Why these Tampa Bay Buccaneers would bury positive news for months just baffles Joe.

How sadistic are the guys at One Buc Palace? Sheesh.

Legions of fans are begging for glimmers of hope, yet uplifting news was swept under the rug.

Joe’s colleague Charlie Campbell at the defunct toilet-friendly magazine turned Web-only PewterReport.com has uncovered, apparently with little help from the Bucs, that Mark Dominik months ago hired accomplished football man Bill Rees to serve as draft consultant in chief.

Rees was a college coach, a key recruiter at UCLA during their glory days in the 1980s, a co-worker of Dominik’s when they were with the Chiefs, and a NFL personnel director, most recently with the Browns in 2008.

Some league scouts and staff with other NFL teams tell Pewter Report that this is very rare for a team to hire an outside consultant to do draft evaluations. Some say that if you have confidence in your staff you don’t need an outside source, and that is why you hire a director of college scouting.

Sources with the Buccaneers say Rees protects the team from getting tunnel vision on internal thoughts regarding draft prospects. The Buccaneers view Rees’ hiring as a way to get another view on college talent from outside their own building.

Of course, it’s unknown to what depth Rees is really operating. No quotes in the story from the Bucs is a little odd.

Joe can only speculate that Dominik is so confident the Bucs will be successful in the draft, he kept this a secret so he could take all the credit.