Talk to any of the Bucs players, especially the rookies on the offensive side of the ball, and they will be quick to tell you who the leader of the team is.

“This is Josh’s team,” they will say.

Part of that is the fine season Freeman had. His only six interceptions proved he’s a stud in the making.

Or does it?

Woody Cummings of the Tampa Tribune has an interesting article about what is not known about the Bucs. In it, he wonders aloud if Freeman’s solid season is a harbinger of years to come or a flash in the pan.

We don’t know just how good a quarterback Josh Freeman can be. He had an exceptional season, but needs to put a string of similar years together to be considered one of the best in the league

To be fair, it’s an interesting question. There is no question that there were games where Freeman, like a crafty pitcher in baseball, didn’t have his location. Not many, mind you, but a few. Hey, even the best of baseball pitchers will have off games where they struggle with location.

As good of a season Freeman had, there were games where he wasn’t always on target. Baltimore was one of those games which spring to mind for Joe.

For Freeman to be considered in the class of, say, Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady, he’s got to be consistent. Freeman was, mostly, all season. Rodgers and Brady rarely have those types of games.

Off-target games aren’t quite rare enough for Freeman to be among the elite. Yet.

There’s a full weekend slate of glorious NFL playoff games and, with a Bucs twist, Joe’s here to tell you who to cheer for, if you haven’t already made up your mind.

Ravens at Steelers – Raheem Morris was clear in interviews that he’s pulling for his buddy Mike Tomlin. But it’s a tougher call for Joe, since both teams beat the Bucs this year and Joe wouldn’t mind seeing either one lose. Horny sleaze Ben Roethlisberger is the difference. Go Ravens!

Green Bay at Atlanta – This one’s much easier. Joe hates all things Dixie Chicks. Nothing would be better than Matt Ryan with a stupid ass look of defeat on his face and the NFL subsequently ending the Falcons-on-the-school-bus commercial. C’mon, Goodell, you’ve got stables of naughty cheerleaders and you’re putting Arthur Blank’s mug on the screen? Go Packers!

Jets at Patriots – Another tough game for Joe. The Jets turning out to be clear-cut morons for drafting Mark Sanchez ahead of Josh Freeman is a very attractive motivator to pull for a New England blowout. But seeing some people’s coach of the year, Bill Belicheat, losing and pouting about it would be too rich to pass up. Go J-E-T-S.

Seattle at Chicago – If Seattle (8-9) wins the Super Bowl, then the Bucs will have beaten two winning teams this past season. That would be special. But Joe wouldn’t mind seeing the Bears, who invested in the evil, sinister ranks of free agency, make some noise in the playoffs. Maybe that would help open the Bucs’ minds a little more to buying a couple of studs in the offseason. Go Seahawks!

Joe’s good friend and NFL draft guru Justin Pawlowski fires up his Saturday show today at a special time: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on WDAE-AM 62o.

Of course, Pawlowski will talk all things Buccaneers and college football, and chatter about the Rays’ many departures. He also will share some special NFL draft insight, as he spent part of this week mingling with prospects preparing for the combine.

Chained to a desk? You can listen online at 620WDAE.com.

If there was to be a coaching change with the Bucs, Joe doubts seriously that (former) defensive line coach Todd Wash’s departure will bring Bucs fans to their knees, sobbing at the news.

In fact, under the tutelage of Wash, the Bucs defensive line has been nothing short of miserable, so writes Tom Balog of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

The Bucs defensive line has so underperformed under the watchful gaze of Wash, that a dead man had better numbers.

Wash had been the Buccaneers defensive line coach for the past three seasons, a span which saw the team have no lineman with more than 6 1/2 sacks in a season, a number first posted by the late Gaines Adams in 2008, and then matched by Stylez G. White in 2009.

Good Lord, if a guy no longer breathing had the most sacks for the Bucs under Wash, a man roundly mocked by Bucs fans and football experts alike as being a bust, Joe wonders how in the world was this guy ever to keep his job as long as he did?

Joe has written this before and will write again: With so much of Team Glazers’ cash tied up on the defensive line, Mark Dominik couldn’t wait much longer for something to blossom.

Especially since the Bucs rock star general manager is all but certain to draft a defensive end in this spring’s draft.

The good people at The News Center have obtained the video of Mike Williams’ DUI arrest. As Joe documented earlier Friday, all charges against Williams have been dropped.

