Even now, even with all of the losses and all of the interceptions and all of the chaos, it is about the quarterback.

Even now, when no one knows who will be his coach or which teammates will survive or whether next season will be any better than this one, it is about the quarterback.

Even now, with all of the doubts and all of the questions and all of the disappointment, it is about Josh Freeman.

Rescue him, and the Bucs franchise still has a chance. Fail, and the chaos is going to continue. Now, as much as ever, the futures of the Bucs and of Freeman are intertwined. They will succeed together, or they will continue to let each other down.

Soon, we will see what the Bucs plan to do about it.

In the marriage between the Bucs franchise and Freeman, this has been one of those “or worse” seasons. By any measure, he has had an alarmingly dreadful season. His regression has been historic. His interceptions have more than tripled (from 6 to 19). His touchdown passes have fallen by 11 (from 25 to 14). He has lost 21 points off of his QB ratings.

It has been a wobble wrapped in an overthrow inside of a cry of, “Where in the heck was he throwing that one?” There have been the times his release has been slow, times his footwork has been off and times his accuracy comes and goes. He has been hurt by slow starts, forgettable finishes and the regrettable decision to play with guns.

It is staggering when a quarterback has a breakdown season after a breakout. Of the NFL quarterbacks who have thrown at least 14 passes a game, there are 25 who have higher ratings. No one has more interceptions. No one else who has thrown 500 or more passes this year has fewer touchdowns. (For that matter, no one within 90 attempts of Freeman’s 506 has fewer).

Consider this: According to NFL stats, 76 quarterbacks have thrown passes this year. No one else has five more interceptions than touchdown passes. If he had fallen any further, for crying out loud, Freeman would have landed on Rex Grossman.

Then there are the increased number of checkdown passes. Last year, Freeman’s average completion gained 11.9 yards. This year, it’s down to 10.5. If that doesn’t sound like much, consider this. If Freeman was still at 11.9, his yardage total would be 430 yards higher.

Despite it all, the Bucs still need Freeman. Because, really, who else is there to build around? Because starting over with another quarterback takes so long.

As the Bucs contemplate their future after today’s final attempt at football, Freeman should be the utmost concern. If the Bucs hire a new coach, they need to do it with the saving of Freeman in mind. If they ponder possible free agents — as good an idea as ever — they should do so with helping Freeman in mind. As they prepare for the NFL draft, they should do so with Freeman in mind.

After all, a team can’t replace everyone. As bad as he has been, Freeman has still outperformed most of the Bucs players. As bad as he has been, you can at least see the possibility of highlights in his future.

Once, the Bucs had another quarterback stand in the middle of the chaos. Back in 1995, Trent Dilfer struggled along with his franchise through a tumultuous season like this one. In 1998, he was blamed heavily as his team regressed from a playoff season.

“I’m a Josh apologist, and I have no problem with it,” Dilfer, an ESPN analyst, said. “He has the potential, the mind and the will. It’s easy to say, ‘The team stinks, so he stinks.’ Some analysts go whatever way the wind blows. I’m probably overly sympathetic because I’ve been where he is. My toughest year was 1998. We just played (very poorly), and I got blamed for it.

“He’s regressed a little bit. He’s made a ton of mistakes. But I’ll put my stamp on him right now. This is one of the jewels of the league.”

If he had to bet his house, Dilfer said, he would wager that Freeman will be a success. Not only that, but he says Greg Olson is one of his favorite offensive coordinators in the league.

So what has gone wrong? Dilfer says the wide receivers on the perimeter haven’t been as good as everyone expected them to be. He also says the Bucs could use more multiple tight end formations because it gives the quarterback his easiest reads of defense. As much as anything, Dilfer said, the Bucs need to be better defensively.

“You can’t be a good quarterback when you’re two scores behind,” Dilfer said. “And you can’t play when you’re overly conservative. You can’t play from the position of fear.”

For whatever reason, Freeman has struggled. For the year, Freeman’s quarterback rating is 74.9. Remember Vinny Testaverde’s final year with the Bucs? His rating was 74.2. Remember the disappointment in Jack “The Throwin’ Samoan” Thompson? He was at 73.3 in his full year as a starter.

In Dilfer’s final year, he was at 75.8. In Shaun King’s full season as a starter, he was at 75.8. The Bucs have replaced a lot of quarterbacks who played at the same level Freeman has this year.

