Having steered clear of the media spotlight for the most part this season, Buccaneers tight end Kellen Winslow took a few minutes to speak a few members of the press about his head coach Raheem Morris.


“If something were to happen to him we would be devastated and hearts would be broken,” Winslow said. “We play for him.”


Winslow elaborated more, saying it will be disastrous for the team to lose Morris.


“It’s just not his fault at all. It is just us. Coaches coach and players play. We can’t have anything happen to him. We just can’t. It will just ruin the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.”


While on record Winslow also defensed quarterback Josh Freeman and feels he and Freeman have a good chemistry.

“It is tough. Whenever you win or whenever you lose they’ll bring you up and bring you down just as fast. You have to have a midlevel mind and stay even keel through it all. [As far being in synch with Freeman] We are. We just haven’t connected. It’s just execution.”

The former Miami Hurricane star says this week’s game has significance.

“I just see it as doing our jobs and protecting this organization. That’s all I see it as.”

PewterReport.com also asked linebackers Geno Hayes and Quincy Black and quarterback Josh Freeman about their thoughts on the coaching situation and proverbial hot seat Morris is on.

“It’s a touchy situation honestly,” Black said. “Rah doesn’t want us to want that for him. He wants us to work because it is our job. That’s our job. His job is to get the most out of us and our job is to perform and that’s how he wants it and he has made that clear to us.”

Hayes, just as Black did, refused to get too in-depth but seemed supportive of Morris.

“Hopefully we can (keep the pieces together with Morris) But I’m not going to speak much on that right now. That is irrelevant right now. I don’t really pay that much attention to that. Right now I’m just focused on football.”

Freeman echoed what Hayes said about focusing on football not what is being said on the outside.

“Like I said you can only control stuff that you can control,” Freeman said. “For me that is preparation and that’s executing my assignments to the best of my ability. All the other stuff really it is grey matter white noise. If you worry about everything else it is going to take away from what you need to do on the field and ultimately that’s what matters.”

Morris commented on being under fire during his Monday afternoon press conference.

“When you’re coaching you are always on the hot seat. That’s the mentality of what we do. We were on the hot seat when we went 10-6 and we didn’t go to the playoffs. You can still get fired. I got fired when I was 9-7 and I became the head coach that same year. You’re always on the hot seat. I try to tell guys all the time. If I was worried about being fired I certainly would not be coaching. I would have taken that physical education job in Long Island that I turned down 15 years ago. But that’s not what I do. We’re entertainers. We’re in this thing to win football games. I got a lot of guys in this locker room that are counting on us not to show mental weakness and we won’t do that."