Joe has gone on and on about how rookie quarterback Josh Freeman, now that he is signed, should sit the first year. But Vacation Man of BSPN.com does not subscribe to this theory.

Vacation Man’s lone premise in his campaign for Freeman to start is that it worked for Doug Williams.

Even though the Bucs have talked a lot about bringing Freeman along slowly, maybe that’s not a formula for success. Stick with the history here. Coddling didn’t work the other two times the Bucs thought they were getting a franchise quarterback.

Please. This is crazy. In short, there are examples to cite on both sides: quarterbacks who started as rookies and thrived, and those that never recovered from the shell shock (Alex Smith?). As Kellen Winslow told Joe earlier this summer, it depends on the quarterback.

Winslow cited Peyton Manning, for example. But not only was Manning a senior when he was drafted, he was lighting up the SEC. The record of juniors being drafted at quarterback aren’t promising.

Look, Freeman’s name can’t even be used in the same sentence as Manning unless the subject is guys who play quarterback. Freeman wasn’t even in the top echelon of his own conference last year, a conference that played garbage defense. Freeman’s going to see stuff in preseason he’s never seen before and we all know defensive coordinators hold most of their packages back in the preseason.

Another reason the Williams analogy is silly is Williams played in a pro-style offense at Grambling; Freeman did not at Kansas State. Shoot, he didn’t even take snaps from center that often.

Now look at the Bucs’ first 10 opponents: Dallas, at Buffalo, New York Giants, at Washington, at Philadelphia, Carolina, New England at London, Green Bay, at Miami. Sans “The Poz,” Paul Posluszny, Buffalo doesn’t pose much of a defensive threat. Green Bay this year now has one of the great zone-blitz gurus in Don Capers, so Joe expects them to be tough.

So Vacation Man wants a rookie who technically should still be a senior in college who never played in an NFL pro-style offense who didn’t exactly tear up teams of the likes of Baylor and Colorado to start against these teams?

If that happens, Joe hopes the Bucs have a team psychiatrist for Freeman. Joe wouldn’t be surprised if Freeman will need treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after that stretch of games.