You probably remember the closest fall to Freeman’s. It was Brad Johnson, another Buc quarterback. In 2002, the Super Bowl season, Johnson threw only six interceptions. In 2003, when the team fell to 7-9, he threw 21. Still, Johnson threw for more touchdowns and more yardage that year, so his overall rating didn’t plummet as sharply. In 2006, Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had a similar drop, his interceptions climbing from nine to 23 and his rating falling by 23 points. Still, his touchdown passes didn’t fall off in the same way.

Yes, there are factors. Freeman hasn’t had a lot of help. The offense lacks speed. It lacks playmakers. It lacks consistency. It lacks points (14 offensive touchdowns in the past 10 defeats).

This season, it has also lacked the promising quarterback it saw the year before. Remember him?

“Here’s what the tape says,” Dilfer said. “Josh hasn’t played with the same energy, the same kind of life to his game. You can see some quarterbacks’ body language and energy and tempo, and you feel like they’re always climbing the hill. That jumps out of the tapes.

“The biggest thing he’ll learn for this year is that he didn’t change the environment. He wasn’t a thermostat player. There are thermometer players who just react, and there are thermostat players who change the environment. It’s hard. You get beat down. You feel like it’s too steep a hill to climb. It sucks the life out of you. You’re watching quarterbacks who are successful, and you know that they don’t have half of your talent.”

If that’s true, then Freeman needs saving. The Bucs should not make a decision this offseason without considering the impact on Freeman. A new coach? How does it affect Freeman? A new quarterback coach? Can he make Freeman better? A new offense? Does it fit Freeman? A speed wide receiver? Shouldn’t that help Freeman? A complete back? An offensive lineman? A better defense? All roads lead back to the quarterback.

Freeman is 24, after all. He has time to smooth out the edges. On the other hand, he is three seasons into his career. It is not too soon to expect more. It is not too much to expect it soon.

Put it this way: One of the last two seasons was a fluke, and the other was the truth. Freeman is either the leader we saw in 2010 or he is the scattergun we saw in 2011. From here on, the goal is to turn things around. The goal is to avoid this kind of misery.

That’s true of the franchise, and that’s true of Freeman.

TAMPA — Ronde Barber did more than just show up every day for work, but the record he may be remembered most for is how many times he punched in and out of the office.

He’ll achieve it Sunday at Atlanta simply by walking onto the field at the Georgia Dome for his 225th career game, passing linebacker Derrick Brooks on the Bucs’ all-time list, in the final game of his 15th NFL season.

Barber’s greatness as a player is no longer questioned, not like it was when the cornerback was burned in his first pro game in 1997 by Cardinals receiver Rob Moore, who caught eight passes for 147 yards and a touchdown. Barber was benched for the rest of the regular season before returning to the lineup in the second round of the playoffs against the Packers.

“You know what? I’ll be as proud of my last game, whenever that is, as I was my first game,” Barber said. “My mom tells me the same thing every time I play: ‘play proud.’ ”

Barber can certainly take pride in his career — 43 interceptions, 27 sacks, 1,138 tackles, five Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl title. But his devotion to detail, the way he carries himself as an adult while playing with child-like enthusiasm, his professional approach to his job, which is really playing a game, will be his legacy.

“I don’t know what means the most. It’s probably the respect that I have out of the building because of all these things and how I’ve been as a player, on and off the field,” Barber said. “That’s all you’ve got, is your legacy when you’re done. Not that I’m done. I could be. But it’s about how I went about my job, how I approached this business. I had a lot of fun in it. I think everybody that’s been around has seen that.”

The question that awaits Barber in the offseason is whether he wants to continue playing in 2012. He signed a one-year, $4 million contract in February. Physically, he feels as though he could play. But he admits that a big factor in his decision will be whether the Bucs coach he would be playing for in 2012 is Raheem Morris.

“I would be lying if I didn’t say that was somewhat true,” Barber said Wednesday. “But we’ll see. We’ll see. Ideally, I’d love to be back and play with Rah … play with all those guys. They’re great coaches, they’re fun to be around. They understand me and I understand them, so I imagine that would have something to do with it.”

After going 10-6 in 2010 and starting the season 4-2, Morris’ team is mired in a nine-game losing streak that could easily become 10 Sunday against the Falcons. Barber was asked if he would make a plea to the Glazer family, which owns the Bucs, to keep Morris another season.

“Nah, that’s not for me to do,” the three-time All-Pro said. “Even though if there was one person who could do it, it probably would be me. That’s not my job.

