Joe says Chucky will blame a lack of playmaking on the Denver loss during his Monday news conference. No chance he shoulders blame for a lousy offensive gameplan against a poor defense.

 Remember when Tony Dungy always used to say the Bucs offense just “needed to execute.” That they just had to make the plays that were there.

Cue the images of Mike Shula and Les Steckel.

Even with Dungy, a stand up guy, all of that talk was mostly coachspeak excuses for poor offensive coaching and a lack of talent on the offensive side of the ball.

At today’s 11 a.m. Jon Gruden press conference, Chucky surely will talk about Brian Griese missing Jerramy Stevens wide open in the end zone in the first quarter. He’ll talk about missed reads by Griese, the Broncos’ zone defense limiting the Bucs options, and probably missing Galloway and B.J. Askew. All excuses.

Then he’ll talk about how Denver kicked a 55 yard field goal, and how they moved the chains late. (How about that gutsy call by Shanahan with a first-down pass with 2 minutes left.)

At the end of the day, the Bucs could have won the game. But were they well coached on offense?

Clearly the Bucs defense was ready.

Did the offense adjust? Did it establish a consistent running game? Did it try to open the game up downfield? It looked more like Chucky was playing conservative most of the game waiting for the defense to hand him a gift. That turnover never came, and today he’ll enter the “We didn’t make plays” spin zone.