: 5
Intangibles: 5

One year ago, I bashed Tampa’s direction. The Bucs proved me wrong. Head coach Raheem Morris and GM Mark Dominik are good at what they do. I think young QB Josh Freeman could one day win a league MVP. He is that type of clutch player and leader. Tampa gets knocked down on owner and intangibles. Fans aren’t happy they once again lose a home game to a game in London. And there still is a lack of public trust in ownership.

Well, if this asinine lockout thrust upon innocent fans by NFL capo Roger Goodell lasts two more months, the Bears game in London will return to The CITS. Joe guesses that’s something positive out of Goodell’s stench.

These are all fair points Schein makes. The London game followed passing on a “Hard Knocks” invitation didn’t do a whole lot for Team Glazer’s standing with the fans.

Just because the Bucs cannot make any player transactions doesn’t mean the Bucs cannot conduct personnel matters.

The man whose voice has personified football weekends in Florida for so many years will get at least two more seasons on the job with the Bucs. Per Buccaneers.com, the voice of the Bucs (and Florida State), Gene Deckerhoff, has re-upped his contract to be behind the microphone of Bucs radio broadcasts.

A Florida institution for more than three decades through his work with the Buccaneers, the USFL’s Tampa Bay Bandits and the Florida State football and basketball programs, Deckerhoff is possessed of one of the most recognizable voices in sports broadcasting.

About to enter his 23rd season calling Buccaneer games, Deckerhoff remains wildly popular among Tampa Bay fans and highly respected in the field of sports broadcasting. In fact, he recently won his 12th Florida Sportscaster of the Year award for his work in 2010.

It’s hard to believe there are many Bucs fans out there who know no other voice than Deckerhoff’s. That’s how long Deckerhoff has been calling Bucs games.

Good news for a good guy. If you ever by chance run into Deckerhoff on the street, he won’t big league you. Really, really nice guy and, more importantly, damn, what a set of pipes!

Picture this.

Aqib Talib’s enraged mother arrives at her daughter’s house, where her son-in-law, Shannon Billings, is outside and starts to move away from her as she shows a gun. She fires two shots at him while he runs away from the scene, presumably for his life, and the fleeing Billings then looks over his shoulder and claims to see Aqib Talib holding a gun and is sure Talib fires it several times at him.

This is the core of the case the good state of Texas is offering against Talib in his felony assault with a deadly weapon case.

A man running for his life at dusk, who happens to have a long criminal history, is fleeing a woman shooting at him and allegedly he was able to turn around in the frenetic scene and see Talib with a gun and know he shot at him. 

Joe had to laugh reading that in the arrest affidavit for Aqib Talib filed by the Garland police. Billings would have to be some sort of cool customer to pull that off. Maybe he can catch a football over the middle in heavy traffic.

The entire arrest affidavit filed by the Garland police that led to Talib’s indictment can be read here. Much of Billings’ account of the events, which the police stand behind, is below. (You can click the words to view it in larger type.)

The police also have another witness who was interviewed twice, a female neighbor, who claims she never saw Talib with a gun. Her story, from the affidavit, is below. (Click words to see in larger type.)

Now the police presentation of Talib’s statement and his mother’s statement reveals a mess of contradictions. Talib admits to lying about his girlfriend being on the scene. And his mom’s account is all over the place.

What is clear is there was an argument at the scene, shots were fired by Talib’s mother, and apparently the only witness fingering Talib with a gun crime isn’t going to win any credibility awards anytime soon.

There was no gunshot residue testing done on Talib, per a St. Pete Times report weeks ago. There were no injuries reported. And Talib’s attorney Frank Perez told JoeBucsFan.com weeks ago that “we’ve interviewed 17 or 19 witnesses and none of them say Aqib Talib had a gun. He wasn’t handling a gun.”

The event details are sketchy at best. And if there ever were a trial, Joe suspects the accounts would get even more fuzzy and muddled.  

Talib is scheduled to appear in Dallas County district court tomorrow, per the court docket, as Joe reported earlier. A court official told JoeBucsFan.com that the appearance is not for anything specific, meaning that Talib’s attorney’s will be talking to prosecutors and things will move along from there.

Maybe the two sides move close to making a deal that keeps Talib out of prison and reduces his charge. Maybe they don’t. Joe suspects Talib will never admit to firing a gun at the scene or trying to pistol whip anyone, either of which likely would be a major red flag to NFL lockout orchestrator Roger Goodell.

Regardless, Talib largely is viewed as a first-time offender in the eyes of Texas. His previous brushes with the law — not teammates — were very minor. And Talib is ripe for some sort of deal and/or intervention program, per discussions JoeBucsFan.com has had with Texas criminal attorneys not affiliated with the case.

Joe hopes fans will read the entire affidavit and make their own judgments, rather than rely on the few snippets the St. Pete Times provided last weekend that didn’t seem too fair and balanced.

Judge Don Adams

Barring a last-minute change, Aqib Talib is scheduled to appear in Dallas County district court tomorrow at 9 a.m before judge Don Adams.  

Obviously, this is not a trial date, but stuff’s going to get scheduled. And when you’ve got the prosecutor and Talib’s legal team together, there’s always a chance a deal could be struck, or at least the beginnings of one.

Later today, Joe will reveal some of the very flimsy evidence against Talib in his felony assault with a deadly weapon case and give readers a chance to give their take after reading a lot of the information in play.

Though he may not be working in a team format, that doesn’t mean Bucs safety Larry Asante isn’t working out.

He Twittered last night his recent workout regime and it’s not for a child.

Jus run 20 40 yard.hills and finished wit 10 200 meters on the track thnx trainner now I cant move……THNX

Man, Joe’s worn out just reading that.

If there’s anything that can come out of his hideous lockout from NFL capo Roger Goodell, it seems a good majority of the Bucs are busting their tails in order to stay in shape.

Like any free agent not mired in bitterness, blocking icon Cadillac Williams is quick to say he wants to return to his old club.

Tampa Tribune beat writer Anwar Richardson caught up with Cadillac recently and the fan favorite showered his head coach with praise and said he’d love to return for his seventh season in Tampa.

“First of all, Rah (Morris) is a standup guy. He’s a really good guy,” Williams said. “Just his coaching technique and the way he treats players, letting them go out and play and be themselves. He’s a very motivating coach. It’s really a player’s dream to play for a coach like that.”

As Joe has written before, Cadillac is a great guy for the Bucs to re-sign. However, the presence of Earnest Graham on the roster, another veteran who can also block, catch, run and lead, has got to devalue Cadillac a bit in the eyes of Mark Dominik.

Joe’s not seeing the Bucs getting into a bidding war for Cadillac, a part-time player, if the Rams or some other suitor come calling with a bigger check.