The Contagious Josh Freeman
September 20th, 2011
If not for the late-game heroics of the Bucs, there is no telling how many losses the team would have racked up.
But Josh Freeman has ice in his veins and a contagious virus amid his body. It’s a good virus as the Bucs freely admit his vibes spread through the team in the fourth quarter.
“He looked me right in the face, ‘We got this; we’re okay,’ ” Morris said. “I’m looking at my quarterback’s mouth bleeding; it’s kind of a situation you don’t want to look at too often. He got things rolling for us and able to come back in the fourth quarter. It’s becoming a signature move for him.”
Freeman has eight comeback wins in three seasons, which has the Bucs (1-1) feeling good heading to Sunday’s showdown with NFC South rival Atlanta (1-1) at Raymond James Stadium. Considering Morris felt his team “blinked” in a Week 1 loss to Detroit, saying even Freeman was “rattled,” the Bucs were the complete opposite in Minneapolis, with the third-year quarterback setting the tone.
“He’s very poised at any moment — he doesn’t really fear any situation,” defensive end Michael Bennett said. “A quarterback like that, a leader like that, you’ve got to feel that vibe off him where you can’t really be scared of any situation, just like him. … It’s what great leadership does. He’s such a great leader, when he’s in a moment where everybody else is frightful, he’s just like, ‘This is my time to shine.’ That’s what makes him so good.”
It’s great to know that Freeman just isn’t rattled when the heat is turned up and plays need to be made. Did Trent Dilfer every have a fourth-quarterback comeback for the Bucs? Joe cannot remember one. Yet Freeman barely into this second full season as the Bucs starter already has eight.
As Joe suggested earlier, of course, the Bucs must do something to render their first half invisibility a thing of the past. It simply isn’t fair to Freeman — or the team as a whole — to expect Freeman to bail the Bucs out time and again.
September 20th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
As Tony Dungy would say, “we just need to execute better” in the first half.
September 20th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Doesn’t Montana have the record for most comeback wins in the beginning of his career? I wonder how close Freeman is to breaking that record
September 20th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
I saw somewhere that Manning had 7 comebacks in his first 31 games and Freeman has 8 comebacks in his first 31 games
September 20th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Shaun King, Chris Simms, Brian Griese, Luke McKown, Brian Leftwich or Josh Johnson. None of them are Free’s caliber, and none of them could lead this team to a come back win. If they did it was blind luck. Freeman and the entire team is getting better each week.
September 20th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
When is he going to lead us to the Playoffs!!!???
September 20th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Bucsfan…True, but no one threw the ball backwards as well as King did.
September 20th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Wouldn’t trade free for any QB in the league at this point. Too young, too good, too clutch. Its crazy to have a qb that if were not down by one or 2 tds in the 4th qt you expect to come back and win. FRANCHISE FREEMAN as he goes we go
September 20th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
McBuc…nice one. I will say that Shaun King does well on 1010 AM. I dont always agree, but he has found his career. Maybe he can help Luke McKown find a job when he is done embarassing himself in Jax.
Bottomline, given the crappy QBs this team has had over the years, it is about time we have a winner. Geraldine McCoy needs to take lessons.
September 20th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Jrock
Elway has the most with 47 4th quarter comeback wins. Farve is second with 42. Dan Marino and Peyton Manning are tied at third with 37.
September 20th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Joe,
Trent Dilfer doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same article as Freeman. God, did he suck!
September 20th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
It’s nice that he already has 8 comebacks but the big problem is he has 8 comebacks.
I’d rather the team actually perform to their potential all game and not be in that position where Josh has to drag them kicking and screaming to a win or close loss.
September 20th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
BTW I’m glad one of Freeman’s passes for an INT was dropped and that Graham fumble was negated from that penality or we might not have won this comeback.
September 20th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Freeman is the most poised young QB I have ever seen. His composure late in the game is uncanny, and just gives the whole team confidence to succeed. This is a young, exciting, and Fun team! And as long as Josh Freeman has the ball in his hands, we always have a chance to win!
Sometimes I still can’t believe the Bucs finally have a great QB!
September 20th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Joe,
Why is the font on the website jacked up today?
September 20th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Joe, never mind, it seems to be fixed now. Keep up the great work!
September 20th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
As much as Freeman’s accomplished in his short career, it’s a shame he’s yet to pull out a win in front of a home sellout crowd. Once he experiences wins with 60,000 plus faithful roaring behind him, it’ll be on.
September 20th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
As far as the ticket situation, I drove in from Orlando the other week down i-4 and into downtown, and couldnt find one buccaneer billboard. I saw at least two for the Hard Rock. The bucs need to start promoting heavy if they want their home games to sell.
September 20th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
@rapheal. Josh Freeman has only started 27 reular seasons games not counting the patriots game he came into late.
September 20th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
@Joe, the screen is zooming in for me also…increasing the font size to like 14 pt. I had to clear my cookies and history to fix it 😉
I have to wonder though…consider the coaching he had and the talent around him. As much as Ian Beckles claims to have been good, the Bucs oline sucked for a good while.
Dilfer got a good line in Baltimore and won a superbowl. Unfortunately he was old as well, so he was already on his way out.
And I think Freeman is MUCH better…heck the stats show that. But we also had some crappy wide receivers back then.
September 20th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
/doh! My typos! Regular, not reular LOL
September 20th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
And there goes the zooming again. I think it’s just the center portion of the page, Joe. Might want to check your template. Something is malfunctioning.
September 20th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Sam Bradford threw a pretty good backwards pass last night that Cadi dropped for a Giant’s TD. First time I’ve seen Cadi drop a pass in a couple years.
September 20th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Just off the top of my head, I think Dilfer had two in the first 5 games of 1997. I think against the Colts and Cardinals.
September 20th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
We need to get a speedster WR next offseason, so we can run play action and let Freeman show off that absolute cannon he has.
IMO, DeSean Jackson, or trade up for the Oklahoma St. WR- Justin Blackmon.
September 20th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
SteveK this team doesn’t care for speed on offense. Just trying to temper ur expectations
September 20th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Joe, you’d better hurry and get this zoom problem fixed. Pete Dutcher just cleared his cookies all over your website! Now I’m not the most computer literate guy, but somehow that just didn’t sound right to me. lol.
September 20th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Macabee:
Not sure what you are speaking of. Joe has not changed any font sizes.
Try what Pete did. Go to Internet Options and clear the cookies.
September 20th, 2011 at 9:55 pm
Serves me right for trying to be humorous, From now on, I’m going to stick to dry wit!!
September 20th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
I had the same font issue earlier, it looked like the styles were getting cleared a half second after the page loaded. Not seeing it now.
September 20th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
Ok, yeah, it’s back.
September 21st, 2011 at 8:55 am
Enlarged font for me too yesterday and this morning- clearing cookies as we speak. Will reload page and let you know.
September 21st, 2011 at 9:01 am
Update; Clearing cookies and temp files didn’t fix the enlarged font for me. It’s enlarged on my two work PC’s and was enlarged on my home PC last night as well.
September 21st, 2011 at 9:11 am
I have had no problems and access the site 5-10 times a day. Google Chrome is the ish.
September 21st, 2011 at 11:45 am
Enlarged font is a typographers dream come true!
September 21st, 2011 at 11:52 am
Come on Joe, you know this font conspiracy is all your fault!
Seriously, I have visited your site hundreds of times and have never had any issues/problems, excepting the occasional jackass or troll.
September 21st, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Not complaining, just trying to be informative. Believe me, I dont care how large or small the font is I’ll still be logging on to Joe’s site multiple times daily for my Bucs fix.