Please monitor the video — it’s 24 minutes long — and let Joe know your conclusion.

Joe will write this: If Williams was deemed weaving, Joe could get pulled over virtually each day.

This reminds Joe how scary it can be that someone in power can dramatically alter one’s life on a whim.

In what Joe can only describe as someone in the higher reaches of the Hillsborough County State’s Attorney office being overcome with common sense, charges against Bucs wide receiver Mike Williams have been dropped, so reports video star Anwar Richardson of the Tampa Tribune, Twittering on the TBO Bucs Twitter feed.

The Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office will not pursue charges against Bucs WR Mike Williams.

As regular readers of Joe may know, just yesterday Joe predicted that the charges against Williams would be waived.

As Joe stated before, this smelled to high heaven all along of a blatant case of DWB by some gung-ho sheriff’s deputy trying to make a name for himself in an attempt to protect residents from threats both foreign and domestic.

It’s also clear to Joe that Williams’ whizz quiz came back perfectly clean, as Williams was adamant it would, otherwise, the charges would have stuck.

Joe doesn’t think it’s out of line for the officer in question to issue a public apology and perhaps undergo some form of sensitivity counseling to stop this needless and senseless profiling tactic.

UPDATE: Richardson has further details of the decision by the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s office to dismiss the DUI charges against Williams posted on TBO.com.

“We just got the results back from the urine analysis and that was all clean, so (we made the decision) based on him blowing below the legal limit,” Cox said. “There is also a video at the scene when he got arrested, and when we looked at it in totality, based on the blow and the road-side camera, then the results we got back showing there was nothing else in his system, we felt like we couldn’t go forward.”

This is outrageous to Joe! If, in the video, authorities could tell no sense of impairment, then why exactly was Williams pinched and dragged to a jail like a common thug?

This is simply a miscarriage of justice and if the deputy in question is not pulled off the streets, he simply must undergo additional training. How many other innocents has this same officer stained and harassed?

Joe is bumping this post up due to popular demand judging from the crush of e-mails he’s received about it.

Taking a break from his beat writer duties at the St. Pete Times, guest spots on NFL Network, and Twittering news unworthy of a newspaper, Rick Stroud tossed out some Team Glazer speculation during an interview with the Tampa Bay electronic sports media czar, J.P. Peterson on WQYK-AM 1010 AM yesterday during the Happy Hour with J.P. Show.

Stroud said he thinks Team Glazer is gun-shy about giving Mark Dominik and Raheem Morris longer contract extensions because the owners don’t want to go back to marrying a general manager and head coach together like they did Chucky and Bruce Allen.

That was a costly union and Stroud said he beleives Team Glazer just isn’t interested in going that route again.

Stroud said flushed money to Jeff Jagodzinski and Jim Bates also could be a factor in Dominik and Raheem getting one- and two-year extensions, respectively.

Of course, Team Glazer may have none of these motives ascribed to them by Stroud, and they just simply exercised options on Raheem and Dominik yet are working behind the scenes on longer deals.

For Joe, the one-year deal for Dominik seems perilous. One more well-graded draft and the guy’s options to jump ship likely would be quite numerous and lucrative.

Back for his weekly trip to the end zone of the NFL universe, popular radio personality Adam Schein travels through football space and time outs. Consider yourself sucked in to the latest episode of Cosmic Schein!

Video: Cosmic Schein: Divisional Weekend

Joe finds it intriguing that departed special teams coach/Chucky lover Rich Bisaccia singled out and praised three Bucs in a quote given to eye-RAH! Kaufman of The Tampa Tribune.

They would be Adam Hayward, Maurice Stovall and Micheal Spurlock. All three happen to be unrestricted free agents after this season.

In addition to chatting yesterday about his parting conversation with Bisaccia, Kaufman penned some of Bisaccia’s comments for TBO.com.

“I’m proud of our body of work in Tampa over the years,” Bisaccia said. “I will definitely miss the players, guys like Maurice Stovall, Adam Hayward and Micheal Spurlock. To me, coaching is based on relationships and I’m proud of the relationships we built in Tampa Bay. Looking back, I’ve been touched by a lot of people in Tampa and the fans here have been great.”