“I have lots of good opinions about Rah. He’s a good friend of mine, and I want well for him. He deserves a team that plays (hard) for him, to be honest with you, guys that care about winning football. … Rah didn’t do anything different than he did last year and the results are starkly different. If that’s who we want as a head coach, then that’s who we got. That’s about as comfortable as I can be with it if they ask me.”

By all accounts, Barber still is an important component to the Bucs defense, and at 36, there’s no doubt he has been their most consistent player. He’s fifth on the club with 73 tackles and has a team-best three interceptions. But his value as a mentor and an example to young players can’t be measured in numbers.

“I approach it like it’s my job because it is,” Barber. “This is what I get paid to do, regardless of the fact that I love doing it. I love football. It’s a great form of entertainment for a lot of people, but when I walk into this building, it’s my job. I’m paying my bills and feeding (my wife) Claudia and the girls.”

Somehow, the 5-foot-10, 184-pound Barber has been able to grind through injuries, none more serious than the torn posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee he suffered at Detroit with three weeks to go in the 2002 season. Five weeks later, he returned a Donovan McNabb interception 92 yards for a touchdown in Philadelphia to clinch the NFC championship and send the Bucs to their only Super Bowl.

“He’s the toughest teammate, a combination mental and physical toughness, that I’ve ever played with,” said former Bucs and Broncos safety John Lynch, who will be in the Fox broadcast booth for what could be Barber’s final game.

“It’s kind of amazing, you don’t even feel the streak because he’s supposed to be there,” Morris said. “I don’t even know if I’ve seen him miss practice.”

After reluctantly agreeing to a few questions off the practice field, Barber excused himself because he had to watch film to prepare for Sunday’s game.

“I honestly come onto the field every day feeling like there’s something I’m not doing good enough,” said the third-round pick out of Virginia in 1997.

Then he went right back to work.

By Eddie Maisonet

– Newsdesk contributor

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Dec 28, 2011 – Injuries on a football team can tend to help create depth for the future. For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have dealt with their fair share of injuries all season, and younger players have had to step up and play. Per the PewterReport.com, rookie defensive end Da’Quan Bowers has a good perspective on the experience gained this season what the future may hold for the defensive line:

“I think we all made great strides [with] myself starting the last couple of games and Adrian (Clayborn) being in the starting lineup the whole season along with Mason (Foster),” Bowers said. “You know it just goes to show you what this team is going to be capable of in the future. Got a young team and hopefully we can get everybody back in next year and make a decent run at what we need to be on like the Super Bowl and all those type of things. Been a tough year, but [with] us being so young it is not necessarily a bad thing. It gives you a time to grow as a team and as a unit.”

That defensive line’s goal on Sunday will be to take down Atlanta Falcons’ QB Matt Ryan, as the Bucs try to finish the season strong. Here is the full injury report for the Falcons in week 17:

WR Arrelious Benn (neck) DNP
DE Michael Bennett (toe) DNP
DT Adrian Clayborn (hamstring) LP
LB Geno Hayes (finger) LP
DT Albert Haynesworth (knee) DNP
LB Adam Hayward (foot) FP
DT Roy Miller (back) DNP
WR Preston Parker (concussion) DNP
DT Brian Price (ankle) DNP
WR Sammie Stroughter (knee) FP
T Jeremy Trueblood (concussion) DNP

Legend

LP: Limited participation in practice
FP: Full participation
DNP: Did not practice

For more on the Falcons check out The Falcoholic, SB Nation’s Atlanta Falcons blog. For more on the Bucs check out Bucs Nation, SB Nation’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers blog. For more on the NFL, check out the SB Nation NFL hub page.

Read More: Arrelious Benn (WR – TAM), Da’Quan Bowers (DE – TAM), Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

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TAMPA

What were you doing eight weeks ago?

You know, just before Halloween. A little less than a Kim Kardashian marriage.

Eight weeks ago, Bucs coach Raheem Morris and his staff had won 16 of their past 24 games, the blistering .667 winning percentage was the fourth best in the NFL during that stretch. They were off to a 4-2 start this season, 2-0 in the NFC South and tied for first in the division with wins over Atlanta and New Orleans.

Eight weeks and seven consecutive losses later, Morris finds himself running out of chances to prove he should be back next season.

Personally, I believe the Glazer family (which owns the Bucs) is rooting for Morris to win the final three games, silence some of the critics and keep its plan on course.

