Lovie Smith says Josh McCown is the Buccaneers' starter

After last night's debacle, we've seen a lot of calls for Mike Glennon to take over as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' starting quarterback. When a team performs as badly as it did yesterday, calls for change are natural, and the need to see whether Mike Glennon can be the future is understandable. But Lovie Smith isn't having it. "Josh [McCown] is our starter", the Bucs head coach said today.

Smith also downplayed McCown's interceptions, noting that all of those "weren't even his" and that every quarterback in the NFL throws interceptions. Which is absolutely true -- they just get magnified when the quarterback isn't super-productive outside of those interceptions.

That's not unexpected. Lovie Smith is always loyal to his players and his coaches, just like Tony Dungy was back in his day. And it's also somewhat understandable: while McCown was truly awful yesterday, Glennon really wasn't that much better. He completed a few more passes but didn't fare any better in terms of yardage, and while he did get a touchdown -- he also had three would-be interceptions dropped. McCown was bad, but Glennon wasn't all that good himself.

In the end this may just be some philosophical nonsense, as McCown is undergoing an MRI on his thumb today. A thumb is kind of important for throwing a football, and it may keep McCown out for significantly longer than just the second half of last night's game. If so, we'll see plenty of Mike Glennon going forward.