Reserve linebacker Adam Hayward saved the Bucs from a shutout.

As if the Bucs offense — in particular offensive coordinator Greg Olson — shouldn’t be embarrassed enough with that shameful display of an offense yesterday, the Bucs have a linebacker to be thankful for.

A backup linebacker no less!

Joe hates the whoofing and hollering and chest-beating and preening the NFL has become. If Joe wanted to see a circus he’d go to down to Sarasota where the Ringling Bros. exists.

Joe wants to see football, not the WWE!

But it was the mouthing off — and frankly the Bucs had zero reason to shoot off their mouths yesterday — from scrub linebacker Adam Hayward that saved the Bucs from a shutout, so Joe has learned from Rich Cimini of the New York Daily Newsand Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post.

For it was Jets linebacker Bart Scott who retaliated from Hayward’s smack that gave the Bucs a first down which eventually led to the Bucs lone score, a measley field goal.

Vaccaro details how the on-field hassle went down.

On third-and-nine, with 101/2 minutes left in the third, Donald Strickland sacked Josh Freeman for a two-yard loss, and so the Bucs’ streak of haplessness was about to go on indefinitely. But then, in the mash of bodies among offense, defense and special teams, one Buc player told Scott to — direct quote — “Shut up.’’

“And I lost my cool,’’ Scott admitted. “I was dumb.’’

What he did was grab the guy’s helmet off, one of the easiest 15-yard unsportsmanlike flags that’ll ever be flung. The Bucs finally had a first down; eight plays (and one more first down) later, they also had their only points.

“The guy” Vaccaro writes about was Hayward, so notes Cimini.

The Bucs’ punt team was going on the field after a third-down sack in the third quarter, but Scott started jawing with a member of the Bucs’ punt team, Adam Heyward [sic]. Scott ripped off Heyward’s [sic] helmet and was flagged for unnecessary roughness. It gave the Bucs a first down (their first of the game), and they drove to a field goal.

Imagine that: a reserve linebacker on a punt team shooting off his mouth when he should have been hanging his head like the rest of his teammates saved the Bucs from a shutout.