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This is a depressing column and Joe fears a more depressing one is on the way within the next two weeks.

Josh Grizzard Channeled Byron Leftwich

Maybe — well, there is no “maybe” about it — the dumbest gameplan Joe ever saw came in 2022, Todd Bowles’ first year as Bucs head coach. He inherited Byron Leftwich as offensive coordinator. And boy, was that arrogant, condescending liar offensive. And so was his offense.

The Bucs were playing the Steelers in Pittsburgh and it didn’t take too long to figure out what was wrong: Leftwich no longer had Bucco Bruce Arians looking over his shoulder.

The Steelers, the week before playing the Bucs, had their secondary nearly wiped out with injuries. The Steelers were pulling guys off the street to play in the secondary.

This was perfect: Let the Steelers try to stop Mike Evans. Joe laughed, Evans against camp meat to fill the Steelers’ roster is an M&Mer, bay-BEE!.

So what did Leftwich do? Facing one of the best run defenses in the league but with a horrible pass defense, Leftwich tried to run against the mighty Steelers defense — 25 times with poor results before opening the offense up to catch up in the fourth quarter.

A victory for the Bucs was just tossed out the window.

Yesterday was right up there.

From Bucs front office types down to the towel boys, everyone at One Buc Palace was waiting all year for the Bucs to get healthy at receiver. “Wait till we get healthy, we’ll show teams how to score!”

Last week, even Grizzard said what the Bucs did two Thursdays ago against Atlanta was a taste of what he envisioned the offense to look like.

With 10 days to prepare and his receivers now healthy and deep, Joe thought sure Baker Mayfield would sling the ball.

Nope, Grizzard chose to keep the ball mostly on the ground and often short of the sticks. His gameplan largely was to forget about the Bucs’ excellent receivers and run the ball behind two inferior backup guards. Brilliant!

Nothing like paying a pair of receivers, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, tens of millions of dollars to be decoys rather than getting them the ball.

That was an absolutely irresponsible gameplan. Almost as bad as Leftwich.

Worse Than Dink-And-Dunk

So let’s get this straight: The Bucs have a quarterback who just a month ago was in serious discussion for becoming league MVP, and had a Hall of Fame receiver, a Pro Bowl receiver, a guy who until yesterday was in the running for Offensive Rookie of the Year and a promising second-year receiver, and Grizzard decided to go ground-and-pound? Really?

Joe is not a hypocrite. Joe wrote before the game that Bucky Irving had a chance to destroy the Stinking Panthers so feed him the ball — but Joe never dreamed Grizzard would go overboard on that.

The Bucs had a total of 41 yards passing at halftime and 60 yards passing after three quarters. Yes, 60! Good grief, Joe is pretty sure Barry Switzer’s wishbone offenses at Oklahoma had more passing yards. Disgraceful!

Then check out the throws. The Bucs had just one completed pass longer than 13 yards. That was the 40-yard bomb to Emeka Egbuka late.

Talk about fully wasting what may be the best wide receiver room in the league now that its healthy. What is it with Grizzard being too scared to throw past the sticks?

There is simply no way you can tell Joe that all four Bucs receivers were all covered every play.

Joe is just about convinced either Mayfield is so hurt that he cannot play close to 100 percent, or the Bucs have lost faith in him.

As for Grizzard, he sure loves east-to-west football. Remember all the chatter coming from him before training camp opened that he wanted to open up Liam Coen’s offense with more deep shots?

Yeah.

Bowles Defense Again Helps Quarterback In Need 

So yesterday, midget runaround quarterback Bryce Young, who at best has very much had an up and down career, got good against a Bowles’ defense. Same ol’ song, week after week after week.

Young, per NFL.com and NextGen Stats, when he did throw against Bowles’ zones, completed some 81 percent of his passes. Can you imagine?

Young’s two touchdown passes were both against man coverage. In short, Bowles had no answer for the guy.

Bryce Young, everybody.

Tolerating Dumb Mistakes

Todd Bowles has lamented in recent weeks how some players guys don’t give enough of a shiite about the game and until they do, things won’t get much better.

Well, Joe thinks there is evidence Bowles tolerates stupid plays.

Take yesterday and that horrendously stupid penalty by backup linebacker John Bullock when he head-butted a Carolina player as the Bucs were receiving the kickoff for their final drive.

Some head coaches that would have cut the culprit last night after the game for such a stupid stunt. You could argue that move may cost the Bucs the playoffs. The Bucs would have been in field goal range without that penalty.

Bullock is a backup who cannot beat out SirVocea Dennis; let’s not think this guy is the next Lawrence Taylor. That tells Joe that Bowles tolerates stupid play that costs a team a possible chance of a playoff berth.

Over the weekend, the Rams fired their special teams coach Chase Blackburn, less than a week from Christmas.

We know the Bucs, aside from Chase McLaughlin, have had horrible special teams this year yet Bucs’ special teams coach Thomas McGaughey is still working.

Apparently, not until Bowles demands better from his coaches and players — or else — will these guys have incentive to bust their tail. If they knew they’d be losing cash or their jobs by loafing and having their head up their tailpipe, maybe that would shake things up?

Doing nothing reinforces that tolerance and acceptance are more virtuous than winning.

Leaders, Pppfffttt…

Yesterday Bucs coach Todd Bowles declared the Bucs have great leaders and they will make sure the Bucs make the playoffs by winning the next two games.

You sure about that?

This leaders crap is banal sports radio filler. Only folks who believe this pap are the folks who cannot break down X’s and O’s.

So what are the Bucs’ main problems? Apparently, enough players don’t give a shiite about the game and are half-arsing it way too often.

But leaders will lead the Bucs to the playoffs.

Sure.

If, as Bowles claims, the Bucs have “great” leaders, Joe wouldn’t be typing right now how the Bucs have turned into choking dogs the past two months and how there could be a coaching change in two weeks. These phantom leaders would have nipped the half-arse practice habits and half-arsed play in the bud the moment they caught a teammate dogging it.

But those phantom leaders did nothing or led poorly. Apathy in the locker room festered and grew and got worse despite several tongue-lashings from Baker Mayfield, Lavonte David and (at least) twice from Bowles.

If the Bucs had real leaders, they’d already have the division wrapped up and wouldn’t be shooting their mouths off about mirror, mirror on the wall and other fractured fairy tales.

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