practice Archive

The Buccaneers are the sole winless team in the NFL. I picked them before the season to be the worst in the NFL and they’ve come through. After starting with Byron Leftwich, they may be down to their third quarterback. You’d think that the Buccaneers might go into the bye week looking to work on their game.

But you’d be wrong. Tampa Bay hasn’t practiced very much since returning from London. In fact, they’ve practiced a measly two and a half hours in the past twelve days. The worst team in the NFL won’t hit the practice field again until tomorrow. That’s bad news as the Buccaneers enter the Josh Freeman Era. Here’s what Raheem Morris had to say about the practice schedule:

“No, we set the schedule up a while ago. You make the decision long before you go into the bye week with what you are going to do, whether you are 0-7 or 7-0. That really didn’t matter. What we did (Thursday) was the preparation and the fundamental core beliefs with these guys. We got a chance to get Josh implemented to be a starter and get done what he needed to get done. We’ll come back and get two weeks of practice. We had one day (Wednesday) of preparation, and we’ll come back the following week and get done what we need to get done.”

The rookie quarterback will face the Packers on Sunday — yet they haven’t been game-planning for Green Bay. Freeman has tantalizing raw talent but he’s, well, extremely raw. The kid has no pocket presence and lacks awareness. He’s mobile but not fast (think Ben Roethlisberger) and he can be chased defenders if he scrambles. Freeman was in for nine plays in the Bucs last game and managed to take a delay of game penalty, took two sacks, and fumbled once. It’s going to be hilarious to see the kind of line he puts up in a full game (or before he gets pulled).