“Thanks for keeping me out of a wheelchair, bro.”

Joe has made it clear he is, well, um, suspicious of the stat geeks mainly because there is no evidence of their football acumen when they are watching tape.

Anyone, including a three-year old, can watch tape. But do they know what they are looking at and, more importantly, how do they know what each player’s individual assignment is on a given play?

But Joe does try to keep an open mind and there are some statheads Joe respects. Mike Tanier of Bleacher Report and locally data-driven Thomas Bassinger of the Tampa Bay Times are two.

The PFF tribe does a decent job tracking YAC and missed tackles and broken tackles. That’s about it. The Football Outsiders crowd Joe respects a great deal, partially because they often state their stats are not necessarily absolute. Joe respects that honesty and candor.

In that vein, Ben Muth of Football Outsiders takes a deep dive into the offensive line of the Bucs. Muth, a former All-PAC 10 offensive lineman at Stanford,  believes the 2016 draft picks, Donovan Smith and Ali Marpet, are beginning to show signs they are two of the better blockers in the NFL.

It’s a shame that Smith had the three big negative plays (two penalties and sack), because without those he had a nice little game. Not dominant, but he certainly held his own with Quinn for most of the day and looked like he belonged as a starting left tackle in this league. If he can limit the back-breaking mistakes, he could be a long-term option in Tampa.

Marpet was thought of much more highly after his rookie year than Smith, but I thought he had a harder time on Sunday. Part of that had to do with who he was blocking. I love Robert Quinn, but Aaron Donald is a straight-up face-eater. He’s so fast and so powerful that he’s probably going to have a way to beat just about anyone he plays against.

Marpet had more trouble with Donald’s power than quickness. Donald was able to bull-rush him back into the quarterback and pressure Winston a couple of times (he also batted a couple passes). And there was a play early in the first where he drove Marpet straight back into the backfield on an outside run and forced a big loss. I want to see Marpet play against someone who isn’t a top-five defensive player, though, before I say he doesn’t play with enough power. One thing I do feel pretty good about saying is that Marpet looks great playing in space. He looked good blocking at the second level all game. And then he pulled a couple of times and really won me over.

Look, only the spreadsheeters hated Smith. Joe spoke last offseason with many NFL folks and couldn’t find any (current players, former players, current coaches, ex-coaches, current front office types and former front office types) who thought Smith was garbage. Only the Excel warriors.

Simple facts: The Bucs rushed for 2,162 yards last year and gave up the fourth-fewest sacks in the NFL. Teams don’t do that with a left tackle who is a human broken gate, nevermind a rookie left tackle.

Look who Smith had to block and how many sacks those guys got, and then get back to Joe and try to explain why and/or how Smith stinks. He doesn’t. It’s called getting the job done.

Marpet really looks like he’s going to be a Pro Bowler in the future. A guy who has to tangle with him daily in practice with a few Pro Bowls under his belt thinks so too.