Freeman Put In Extra Time

November 06, 2009 at 10:08am by Scott   •  2 Comments »

We were talking last week about how Raheem Morris wasn’t making the team practice all that much over the bye despite the fact that they obviously need it. Well, once he got back from his little trip home to Kansas City, Josh Freeman spent Monday at Bucs headquarters when no one else was there.

“He was here on Monday when everybody else was off and did some of the things like that,’’ Morris said.

I’m going to be kind and just assume that there was a previous quote that wasn’t given there. So, apparently Freeman did some “things”.

“He was in here this morning and actually beat me in here. He was in here this morning watching tape and that’s just what he does. He has been doing it since I’ve known him going way back to Kansas State. He’s kind of a football junkie.

I’ve heard opinions of Freeman’s work ethic that span from “football junkie” to “lazy and unmotivated”, but I have to at least give Morris the benefit of the doubt here. Morris hasn’t exactly been kind in the media to guys he thinks are dogging it. He doesn’t mind throwing a guy under the bus to the press, although I think Freeman of all players will be handled with kid gloves. Morris’s job is dependent enough on Freeman’s performance that he’s not going to take any chances.

“He’s not one of those guys where you have to get into the speed and development that you have to worry about in a bye week.’’

I don’t know what this means.

“He has been here for the OTA days, he has been here for mini-camp.’’

Yes, he was. And so was Luke McCown and Byron Leftwich, who were taking the large majority of snaps during that time while each of them were unknowingly moving closer and closer to irrelevancy to this team every day. And I’m not sure that citing the fact that Freeman was around in May adds confidence that he’s going to know what he’s doing in November, especially considering that the offensive coordinator has changed.

(This is one of the problems with Morris. He keeps talking about three sentences after he should have stopped. Freeman was around on Monday, he beat Morris into the office, he put in time in the film room, the end. There’s no need to add extra shit after that.)

Nevertheless, it’s at least nice to see Freeman getting in some extra preparation for the Packers. This game and the Dolphins game I think are winnable, so Freeman should be pouring everything he has into these next two weeks. If they go 0-2 for those games, I think 0-16 is more likely to happen than not.