It's June, so a lot can change between now and the start of training camp in six weeks, but apparently the Buccaneers are thinking about giving the starting quarterback gig to rookie first-round pick Josh Freeman. Before last season, I would have had a hard time supporting that plan, but Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco changed all that. Ryan led the Falcons, a four-win outfit in 2007, to the postseason; Flacco made it to the AFC Conference Championship game with the Ravens, a team that finished 5-11 the year before.
Now, the Bucs might have similar ideas for Freeman. And they were 9-7 in 2008, which, in theory, means they have fewer holes to patch.
(That theory could be very wrong, however; the the club fired Jon Gruden and replaced him with 32-year-old, first-year head coach Raheem Morris. Not long after, the organization cleaned house, releasing veterans Joey Galloway, Derrick Brooks, Cato June, Warrick Dunn and Ike Hilliard. So maybe comparing the '09 Bucs to the '08 Falcons and '08 Ravens works here. Either way, it sounds like there's a good chance it happens sooner than originally expected.)
Quarterbacks coach Greg Olson said "it's not out of the question,' that Freeman takes the path of the Falcons' Matt Ryan and the Ravens' Joe Flacco and starts as a rookie. ...Potential unintended public relations benefit: starting Freeman takes the focus off the front office's decision to dismantle a veteran team that should have made the playoffs last season. And if Freeman plays well early, even better.
"We did talk last week, and when I say we, I'm talking about everyone in the building from the GM, 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 it again...we may expedite what he's doing. You know, maybe we get him involved early -- earlier than we thought.''
