“Don’t worry, Cam. Mike Shula will fix it. “

Joe must confess. Joe remains in a state of stunned disbelief that Mike Shula, a man who tortured Bucs fans alongside Shula cheerleader Tony Dungy for four seasons, again has an offensive coordinator job in the NFL. Joe can’t believe Carolina tagged stale Shula as the guy to take Cam Newton to a new level.

For those who claim the NFL is not doing enough to interview and consider minority coaches for coordinator jobs, Shula being named OC in Carolina should be exhibit A in their case.

So it was with that fascination/disbelief surrounding the Shula hire — and Joe’s interest in all things NFC South — that Joe chose to listen to Newton’s interview on WFAN-AM out of New York with host Mike Francesa last week.

Newton didn’t mention Shula once (interesting), but he did question the Panthers effort, which really caught Joe’s ear.

“Consistency is the word that I feel like I could have been a little bit better at. And maybe I’m critiquing myself to perfection, but that’s what you have to do when you’re trying to be great,” Newton said. “So, you know, as I’m going back and watching the film of different things and different games, and I just feel as if, you know, if the whole team had the aspect or the mental thought of, ‘Just a little bit more,’ we would have won a couple of more games.”

So Newton reviewed the season and figured out the entire Panthers team didn’t give all they had. This left Joe encouraged by the state of the Bucs versus the state of the biggest division rival.