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.”

Today’s piece on the Bucs though is quite different, “Tampa Bay Buccaneers have bigger needs than at quarterback.”  Stroud is spot on in this short piece.  The Bucs have much bigger needs, especially on the defensive side of the ball than the QB position.  I understand, and Stroud obviously does too, that without a permanent fixture at QB, that a bad cycle develops in that regard.  My thinking though is that the Bucs have to see what Luke McCown is capable of.  We traded a pick for the guy, invested a lot of time into his development, and resigned him this offseason.  He is a QB who has all the physical tools to get the job done (arm, legs, size) and if we draft a QB in round 1 and Luke McCown does perform, than we have a predicament.  We don’t want to be forced to play a guy because of a contract, and disregard the skills of the guy who previously played in front of him.  

As I just mentioned, besides lettting Luke play, we need defensive help.  DT’s and DE’s that fit Jim Bates scheme do not currently exist on our roster.  

“We’ve got obvious needs,” Raheem Morris said. “We want some defensive tackles. We addressed a lot of our needs, obviously, in (free agency) on offense. We feel good about some of those positions. But in the draft, you’re thinking D-tackles, you want to add corners, you want to add some players at those positions.

I like Raheem’s thinking.  I’ve always been of the mindset that DT’s, OLineman, DE’s, CB’s are the most valuable players to draft at an early time.  They are the scarcest in the league as far as quality is concerned so high picks should generally be spent on those positions.  

Stroud bring up a point that I talked to a friend about this morning, trading down.  I know this is the craze for all teams right now, and most of the time the rumors are about trades in the top 10, but generally trading out of the top 10 is impossible.  Trading out of the 18-32 area though is something that happens every draft day.  If Peria Jerry from Ole Miss is too small to fit our scheme, than trading back into round 2 and drafting a Ron Brace type might be the better option for the Bucs.  

Regardless of what position defensively we draft, drafting a QB is something I don’t want to see the Bucs do.