This morning, Bucs middle linebacker Mason Foster, who Joe believed was on his way to chomping pineapple for much of the season, stopped by to chat with Justin Pawlowski and Gary Shelton, co-hosts of the “Gary and The Commish Show” hearly locally on WHfS-FM 98.7.

Foster said he is still scratching his head to determine why the Bucs were no less than a sieve on pass defense, yet dominant against the run.

Justin Pawlowski: Why so good against the run and struggled against the pass?

Mason Foster: I really don’t know. We had a lot of good players across the board. Can’t really point to one reason why the run defense was good but the pass defense wasn’t that good. It’s just football. There are a lot of great players in this league, a lot of great receivers in this league. It just happens. You can’t point fingers at anybody, we have to go out there and compete. We are a team together. We have to improve. We have great coaches. That’s what offseason is for, to get better and get more wins.

Gary Shelton: What is the advantage this year of knowing Greg Schiano when neither side really knew each other?

Foster: It was tough. Didn’t know what to expect, coming into it blind. This year you know the coaches, know what they are looking for, know what to expect in the weight room, everything. I am excited coming into this next season with one year with Schiano under my belt. He is a great coach, great program, greet organization. I think we will keep progressing.

Joe can say right now what was wrong with the pass defense: The secondary was largely made up of guys off the street who received little to no coaching from their secondary coach.

The Bucs, sans E.J. Biggers, had no depth at cornerback (isn’t it funny how Myron Lewis stood on the sidelines with his hands on his hips while there was a parade of guys dragged off the street who saw playing time ahead of him?) and when your two starters, the Adderall Twins, were suspended/traded, the Bucs had no safety net.

It wasn’t as if the Bucs had Lester Hayes and Mel Blount at corner to begin with (Eli Manning is still completing 80-yard bombs at this moment) and after the Adderall Twins and Biggers, the talent level really fell off the cliff.

Also in the interview, Foster said flat out, “I need to get better at everything. I just turned 24 [Friday]. I need to be a student of the game.” Foster plans to celebrate his birthday tomorrow by working out in the weight room.

Foster also spoke about his former teammate at the University of Washington, Desmond Trufant, one of the top cornerbacks in April’s draft.

The entire interview can be found here.

Former Super Bowl-winning coach Brian Billick suggests Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik may pull a Mike Ditka and draft nothing but cornerbacks in April’s draft. Billick joined Charles Davis and Laura Okmin to discuss the Bucs’ draft needs in this FoxSports.com video.

Bucs beat writer Stephen Holder didn’t offer much detail in his morning TampaBay.com report that claims Roy Miller and the Bucs have stopped talking about a new contract. Miller will be an unrestricted free agent March 12.

Miller’s agent implied his client is eager to see what fruits the open market will bear.

It’s unclear what the team is offering Miller and his contract demands aren’t known. But Miller’s agent did nothing to dismiss the notion that Miller is destined to play in another uniform in 2013.

“Roy is excited to see what’s out there for him in free agency,” said his agent, Mike McCartney. “He has a lot to offer after an excellent season, helping a team that was last against the run (in 2011) go to No. 1 against the run last season.”

Joe really can’t give an intelligent opinion without knowing the finances. This all sounds like agent-speak right now.

Miller is a two-down nose tackle, and while he was stout in his role as a run-stuffer in the Bucs’ No. 1 rush defense, it’s hard to imagine he’s not replaceable.

Joe also knows that Miller, in past years, has been plagued by knee issues, weight issues, and back problems. Those could be factors in the Bucs’ approach.

Martellus Bennett doesn’t seem to be a big fan of the Tampa lifestyle

Legions of Bucs fans would love to see beastly, soon-to-be-free-agent tight end Martellus Bennett wearing pewter and red next month and playing alongside his brother Michael.

Joe wouldn’t mind that either. The younger Bennett is a beastly blocker and emerged as a versatile pass-catcher last season with 55 receptions in the Giants offense, which just happens to be very much like the Bucs’. And Martellus is a very candid Twitterer. The dude puts it out there.

Martellus Bennett was in Tampa yesterday working out hard, “grinding for the love of the game” per his Twitter account, with Gerald McCoy, Michael Bennett and Roy Miller. But it seems Martellus may not like how we country folk go about things. ‏

Joe tries not to lose his cool over idiotic things, but there is one subject that just drives Joe up a tree.

This utter, imbecilic nonsense of the Bucs moving — to Los Angeles of all places!