Joe has to think Bisaccia would push San Diego for one or more of these guys. Spurlock, as Joe has written previously, would be a tough loss for the Bucs. He’s one of the better kick returner in the league and has shown a knack for catching big passes.

Spurlock ranked seventh in the league among kickoff returners with more than 20 opportunities, and he was one of 16 guys in the NFL to return a kick for a touchdown. He also caught 17 balls, 14.7 yards per catch and two touchdowns.

The Bucs’ season might have looked a bit different without the amazing sideline catch Spurlock snatched with seconds left in Cincinnati.

Stovall and Hayward are replaceable in Joe’s eyes.

Joe knows Barrett Ruud is a lightning rod for Bucs fans.

There are some voices — Ian Beckles and Justin Pawlowski of WDAE-AM 620 — who are convinced Ruud is softer than the bosom of Rachel Watson.

Beckles constantly rails that Ruud is scared of contract — a grievous and unforgivable mortal sin for a middle linebacker in the NFL.

Pawlowski is known to grumble over Ruud’s perceived inability to shed blockers.

Then there are those, such as former Bucs defensive end Steve White, who believe Ruud is doing nearly everything he is asked in Bucs coach Raheem Morris’ defense. That Ruud is not meant to be a second-level stopgap because that is the responsibility of the defensive tackles, among others.

White, and other Ruud defenders, point to his many tackles. Beckles and Pawlowski point to how those tackles are made on the third level.

There seems no middle ground with Bucs fans with Ruud. Either he is doing his job splendidly, or he is an insult to middle linebackers of the past who strapped on shoulder pads in the NFL.

One thing is certain for NFC South blogger Pat Yasinskas. He of the employ of the Soviet mouse outfit in Bristol appeared on The Fabulous Sports Babe Show, heard locally on WHBO-AM 1040, and flatly stated that Ruud has played in his final game for the Bucs.

Joe is paraphrasing here as he was behind the wheel and unable to take notes without wrecking his prized Ford Ranger, but blogger Yasinskas stated that the Bucs do not place a high monetary value on a middle linebacker in their defense scheme, so Ruud getting a hefty salary from the Bucs is out of the question. Therefore, the Bucs will not meet Ruud’s contract demands.

As a result, Ruud, blogger Yasinskas explained, will be able to go to a team that does value middle linebackers and where he will be able to dominate opposing offenses and be paid an honest salary commensurate with veteran middle linebackers.

Joe has tried to keep an open mind about Ruud. He believes Ruud’s detractors do have valid questions. However, Joe does not know the intimate responsibilities of a middle linebacker in a Tampa-2 defense. Simply put, when White breaks down how to play the Tampa-2, Joe takes notice.

Joe will say, and has, that when an old man of a cornerback and a rookie seventh round draft pick of a safety make as many or more splash plays against the run inside the box as your middle linebacker, well, Joe believes it’s fair to question Ruud.

Now yes, Ruud does rack up a lot of tackles. Those of the proverbial seven yards downfield as Pawlowski often points out. Ruud’s defenders state a tackle is a tackle but normally, if a safety leads a team in tackles, as Ruud has in the past — he was second in Bucs tackles this season — a third-level player, one would ask what the problem is, that a safety should not be leading a team in tackles.

If Ruud’s tackles are, as many believe, all seven yards downfield, is that not not the third level?

Perhaps Ruud is more safety than middle linebacker and just the fact he wears the cloak of middle linebacker is the problem because people — right or wrong — have a perception of a middle linebacker that Ruud simply will never match? Maybe Ruud is a safety in a middle linebacker’s clothing?

If that is the case, would it be fair to say the Bucs defense plays a 42 front and not a 43 front?

"Hey Monte, where's that fuc*n Italian Stallion? I want to hug that fuc*n guy next. Man, I love that guy."

Breakups can be hard.

And it seems departed Bucs special teams coach Rich Bisaccia never got over it when his beloved coaching brother Chucky was jettisoned from One Buc Palace two years ago.

Tampa Tribune scribe eye-RAH! Kaufman said he talked to Bisaccia after he took a gig with the Chargers this week and Kaufman shared some insight on The Fabulous Sports Babe Show on 1040 AM today.

Kaufman painted a picture of Bisaccia having a little bitter taste in his mouth over the events in January 2009.