Why? For starters, they like Morris. Bryan Glazer sits next to Morris on the team charter to and from each road game. They’re frequently together socially.

But a bigger reason should be obvious: The Bucs aren’t looking to pay a big-name, proven coach $5.7 million a year knowing full well they can’t hire one without agreeing to spend at least $50 million of salary cap space on veteran free agents.

This much is a given if Morris is fired: The Glazers can’t hire another first-time coach. They will need an older man, preferably with a few Super Bowl rings. A Bill Cowher. At the very least, a Jeff Fisher.

For a franchise that has spent the least amount of cash on salaries and signing bonuses from 2004-09, according to NFL Management Council figures, does this sound like the Bucs to you?

Yes, the new labor rules mandate the league as a whole must spend 99 percent of the salary cap in 2011. But there’s no minimum requirement for individual teams until 2013. The option on Morris’ contract, coincidentally, expires after the 2012 season.

So Morris has coached the youngest team in the league for two straight seasons and, until eight weeks ago, won as many games as nearly any coach in the league over a 24-game stretch. But coaches don’t make long-range plans for a franchise. They try to execute them.

When the plan calls for starting mostly rookies, sophomores and other young players, their backups are largely undrafted free agents or claims off the waiver wire.

Defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, the third overall pick in 2010, is lost for the season with a torn right biceps, and he’s replaced by Albert Haynesworth? How many game-changing plays has he made?

Rookie middle linebacker Mason Foster, who sprained both ankles and was forced to leave the Oct. 23 game against Chicago, misses snaps, and they replace him with Adam Hayward, primarily a special teams maven and the last free agent signed before the season. Fellow linebackers Quincy Black (in his fifth season) hasn’t lived up to his contract while Geno Hayes (fourth) was benched.

“Unfortunately, we’re not the same team,” Morris said. “We are different. But we are into the ‘next man up’ mentality. I even sold you (reporters) on it because you guys don’t realize they’re missing, either.

“It’s not about missing people. It’s about guys stepping up into those roles and using that maturity to get you over the edge. And we’ve not been able to do that thus far. We’ve got to do it (tonight). We’ve got to do it the next three weeks.”

Morris is not blameless for the slide. The Bucs have committed the third-most penalties in the NFL (108) and are tied with the Eagles for the most turnovers committed (31).

But eight weeks ago, he was the hot, new face married to the prettiest girl. Even Kris Humphries probably believes the split with Morris is going a little too fast.

Rick Stroud can be reached at stroud@tampabay.com.

The Carolina Panthers will look for back-to-back wins for the first time in two years when they take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Dec. 4^th.The Buccaneers have lost five straight as the Panthers come off their third win of the season. Here are some keys for a Panthers victory.

Panthers Need A Strong Rushing Attack

The Panthers got a strong game from both DeAngelo Williams(notes) and Jonathan Stewart(notes) against the Indianapolis Colts last weekend. Williams had 69 yards and two touchdowns as Stewart added 70 yards. The Panthers rushing game has a chance for another big game with the Buccaneers allowing at least 177 yards in four of the last five games. They gave up 202 rushing yards against the Tennessee Titans last week. If Carolina’s backs and Cam Newton(notes) can get going on the ground, the Panthers will control this game and be in a great position to win.

Win The Turnover Battle

Tampa Bay has struggled all season with turnovers. They have 23 so far, which is four more than 2010. They also had five against the Titans. Another issue for the Buccaneers is Josh Freeman’s(notes) interceptions in the fourth quarter. Freeman has thrown six this year, which is three more than all of last season. Newton has also struggle with interceptions, although he didn’t have one last game. If the Panthers can create turnovers and turn them into points, without mistakes of their own, they will have a very successful game.

Throw All Over The Buccaneers Secondary

Tampa Bay has allowed 254.9 yards on average this season, which ranks them 28^th in the league. The Panthers average 263.5 yards in the air, which is good enough for 9^th in the league. Newton should be able to find openings in the Buccaneers secondary. I fully expect Newton and go to target Steve Smith to both have a big day. Smith should be able to exploit any one on one match-up he sees and be a deep threat in the aerial passing game. Also, I’d look for Greg Olsen(notes) to have a good game from the tight end position.

*All stats found on espn.com

Although living several hundred miles from Charlotte, Matthew Levine bleeds Carolina blue. He has followed the Panthers since their inaugural season in 1995 and was absolutely heart-broken over the 2003 Super Bowl loss to the Patriots

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