That didn’t take long.  I speculated this morning that Josh Freeman would probably start against the Packers in Week 9, and now two hours later, after practice, Raheem “Romeo Crennell Face” Morris named Freeman the starter.

“Josh Freeman will take over as starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,” coach Raheem Morris said following practice Wednesday. “No discredit to what Josh Johnson did for this football team. He’s gone out there and gave us his best efforts. But the preparation, the timing, how we want to acclimate our young man into our system, into our organization, into our town, into our community, we think it’s [...]

With the Bucs starting out the season 0-7 and entering into a bye week, one would think there could be some changes coming for the Bucs when we return to action in Week 9 vs the Green Bay Packers.   The organization has high hopes for the game vs the Packers as we will induct long overdue Lee Roy Selmon into the new Buccaneers Ring of Honor.  We will also be wearing our old school orange jerseys, only fitting considering were awful for the first time since the switch to the pewter and red.
Some interesting stats going into the bye [...]

I’m not sure if this is what the NFL had in mind when it decided to play football in Europe.  A pathetic 0-6 team going up against a perennial power.  This is like college football’s version of USC taking on Vanderbilt at a neutral site.  It’s not exactly the type of game that’s going to get the rest of the world on board with American football. 
This change of scenery could be a good thing for the Bucs, though.  From all of the reports I’ve heard, the crowd in London today will not be much of a factor for either team.  [...]

With the Bucs currently on a 10 game losing streak, you did read that right…10, I’m trying to lift the pessimistic nature that has overtaken me this season and look for ways the Bucs could pull out a victory tomorrow in London.  Do I think we can win, definitely not, but there have to be a few ways that the Bucs could pull out a victory.
I preached this last week, and it looked like (at least for one half) that either someone had read this site, or just found their common sense, but the Bucs need to run the ball. [...]

With the Buccaneers now sitting at 0-6 and no end in sight to our losing, I have unfortunately started thinking about next season for the Bucs.
Raheem Morris, who barring success in his first season was going to enter his 2nd season as a lame duck coach anyway (only has a 2 year deal), will not be the coach of this team next season.  There are glaring issues with the coaching, and too many players already saying some things that you never want to hear, stuff that lets you know the locker room is starting to be divided and that the [...]

First of all, I’m very sorry for the delay in posts.  I had a very long 6 day Vegas vacation, came back to Tampa for 20 hours then flew to Chicago for work.  I’m finally finding my first non drunken free time to sit down and give you guys some thoughts on the game and our team in general.
For starters, and I know some of you are going to be mad at me, and to be perfectly honest, I was mad at myself, but I bet on the Eagles on Sunday. The line was 15.5 and that should be a [...]

Here are some key stats for today’s match-up:
Philadelphia total offense – 383yds/gm
Bucs total defense -  394yds/gm
Bucs total offense – 280yds/gm
Philadelphia total defense – 262yds/gm
3rd down conversions Philadelphia offense – 18/42 or 42.9%
3rd down conversions Bucs defense – 21/52 or 40.4%
3rd down conversions Bucs offense - 11/51 or 21.6%
3rd down conversions Philadelphia defense – 9/40 or 22.5%
Philadelphia turnover margin – +2
Bucs turnover margin – +1
On paper this game doesn’t look close.  The Eagles have been dominant on both sides of the ball while the Bucs have looked awful in just about all aspects of the game.  I do think Josh Johnson will [...]

After an 0-4 start, it’s time to regroup and start looking for positive reasons to watch this team every Sunday.   This is a rebuilding year after all, so let’s start looking for some things we can build on.  I don’t expect the Bucs to win this weekend, but I do expect them to keep improving in certain areas of the game.  I’ve put together a wish list, in no particular order, of things I would like to see the Bucs accomplish this weekend.  If for no other reason these things give something to take my mind off of the scoreboard on Sunday.  [...]

None of the following are views necessarily expressed by the Pewter Plank, but they aren’t necessarily views that we disagree with.  I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing the majority of Bucs fans, and I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing the coaching staff, now, I’ll just let them criticize each other.  These are all responses on forums from the major Tampa Bay newspapers’ stories about yesterdays game.

Look at the brighter side they haven’t done a thing to ruin the Perfect Season (0-16). They’re going for the coveted prize “the #1 pick in the 2010 draft”.
I asked my 5 year [...]

In what many people predicted would be the Buccaneers first win of the season, the Bucs fell again to the Redskins, 16-13 to fall to 0-4.
For the first time in 4 games, there were actually some positives to take from the game.

Josh Johnson, before having some success running the ball, showed some nice patience in the pocket and a real zip on his throws.   This regressed throughout the game, but he showed some glimpses.
Antonio Bryant finally looked healthy.
We ran the ball more than 20 times with our RB’s, thank god.
We sacked Jason Campbell 3 times, and picked him off [...]