Once again, this subject was brought up in an ESPN NFC South chat and someone that should know better didn’t exactly throw water on the flames.

Corey (greensboro)

Pat I was wondering why are keep hearing of Panthers moving to LA. But yet we don’t hear anything about the Bucs moving to LA when the Bucs are not able to sellout games.

Pat Yasinskas

Bucs aren’t looking for a new stadium or renovations — at least not yet. That’s when LA stuff always surfaces.

Now Joe isn’t Donald Trump or Bill Gates but he is a businessman; small, yet a businessman. So let’s do some simple Economics 101 to determine why a few thousand non-premium seats short of a sellout most weeks is, frankly, irrelevant (unless you’re an NHL team that gets a majority of its revenue through ticket sales, or if your mind is still stuck in the 1970s, when ticket sales, not luxury box sales or concessions, meant everything to all sports, and you can’t figure out why your rabbit ears won’t pick up “Happy Days” on the 29-inch console TV any longer)?

Let’s say the Bucs are 5,000 short of a sellout each game and, to use round figures, each ticket is $100. That’s $500,000. Multiply that by 10 home games (including preseason) and it is $5 million.

Sounds like a lot, right?

Well, just on revenue from national TV and radio broadcast rights alone, per Forbes.com, the Bucs and every NFL team will receive $200 million annually starting in 2014.

This is before one luxury box is sold, one corporate ad is sold, one ticket is sold, one car is parked in a dust-choked lot, one jersey is sold, one cap is sold, one beer is sold.

Upgrades to the stadium you say? They are coming soon. Per the voter-approved referendum to build the stadium, some upgrades were written into the lease. Oh, and if anyone would just do a modicum of research, the lease between the Bucs and the Tampa Sports Authority is public record. Read the lease and it’s clear the Bucs are going nowhere.

Why is Joe so confident? Well, let’s take the far-fetched, moronic notion the Bucs will move to Los Angeles. Team Glazer isn’t building a stadium nor are the citizens of Southern California. Rather, it is big-moneyed businessmen. These movers and shakers are not financing a $1 billion stadium for charity. They are going to want to either own the Bucs outright or a chunk of the Bucs. How many times has Team Glazer stated that the team, not even a piece of the team, is not for sale?

Where would the Bucs play, in the parking lot of the Staples Center? No, don’t start with the Rose Bowl or the Coliseum. Neither of those stadiums are fit for an NFL team and to renovate them would cost nearly as much as a brand new stadium.

You think Team Glazer is going to pay for that when they have a sweetheart deal here? And Joe hasn’t even factored in the business-hostile taxes in California that have driven many companies to relocate out of the state.

No, this isn’t the 1970s any longer. Economics have changed. It doesn’t matter how many thousands of tickets are sold, so long as corporate partners are still paying for ads and more importantly, eyeballs are glued to TVs to watch the NFL.

It really doesn’t take an economics professor to figure this out if Joe can run the numbers.

Though Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik believed it was too early to rank these future tight ends, NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock believes three tight ends are virtually tied and all could be drafted from the first to the second round.

The three? Notre Dame’s Tyler Eifert, Stanford’s Zach Ertz and San Diego State’s Gavin Escobar.

If the objective is to get Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman more toys than FAO Schwarz on Black Friday in order for him to consistently succeed, then an upgrade to a pass-catching tight end would surely fit the bill.

This is no knock on Dallas Clark, the Bucs’ incumbent and free agent tight end, but Clark has seen his best days in the NFL come and go.

One huge unknown to many Bucs fans is Escobar, who played in obscurity at San Diego State but is already an NFL-caliber pass catcher some liken to the Packers’ Jordy Nelson (yes, Joe knows Nelson is a wide receiver).

Escobar, who is entering the draft after his junior year, believes his lack of blocking or perhaps need to improve his blocking is overblown, Escobar said at the NFL Scouting Combine over the weekend.

“I think some people look past my blocking ability because of my pass catching ability,” Escobar said. “It’s something I’m willing to do and I’m always working hard to get better at.

“The feedback I’ve been getting from most teams is they like my pass catching ability. They’re a little concerned
with the run game. I’ve been trying to tell them I’m willing to do that and I’ve been working hard at that, and over time I can only improve.”

Of course, lighting up defenses in the Mountain West will be a bit different than trying to expose the seam route in the NFL, but playing in that conference didn’t hurt Doug Martin or Andy Dalton.

Could Escobar be there at No. 45 when the Bucs pick in the second round? Perhaps.

