The Pewter Plank » Greg Olsen

Rick Stroud Calls Josh Freeman The QB To Beat

Dustin Staggers — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:56:11 +0000

Rick Stroud of the St Petersburg Times was just featured on ESPN’s NFL Live and was quoted as saying that Josh Freeman is now the QB to beat going into training camp.

I’m not sure whether this says how good he has looked thusfar in OTA’s and Mini-Camps or how average both Byron Leftwich and Luke McCown have looked. Freeman has been getting the majority of the snaps with the third team offense and primarily against the third team defense, so even if he was impressive, it had to be taken with a grain of salt. On the other hand if both Leftwich and McCown have looked subpar to average, the coaching staff might just have a WTF type of call on their hands.

“We did talk last week, and when I say we, I’m talking about everyone in the building from the G.M., the head coach, Doug Williams — other people were involved and we just discussed the Josh Freeman plan,” Olson said. “We decided we’ll go through the summer, we’ll go probably a week into training camp and we’ll revisited [sic] it again . . . we may expedite what he’s doing.

“Early when he first got here, he was forcing the football too much,” Olson said. “If he can show he’s progressing as far as the decision-making goes, then shoot, why not? He’s comfortable in there, he throws a great ball, he’s accurate and if he’s not turning the ball over, then gosh, maybe he will be ready to play.”

Bucs Lose Key Contract Negotiator

Dustin Staggers — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:40:26 +0000

The Rams have hired a key member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers front office, Kevin Demoff, to be their new Executive Vice President of Football Operations. Demoff was a key cog in the Bucs having 40+ million in cap space this summer. New GM Mark Dominik had targeted Demoff as a key member of the staff whom he wanted to retain.

“We have a member of our staff, Kevin Demoff, who is very educated in the contracts and negotiating,” said Dominik. “Again, it is the people around you that can make you better and that is going to be our philosophy.”

There is no word whether Demoff’s position will be filled by someone internally, externally or filled at all.

The Bucs still have vacancies at the secondary coach, TE coach and possibly QB coach positions, unless current QB coach Greg Olsen is retained after being a candidate for the offensive coordinator position.

Snail Like OC Search Loses A Candidate

Dustin Staggers — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:13:57 +0000

Quick update on the OC search for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

One of the main targets for our OC spot was former Browns OC Rob Chudzinski. He is now out of the running after signing with the Chargers to be their assistant head coach/TE’s coach.

TheTennessean.com is reporting that the Buccaneers asked and were granted permission to speak to QB coach Craig Johnson about our vacant coordinator position. Johnson has worked with the Titans since ’02 and served as a quality control coach his first two seasons.

So the list apparently looks like (in alphabetical order) Chain Gailey, Craig Johnson, Greg Olsen…nobody else…this is starting to feel like nails on a chalkboard.