It’s easy to understand Bucs fans having pulled out the long knives and lit the torches after this disgusting freefall this past month. Joe Henderson of the Tampa Tribune seems to be leading the crowd and stops just short of calling for Chucky’s head.

Henderson suggests that one doesn’t need to be a math major to figure out the numbers don’t add up to a good sum for Chucky.

With a 31-24 loss to lowly Oakland, the Bucs completed the kind of collapse that often results in regime change, even when the coach is named Jon Gruden and he has three years remaining on his contract. Nobody gets a pass after the futility of this month. Especially after the futility of this month.

Reputations are made in December in the National Football League and the numbers tell you where Gruden’s is headed. Since winning the Super Bowl, his teams are 10-18 in regular-season games after the calendar flips to the last month of the year. The Bucs are 45-51 in the regular season since hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

It’s the kind of mediocrity the Glazers used to justify firing Tony Dungy when his teams lost consecutive years in the playoffs at Philadelphia. The Bucs needed a jolt then and they sure need one now. They’ve become a treadmill team, capable of getting close enough to tease but little else. It is the worst kind of purgatory for a franchise.

Others are not immune to Henderson’s tirade. So too are Bruce Almighty and quarterback Jeff Garcia.

Joe — this Joe, not Joe Henderson — doesn’t believe Bruce Almighty is the problem. Sure the Bucs could use a young quarterback to develop. By the way, when was the last time Chucky developed a quarterback?