For Josh Freeman and the Buccaneers, it's a coming-out party
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By Randy Covitz
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Tampa Bay head coach Raheem Morris was there the last time Josh Freeman faced a moment as big as this.
It was 2006 when Freeman, a highly recruited freshman, took over at quarterback for a struggling Kansas State offense, and in his first college start, rallied the Wildcats to a 31-27 win over Oklahoma State.
Morris, an assistant to then first-year Kansas State coach Ron Prince and now a rookie — and winless — head coach of the Buccaneers, is asking Freeman to again come to the rescue.
Freeman, the Buccaneers' first-round draft choice this year, will make his first NFL start on Sunday at home against Green Bay. The Buccaneers, 0-7, are the NFL's only winless team, and the franchise is staking its future on Freeman, who is just 21 years old.
"I've seen him do it," Morris said. "I've seen him come in, young, green, in college. I've seen him ... wait a couple weeks, go in there, go through a learning curve his first game, get in there the second game, really lead us to a win versus Oklahoma State."
Just as Freeman was an understudy to Dylan Meier for five games as a K-State freshman, he spent the first three weeks as the Bucs' third-team quarterback, moving up to backup for four weeks after second-year man Josh Johnson took over for veteran Byron Leftwich. Freeman saw his first NFL action in Tampa Bay's last game, when he finished up a 35-7 loss to New England in London and completed two of four passes for 16 yards.
Freeman, who played at Grandview High School, will be the first Kansas City-area quarterback to start an NFL game since Rodney Peete, who attended Shawnee Mission South for one year, started for the Detroit Lions in 1989.
"Obviously there is a little bit of an intimidation factor," Freeman said, "but this is something that kids have dreamed about their whole lives. As kids, they want to play in the NFL. And I'm finally getting that chance. Honestly, once you get into the game week and you prepare, watch a lot of film, it becomes about playing football, not, 'Oh, I'm in the NFL.'"
Freeman, a strapping 6 feet 6 and 248 pounds, understands the burden he is carrying on his broad shoulders.
"Obviously that has been brought up to me, a lot of people have said things to me," said Freeman, the 17th overall pick in the spring draft. "That's not heavy on my mind because I'm just looking at it from a personal standpoint of what I want to do and my career goals I set up even before the draft happened.
"My goal is ... wherever I got drafted, I want to be there my whole career and win a lot of football games. I think the pressure I put on myself outweighs that in my mind. They both kind of run together."
Never has Freeman had to change the direction of a team that is winless nearly halfway through a season.
"I take it as a challenge," Freeman said. "I can't really control what the defense does, but I can control what the offense does. I'm the quarterback. It gets to the matter of just getting something going. "
Morris and Freeman are in this together for the long haul.
"This is the National Football League," Morris said. "It's the hardest position to play in the world. My whole deal is going to be patience. You let him go out there; you let him go through the process.
"All the great quarterbacks in the league go through the process as well. Then they all end up having some wideouts or tight ends or some backs they develop a relationship with and they carry it through for the next five to 10 years."
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(c) 2009, The Kansas City Star.
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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
