Months ago center Jeff Faine voiced his displeasure with the Bucs’ plan to hand over line call duties to the quarterback.

But that never materialized, Faine said later, as Byron Leftwich wasn’t well enough versed in the offense to call out the protections and other line calls.

Now an extremely confident Josh Johnson will take on those duties, offensive coordinator Greg Olson explained during his Wednesday news conference. 

Faine, who returns to the lineup this week, will serve as an override if Faine believes Johnson’s call is in error, Olson said.

Olson explained that having the quarterback make line calls is critical in this era of zone bliztes and that the great QBs of the game make their teams’ line calls.

“We often, even a year ago with Jeff Garcia when he was the starter, there was a big difference when [Garcia] was in and when Brian [Griese] was in. [Garcia] felt much more comfortable with Jeff Faine making the calls. [Garcia] had never done that in his career and he wasn’t real interested in that. And it wasn’t an issue but somewhat it is. Our quarterback has to get guys in the right places,” Olson said. “And so we ask [Josh Johnson and Josh Freeman] to do that and that’s a big part of the quarterback development. I think if the great ones, if you watch, especially nowawdays with all the zone blitzes, it’s important that the quarterbacks understand the protection part of it. …Josh Johnson is very confident in his ability, and I’m very confident in him to getting us to the right points in the protections.

“If there’s an issue, defer it to Faine. If you made [a call] and Faine says, ‘Uh, uh. Uh, uh. We’re going here with it.’ Understand that we’ll defer to Faine because of his experience right now as a veteran player. That’s what we did last year with Brian Griese. And so that will help both the Josh’s right now.”

Olson went on to explain that “Josh Freeman may not be as confident in setting the protections right now.”

Reading between the lines, Joe wonders whether the Bucs might have made the move to start Freeman, rather than Johnson, if Faine hadn’t been sidelined with a tricep tear.

After hearing Olson, Joe suspects the Bucs will start Freeman after the bye week , unless Faine is hurt or Josh Johnson beats the Patriots in England.