“Bisaccia and Gruden were tight. I mean tight. He misses Gruden. It wasn’t the same for him,” Kaufman said. “There wasn’t necessarily animosity [for the current Bucs regime] but he didn’t even get a courtesy interview for [the head coaching job].”

Kaufman also explained that Chucky used to call Bisaccia the “Italian Stallion.”

Joe can understand the apparent man love between Bisaccia and Chucky. It’s all very sweet. And Joe can only imagine the foul-mouthed get togethers those two had over the past two years, especially with Chucky still living in Tampa.

But Joe remains convinced Bisaccia moving on was a financial move. Nobody loves Chucky that much.

Update: post clarified at 5:07 p.m –  Disney statistical gremlins have checked in with blogger Pat Yasinskas of BSPN, the outfit’s NFC South guru, and dropped a look inside the Bucs’ paltry 2010 payroll totals.

The Bucs have checked in as the team with the lowest payroll –$58.7 million — entering the 2011 offseason, per Yasinskas’ comments on 1040 AM today during The Fabulous Sports Babe Show. Also in a post on BSPN.com today, he wrote that the league average payroll entering 2011 is $97 million.

A look at the Bucs free agents and it’s clear the Bucs officially shed around $20 million with those contracts expiring, so 2010 payroll probably was close to $80 million.

Yasinskas went on to chat about what Joe has been writing for months: a return of the salary cap is expected with a new collective bargaining agreement and the Bucs would be forced to spend a mountain of cash just to reach the minimum allowed payroll of around $110 million.

While Mark Dominik and Raheem Morris talk about big name free agents as if they are satanic beasts that would corrupt the organically grown squad the Bucs have built, Joe’s really not buying all that. These great personnel men are after the best fit for the Bucs — not price tag shopping.

Yes, the Bucs want to re-sign their own free agents, like they did Donald Penn, but are they really going to pay out the nose for Barrett Ruud and Davin Joseph? One could make a case the Bucs don’t need either one.

Cadillac Williams won’t cost that much as a No. 2 running back, and Ronde Barber won’t break the bank.

Given this salary data, Joe will be somewhat amazed if Dominik finds a way not to sign a big-name free agent for 2011.

Joe has gone on record for weeks, no, months, that Raheem Morris should be the NFL coach of the year.

Other astute NFL minds have joined Joe such as Adam Schein of Sirius NFL Radio and Michael Irvin of NFL Network.

Sadly, not all agree with Joe. Veteran NFL reporter eye-RAH Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune believes the Bucs missing out on the postseason will do in Raheem’s chances at the award, so Kaufman Twittered on the TBO Bucs Twitter feed.

Terrific job turned in by Raheem Morris this season, but he’s not going to win Coach of the Year honors. Not making the playoffs hurt.

Joe can understand this. It’s sort of like people watching only SEC football and dismissing any team as remotely good because said team may play on the left coast.

At risk of turning into Raheem’s public relations assistant, no coach did more with less than Raheem. He increased his win total by seven games — seven! — from the previous season largely with castoffs and rookies.

No team started as many rookies and won 10 games than the Bucs this season since the AFL-NFL merger 40 years ago. That’s four decades folks.

The man others are jocking for coach of the year, Bill Belicheat, is an unethical scoundrel who just so happens to have one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history playing in a milquetoast division.

Prior to the season if someone would suggest Belicheat would win 14 games, the response would have been little more than a shrug of the shoulders.

If, prior to the season, someone suggested Raheem would win 10 games, Joe would have had the man either drug tested or committed.

Now who exactly did the better job? Please, this is a no-brainer.

"I had about enough of that, Wash."

After five games this season, Raheem Morris sarcastically said on live radio that Gerald McCoy needed to learn it was OK to make a tackle in somebody else’s gap. “It’s not illegal,” Raheem said.

That was the day Joe knew defensive line coach Todd Wash’s job was as secure Joe’s belt buckle on Thanksgiving.

How could your big-money draft pick playing cluelessly five games into the season not fall on the position coach’s head?

Wash’s contract is up and he’s not coming back, reports Tom Balog of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.  No surprise after the Bucs reportedly offered a contract to Vikings D-line coach Karl Dunbar days ago.

Obviously, Wash had midseason pickups Al Woods, Frank Okam and Alex Magee ready to play. He deserves a lot of credit for that. But Joe also has to give him a lot of credit for the Bucs getting gashed repeatedly in the run game going back to 2008.