This is why this draft is so intriguing to Joe. Without knowing what the Bucs will do in free agency, Dominik could draft at virtually every position other than quarterback, defensive tackle, wide receiver, running back, guard and center in the first round, and it would make sense.

Again, if Dominik drafts a pass-catching tight end who to improve his blocking, Joe trusts offensive line coach Bob Bostad can rectify that issue.

Bucs coaches need to fix Josh Freeman’s front-shoulder mechanics asap, writes former Bucs QB Jeff Carlson. A good start would be studying Joe Flacco.

Former Bucs quarterback Jeff Carlson (1990 & 1991) writes The QB Blast column here at JoeBucsFan.com. Joe loves when Carlson fires away. Carlson is often seen as a football color analyst on Bright House Sports Network, and he trains quarterbacks of all ages locally via his company, America’s Best Quarterback. Plus, he’s a really cool dude.

By JEFF CARLSON
JoeBucsFan.com

Joe Flacco has one more season of experience on Josh Freeman, but five more playoff seasons and now a Lombardi Trophy on the shelf and a Disney Parade, too.

He is now expected to become the highest paid QB in the league while the Buccaneers ponder what they should do about Freeman’s future with the team. Flacco isn’t a better passer than Freeman because of his team’s fabulous finish, he has been a very accurate passer over his career because of very solid passing mechanics and great balance.

His alignment is better than most in the NFL. Josh Freeman’s alignment is one of the worst.

Freeman rarely, if ever, gets his front shoulder on the line that he wants the ball to travel. That is one of the reasons he throws quite side-armed so often. He pulls his left shoulder and left hip off target earlier than he should, causing the ball to be released further back, while Flacco (as well as Aaron Rogers, Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, Eli Manning, Drew Brees, Andrew Luck, RGIII, Russell Wilson and others) keeps himself lined up and allows himself to reach out straighter to his target, thus creating more accuracy on his throws. Inaccuracy is a key criticism of Freeman.

There are quite a few other things that I would like to see new Buccaneer QB Coach John McNulty clean up with Freeman’s mechanics, but improving the alignment of his shoulder and hip to his throws is probably the most impactful thing he can do for improving his accuracy all over the field.

To keep it simple, Freeman’s mantra moving forward should be, “Just throw like Joe.”

Yes, when Bucs defensive end Da’Quan Bowers got collared in New York for packing heat in LaGuardia Airport, one of the worst places in the nation to be pinched with a loaded rod, many Bucs fans believed the arrest and possible incarceration of Bowers would force Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik’s hand to make moves at the defensive end position.

A like-minded Bucs fan raised this subject in a recent BSPN NFC South chat.

MJ (Palm Beach, FL)

Pat,With the unfortunate circumstances of Bowers mistake, does it now almost guarantee Bennett will be a Buc whether it be the franchise tag or a long-term deal? Also, does this scenario help us create a brotherly family reunion in Tampa?

Pat Yasinskas

I think they already had planned to make a hard push to re-sign Bennett. And, yes, it could help put his brother in Tampa Bay.

Now Dominik is on record as saying it would be naive to think Bowers’ arrest wouldn’t have the Bucs performing a second review of their draft plans. Joe thinks there’s no need to make a rash decision when one doesn’t need to be made (yet).

There is little to no evidence to suggest Bowers will miss any time in the 2013 season, unless it’s at the hands of the NFL’s long arm of the law, warden commissioner Roger Goodell. Like Goodell did with cabbie-slugging, helmet-wielding, pistol-whipping Aqib Talib, Goodell likely will wait to decide Bowers’ suspension fate until after Bowers goes to trial, if he goes to trial. It’s unlikely Bowers would have his fate sealed by a jury before 2014..

It is still unknown how this charge will shake out. Bowers may not have to serve any sentence in a New York cage. Only time will tell.

Besides, Joe has gone on record many, many times saying Dominik likely will pull the trigger — pun unintended — with the 13th overall draft pick on a defensive end, if he’s one the Bucs think can make an immediate impact.

If there is a winner in all of this, it may be Bennett, though Joe is confident Dominik won’t spend much more cash on the free agent than is already budgeted.

The Bucs can’t fix their heinous secondary with one new face, but adding Darrelle Revis to the defensive backfield would deliver an immediate impact felt across the NFC.

