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I love getting the outside view of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While we will know more about the team than any national columnist, out opinions will ultimately also be more tainted by our fandom than the opinions of those national columnists.
One of the better writers who doesn't get enough attention is Mike Tanier, and he just published an outstanding piece on Josh Freeman. Tanier watched six Josh Freeman games, and then wrote about Good Josh and Evil Josh. How very Rex Grossman.
Tanier's opinions are interesting, most notably his point that Freeman needs to scramble less (I'm fairly sure most Bucs fans would disagree there). But he may have a point there: the fact that Freeman succeeded in 2010 while scrambling more doesn't mean that his success was caused by those scrambles.
Overall, though, you really should just go read the whole thing.
After watching several Good Josh and Evil Josh games, it was easy to reconcile and reconstitute the Real Josh. Good and evil are a matter of degree. In Freeman's best games, he completes two or three more passes down the field off play-action, gets a few extra plays by buying time with his legs or gets an early boost from a Martin catch-and-run. In his worst games, an errant sideline bomb flutters into a cornerback's hands instead of out-of-bounds. In the good games, the Buccaneers play much of the game with a lead or within a touchdown of their opponent, so the running game remains a significant factor. In the bad games, the opponent rolls out to an early lead (perhaps due to an early Freeman miscue or two), and the Buccaneers cannot rely on the running game to slow the pass rush or occupy the underneath coverage.
Seriously, it's a great read. Unfortunately, it still doesn't give us any answers and leaves us with the same questions we've been debating all offseason: can Josh Freeman improve on his inconsistent play?
That question remains impossible to answer.