Getting rid of Josh Freeman made sense only if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers thought that the team they have is good enough to win without him under Greg Schiano. With every game and loss that goes by, it’s not quite clear if Freeman was going to be the guy to help this expensive project thrive at some point, but Schiano is looking more and more like the guy who can’t.

Not that Mike Glennon is doing such a bad job. He finished with 30-of-51, throwing for one touchdown and 275 yards. But the Bucs are without their top running back Doug Martin, and at some point, even a defense that held it’s own through the first weeks of the season is not good enough anymore to keep this team from looking embarrassing. The Bucs fell to the Carolina Panthers, making 7 losses since the beginning of the season after being beaten 31-13, in a game that wasn’t even close early into the second quarter.

People are certainly entitled to their opinion. Here’s the thing, my whole career as a player and a coach, you get up in the morning and you work as hard and as smart as you can. It usually puts you to bed tired, and you get up and do it again. That’s the way I do it. I visit with our owners all the time. There are open lines of communication. We’re all just trying to get better and do the things that make the organization better.

So the Glazers won’t fire Schiano right now, but they have to be wondering it. This isn’t just another lost season for a team that should have been competing for the division title. It seems that they’re getting worse with every game that goes by, as less and less aspects remain functional in a dressing room that is disconnected from its head coach, and according to most rumors coming out from the media surrounding the team, can’t wait for him to get fired.

In a similar situation to what the Chiefs had last season, it just seems that the men navigating the ship, that is quite loaded with talent on both sides of the ball, don’t really know what they’re doing. Vincent Jackson, one of the best receivers in the NFL when it comes to teams pressing a vertical attack, is hardly being noticed by Glennon. Jackson was targeted 13 times, catching five passes for 79 yards, but it was way too late when Glennon started looking for him. He was targeted on five of Glennon’s 21 attempts in the first three quarters.

Josh Freeman isn’t doing too well in Minnesota after one game, and a concussion might keep him out of the next one. He still shouldn’t have been cut from the team, and especially not for Schiano’s sake, who by every indication we’re getting from what we’re seeing on the field just isn’t the right man for the job of getting the Bucs from this long slump the franchise is in, even with the expensive talent he’s surrounded with.

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