Per the New York Daily News, new Jets general manager John Idzik was shopping a trade of Revis at the NFL Scouting Combine, which ended yesterday. Idzik worked about 10 years in Tampa alongside Bucs rockstar general manager Mark Dominik, the Bucs desperately need a cornerback and have the available cash to pay Revis, and Revis played for Dave Wannstedt in college, which means he’s probably in the “Buccaneer Man” mold Greg Schiano often references.

You think the Bucs were a part of those trade talks? Joe sure does.

Revis is coming off a blown knee and surgery. He’s supposed to be on schedule to return before training camp. Joe would give up just about anything — not Rachel Watson — for a healthy Revis, but that knee injury has to significantly cut Revis’ value.

Even though guys return to top form faster and faster from major knee surgery, Joe would vomit if the Bucs coughed up more than a first round pick and an insignificant player.

Will he stay or will he go? That’s where the fate of Ronde Barber stands with the Bucs.

One of the greatest cornerbacks to ever play the game, certainly the best to ever wear a Bucs uniform, graybeard Barber is a free agent. So far, the Bucs and Barber, who will turn 38 in April, haven’t had formal talks about next season.

This subject came to Booger McFarland’s mind. The former Bucs defensive tackle and current on-air personality for WHNS-FM 98.7 gave his two cents on Barber’s future, if there is any with the Bucs.

“Ronde Barber. He isn’t talking, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers aren’t talking. It is a simple game of chess or is it a we-are-going-to-take-our-time-to-get-into-it? Does Ronde Barber deserve his own say? Can the Tampa Bay Buccaneers force him out the way they forced Derrick Brooks out, the way they forced Warren Sapp out? Or does Ronde Barber deserve to be treated any differently? Right now they are not talking so we don’t know. It is still a business. Just turn the tape on. If he can play, you bring him back. If he can’t, you let him go. Either way, he’s a Hall of Famer.”

Well, as Bucs coach Greg Schiano told Joe in an exclusive one-on-one interview from the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis last week, this is the way the Bucs planned it. They wanted Barber to step away for a while and discuss his future with his family.

It sure seemed by Schiano’s answer and body language he would like Barber back. But perhaps Barber, who only suffered one serious injury to close the 2011 season, may just count his blessings and step away?

No, this isn’t like Brooks or Sapp. Barber is a free agent. Brooks was cut. Sapp was conned by Chucky, and Sapp wound up signing with the Raiders as a free agent.

Joe doesn’t sense any shenanigans whatsoever between the Bucs and Barber. Joe is confident the combine took priority. Now that it is over, perhaps Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik and Schiano will break bread with Barber this week, over team-pre approved pasta, and find out if the two can come to an agreement or not.

If Barber doesn’t come back, then obviously the Bucs will be in the market for a safety.

I was for competition for Freeman before I was against it, before I was for it again

Poor, Greg Schiano.

He has such a hard time with his message when he talks about competition for Josh Freeman.

At the NFL Scouting combine last week, Schiano backpedaled off his January call for competition at all positions including quarterback, a story that became national news as it related to Josh Freeman. Schiano said those comments about Freeman were overblown by media and, he said, “I have been busy and I hadn’t had a chance to clear that up.” (Didn’t have 90 seconds to instruct your PR staff, coach? Yeah, right.)

Now Buccaneers.com has released footage of Schiano, filmed in Indianapolis shortly after that combine backpedal. Interestingly, Schiano again talked emphatically about competition for Freeman.

“My whole thing is I believe in competition. I think that’s what our country was founded on, right?,” Schiano said. “So that competition at every position is important to me. But I don’t want to make anybody have any other thought. Josh is the guy that I believe in as our quarterback, and I know our organization does, and we believe that he can take us to all the goals that we want to achieve. But is he going to have competition? Sure he is. We’re going to do that across the board.”

Joe finds it interesting that Schiano never mentions backup QB Dan Orlovsky, who remains on the Bucs roster. And it’s always been strange to Joe that Schiano wants competition for Freeman, yet Freeman took 100 percent of the first-team snaps in practice last season.

If Joe were advising Schiano, Joe would tell him to stop talking about competition altogether. The whole notion is a bit of a farce at the NFL level. There are plenty of guys on every team that essentially are guaranteed starting jobs based on their salaries or draft position.

Greg Cosell

One great thing from a writer’s perspective about the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis was the virtually unfettered access to movers and shakers in the NFL. Over the weekend, Joe got a chance to talk Bucs football with Greg Cosell. A senior producer of NFL Films, Cosell is one of the most respected X’s and O’s guys out there. All he does for a living is break down film, aside from authoring a football book here and there. Cosell, nephew of famed broadcaster Howard Cosell, specifically detailed why defensive tackle Roy Miller is valuable for the Bucs.

