A lot of fans have placed the Bucs struggles on the time wasted during the preseason between battling quarterbacks Luke McCown and Byron Leftwich.

Due to the competition between quarterbacks who never made it past a month of play for the Bucs, rookie quarterback Josh Freeman got limited duty in preseason. Some suggest this tactic stunted his growth and partially led to such a dismal Bucs season.

Ronde Barber isn’t ready to subscribe to such a theory, per Tom Balog of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which Joe belatedly posts.

“All the young ones struggle early,” said cornerback Ronde Barber. “Who comes in and (immediately) plays great?”

Barber would not agree the Buccaneers would have necessarily won more games had Freeman played the entire season.

“That’s hard to say. The greatest quarterback in the league right now (Peyton Manning) started his rookie year 1-and-15,” Barber said. “He made some strides. He looks like a veteran starter in the league right now. Nothing fazes him. The future is bright for the kid. We all know that. You see it.”

Joe thinks this subject is nonsense. Joe heard from Freeman’s own mouth that the reason he didn’t start sooner was that he wasn’t ready and it had nothing to do with limited snaps in preseason, thanks to the battle between Leftwich and McCown.

Freeman himself said he wasn’t ready because, after firing then-offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski, the Bucs changed offenses and Freeman had to learn from scratch the new offense.

Had Jagodzinski remained as the Bucs offensive coordinator, then the limited number of snaps for Freeman in July and August would be an issue.