A depressed yet motivated Bucs guard Carl Nicks decided to speak to Joe and a handful of others from the Tampa Bay pen and mic club after a heart-sinking loss to the Redskins Sunday.

“We just turned it up man [in the second half]. I mean at the end of the day we got to do what we are supposed to do and we weren’t doing it in the first half,” Nicks said. “I loved the way we came out in the second half, and we got a lot of fight in this team. And we just didn’t get it done today.

“We weren’t executing, we weren’t giving Freeman enough time, a culmination of just mess-ups.”

Did Freeman’s lack of time mess up his timing, leading to his errant throws?

“Probably, because he is pretty accurate when he’s got time.”

Is it unavoidable that young teams will have ups and downs?

“Yeah, because it is going to happen. It is football. All it’s going to do is give us stripes. So we can’t be a young team anymore; we have to be proven and that is through hard work.”