JoeBucsFan: Your impressions on Bucs defensive tackle Roy Miller?

Greg Cosell: I always thought he was a good player for what he is.

Joe: Fans don’t seem to like him because he doesn’t show up in the box score much. He doesn’t get a lot of sacks; he doesn’t get a lot of tackles.

Cosell: Well, that’s irrelevant. It’s irrelevant!

Joe: Gerald McCoy always says he wouldn’t be the player he is without Miller.

Cosell: Well, essentially [the Bucs] play an underfront and McCoy is the three-technique and Miller is the nose-shade. And in that kind of defense, the nose-shade will not put up stats. The nose-shade often gets double-teamed; the nose-shade allows a guy like Lavonte David to run free. That is his job. His job is to stalemate and defeat double-teams, eat up blocks. Roy Miller will not appear on the stat sheet. That is not a reflection of anything that he is about as a player.

Joe: So again, when people whine that he doesn’t get sacks, it is irrelevant?

Cosell: It’s irrelevant.

Joe: You brought up Lavonte David. Better rookie season: Lavonte David or Doug Martin?

Cosell: Well, it is hard to compare rookies at totally different positions. I think Lavonte David is a really good player. He will probably get better; he sort of fits the new mold of linebacker in the NFL. He is a run-and-chase player. Not a big player but he does have some physicality. He is willing to be physical; he’s just not a big, big man. You know, Doug Martin, I loved him when he came out of Boise [State]. He ran well this year. Obviously, it is an offense that would like to go through Doug Martin as a focus. And I think he can do that. He is a volume runner to me.

Joe: Have you studied much of Ronde Barber at safety?

Cosell: I have seen him. You know, there is so much subpackage that he essentially played the slot in their nickel and played sort of the dime linebacker position. I see him more that way than a regular safety.

Increasingly controversial CBSSports.com senior NFL writer Pete Prisco is not backing off his Monday Twitter claim that Josh Freeman and Greg Schiano are not fond of each other.

Speaking yesterday on 98.7 FM to co-host and former Buccaneers defensive tackle Booger McFarland, Prisco explained that he was told of a strained relationship between head coach and quarterback from various sources at the NFL Scouting Combine.

“It’s not warm and fuzzy like they might want to portray it as. Let’s put it at that,” Prisco said. “And I’ve heard it from a bunch of different people at the combine and ran it by some others I knew and would know. Yeah, it’s not a great relationship. And, you know, there’s actually rumblings that the Bucs are looking to draft a quarterback.”

First, Joe must say up front, Why does it matter whether Freeman and Schiano like each other? It’s not like Schiano is calling plays. And there are plenty of successful coaches that had strained relationships with their QBs.

Any Bucs fan could have expected that Schiano would come to Tampa and not be married to Freeman and/or feel like he has to be close to him or baby him.

For Joe, when Schiano set up a punt against Philadelphia to put the game in the hands of his heinous secondary, that was a clear sign Schiano had issues with Freeman.

Of course, there’s also a chance that the Bucs are spreading smoke screens around the NFL to help put them in position to trade down in the draft and use the extra pick to later trade up. Then there’s always the off chance that Schiano hates Michael Jackson.

If 70 percent of football is preparation, then Dee Milliner will make a fine NFL player.

The charismatic Alabama cornerback took to the podium at the NFL Scouting Combine this past weekend and wowed reporters with his confidence, his attention to detail, presenting himself as unsatisfied by just being the best college cornerback; he’s always looking to improve.

During his downtime, Milliner admitted to watching Mississippi State and Florida State games because he knew Johnathan Banks and Xavier Rhodes were close to his equal and he wanted to find out if the two were using some strategies he wasn’t.

“Anytime they’ve got a game and we ain’t playing or we’ve got a game later on, or we got a game early and they play at nighttime, you always got to look at them, check them out,” Milliner said. “That’s guys you know you’re going to eventually go up against and eventually you become friends with them because you know you’re going to run into them at things like this.

“You just always want to get a good relationship and a good feel of the people you know you’re going to go against and see at your position.”

It wasn’t just Banks and Rhodes, of course Milliner watched the NFL, too. And unlike in the NCAA, where a corner might get a 15-yard penality for a perceived bad hit or late hit, in warden commissioner Roger Goodell’s NFL, good, physical hits will more likely get you run out of the league rather than lauded. Milliner said he knows he must be mindful and how he drills a receiver — and who — on the NFL level.