Surely, the Bucs can do better than Wash.

Mild-mannered former Bucs Pro Bowl receiver Mark Carrier was fired up yesterday speaking on 1040 AM.

What got in his pants?

Reports of Ron Rivera signing a four-year guaranteed contract for $2.8 million a season plus incentives to coach the Carolina Panthers yet Raheem Morris only will get $2 million guaranteed per season in 2011 and 2012 with incentives that could drive the value of the contract over $7 million.

“When I see [Rivera,] who’s not been a head coach with a base salary bigger than Raheem, I don’t think it’s right. I really don’t,” Carrier said. “The special teams coach left. You know that had to do with money. Something’s not right. …Something could have been done for Raheem.”

Now Carrier is no Team Glazer basher. In the fall he told a story on the air about being invited to watch a home game this season with Team Glazer in their private suite, and he shared anecdotes of what intense fans and good people the owners are.

Carrier went out of his way yesterday to make it clear he didn’t think race was a factor in Raheem’s seemingly low wage, just a business move of Team Glazer that he can’t fathom.

For Joe, this money stuff is strictly business. Raheem is the right coach for the Bucs next season. And he’s returning, so that’s all Joe cares about. Team Glazer had an option on him and excercized it. They didn’t drop the ball. Maybe Raheem needs a better agent, but that’s not Joe’s problem.

Raheem will get his manbeast of a payday soon enough if he continues to be a successful coach.

Late in the season, Bucs wide receiver Mike Williams was popped for speeding, though it smelled more like DWB, and the cop in question, trying to keep America safe from enemies both foreign and domestic, decided to force a DUI upon Williams, though Williams blood alcohol level was within the legal limit.

Williams, disgusted with what was happening, decided to take a urine test to prove his innocence.

Good guy Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times writes about where that case currently stands.

The results of a urine test administered after his arrest are still pending. That test would determine his alcohol level and any other potential illegal substances that could impair a driver. If the test comes back clean, as Williams has vowed it will, there’s a very good possibility the case will be either dismissed or the charge will be dropped. But the timeline remains unclear because such tests can take roughly four months to process for minor charges such as DUIs (cases involving serious offenses like rape and murder get priority).

But the bottom line here is this: If everything is as it appears — Williams took an independent urine test after his arrest and the team said no illegal substances were found — there’s a good chance Williams will walk away from this unscathed and vindicated.

Here’s the only tricky part: While Williams and the Bucs claim his follow up whiz quiz was clean, the results are not public record. Williams’ urine test with the cops is very much public record and will show so much as if Williams had to take an aspirin that evening.

The thing about this whole case is how some Bucs haters tried to somehow lump Williams in with a known scumbag and threat to public society Jerramy Stevens, who had a rap sheet longer than Joe’s arm and who was popped for (allegedly) attempting to sell pot mere hours before kickoff of the Bucs game with the Rams.

How and why a deranged mind would try to connect Stevens and Williams and then make the hysterical leap that somehow Raheem Morris’ team was running amok and he had no control of the team was simply outrageous to Joe and without question wholly unfair not only to Williams, but to Morris and the entire Bucs organization.

To this day Joe wants to strangle people who suggest such nonsense.

Oh, and Williams, along with fellow rookie LeGarrette Blount, were named to the Sporting News all-rookie NFL team yesterday.

Rich Bisaccia’s not a guy who did many local interviews in his time, so Joe found it significant today when the dean of Tampa Bay sports radio, Steve Duemig of WDAE-AM 620, talked a bit about his longtime friendship with Bisaccia today and of a recent conversation they had.

Duemig said Bisaccia had a great offer from another organization — not the Chargers — and that San Diego’s money offer must have really knocked his socks off.

Duemig assured listeners that Bisaccia received an offer from the Bucs and the loss of the special teams coach had nothing to do with “cheapness by the Glazers” and there was no bad blood behind the scenes.

Gregg Rosenthal, of ProFootballTalk.com, implied in a post yesterday that the loss of Bisaccia was a belt-tightening move.

The guy with all the answers is Bisaccia, of course. Maybe he’ll talk one day. Maybe not.

Joe’s much more interested in how good his replacement will be. Yes, Bisaccia was known for his leadership, but the Bucs seem to have that aspect of the team sewn up pretty well at this point.