The football gods have rained on Byron Leftwich and the Bucs.

The Bucs loss was so horrible yesterday, it was “embarrassing.”

That’s the word Martin Fennelly of the Tampa Tribune is using.

Joe has used much stronger language than that, but he won’t use it (for now) on this very site.

In short, Fennelly asks Bucs fans to walk across the street — any street — and that’s just about how much the Bucs moved the ball for 45 minutes of football yesterday. 

“We made zero plays,” Bucs quarterback Byron Leftwich said.

Welcome to zero hour.

One day, they might build a stone obelisk to this season, and those might be the only four words on it.

You couldn’t blame just the defense Sunday, though it was its usual lousy self. You couldn’t just blame the offense, though it was near-record awful. You couldn’t blame just the passing game, or the pass rush, or the running game, or the pass coverage. You couldn’t blame just players, or just coaches.

“It was spread throughout the team today like a plague,” Bucs coach Raheem Morris said.

Joe doesn’t give a damn who the starting quarterback is. If the Bucs don’t block any better; if they don’t tackle any better, it won’t matter who they play: Washington, Florida State, Plant High School or Largo High School. The Bucs will lose unless they start playing football.

And playing football is quite simple: Block the guy in front of you. Tackle the guy with the ball. Real simple.

It doesn’t take a quarterback change to figure that out.