“You have to watch yourself nowadays,” Milliner said. “If you have late hit, better be ready to give some cash up. But it doesn’t change me as a player. This is a physical game. You just have to watch yourself and be careful when you are making plays on the ball.”

It sure seems like Milliner has everything you would want mentally in a cornerback. The question is, if he slips to No. 13, does Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik take him?

Joe has been told over and over again this past weekend that while there really are no top shelf corners, the draft is very deep, three rounds deep, in corners.

It is very possible that Dominik waits to the second round where it is possible Banks will be sitting at No. 45.

And there is always that chance Dominik could use the fourth-round pick stolen from the Patriots for Aqib Talib to trade up from No. 45 for Rhodes.

Today, Bucs coach Greg Schiano appeared on that dreadful NFL Networ show “NFL AM,” and among many other subjects, the topic of the Honey Badger himself came up — former LSU cornerback Tyrann Mathieu.

(This NFL AM is a joke. The co-hosts, Nicole Zaloumis and Brian Webber, are like rejects from a low-rent game show. This Zaloumis has no business on the show. The only time she appears remotely interested is when she can talk about players’ touchdown dances and when an NFL player is on that repulsively effeminate “Dancing with the Stars” schlock, which makes Joe want to just toss all over his laptop keyboard just typing that. Today, while waiting for Schiano to appear, viewers were more likely to hear chatter about the Oscars or “Dancing with the Stars” than football talk. What the hell?! Get rid of those zombies, promote Molly Qerim and stick to football! MLB Network’s “Hot Stove,” which airs opposite “NFL AM,” blows the NFL Network’s morning programming out of the water! If Joe, and 98 percent of NFL fans, want Oscars news and “Dancing with the Stars” feces, we’d watch E! Network. We turn to the NFL Network, for, you know, football!)

Naturally, Schiano was asked about that dopey, overblown, lying-to-teammates-and-coaches linebacker that Alabama exposed in January, but then Schiano was asked about “Honey Badger” himself. A former standout cornerback from LSU, Mathieu was thrown off the team just prior to his junior season because of failing drug tests.

Having sat out a year and gone through rehab, Mathieu is ready to hit the NFL and Schiano genuinely seemed interested.

“Yeah, I have spoken to him; again, you have to weight everything out. Is there some risk? Probably, but even he’d tell you that.

“He’s got film; he’s got very impressive film. So I don’t think that is an issue. Again, it is all scales. What are you willing to risk and at what [round] do you take him?

“Well, generally [lack of size] it does [hurt], but he is a special talent so I don’t know if [Mathieu’s size] is important.”

How good of a player was Honey Badger? He was a Heisman Trophy finalist. Very few elite defenders get that honor. Honey Badger has freakish skills.

Lord knows the Bucs need corners, and yeah, he is short. If Honey Badger is there in the fourth round, Joe thinks that would be a time to grab him. Joe’s been of the mind the Bucs will draft two corners.

If Mathieu is the second of two corners drafted, not too shabby of a draft. Oh, and he is a crazy good kick returner. How many guys did Schiano run through a revolving door at kick return last year?

Joe’s not big on accounting mumbo-jumbo, but many pundits have speculated that the Bucs would need to protect/clear out salary cap room to potentially re-sign Josh Freeman.

So it’s interesting to read data from BSPN today that lays out a list of the biggest hits to the Bucs’ salary cap in 2013 — — unless the players are cut or their contracts are renegotiated.

Here are the Bucs that are scheduled to count $5 million or more against this year’s cap:

Gerald McCoy $10.9 million
Josh Freeman $10.3 million
Eric Wright $7.75 million
Donald Penn $6.33 million
Davin Joseph $6 million
Quincy Black $5.75 million

Freeman was drafted a couple of years before the rookie salary cap took effect following the asinine lockout of 2011. So Freeman scored what his draft position commanded back then, a five-year, $26 million deal with another $10 million and change in incentives, per RotoWorld.com.

The ESPN data is noteworthy to Joe because if Freeman is counting $10.3 million against the 2013 cap, and the Bucs right now have more than $30 million to spare entering free agency, then in theory the Bucs would not endure significant impact to the financial balance of their roster if they re-signed Freeman.

Surely, there’s no way Freeman would command more than the $10.3 million annually the Bucs are allocating for 2013?