Simply put, Glennon isn’t getting it done
He has to make those throws. He has to get those touchdowns. He can’t throw those picks. Mike Glennon, Bucs starting quarterback, still, presumably, we think, was part of the problem Sunday, part of why the Bucs turned a game they could have put away into a 22-17 loss to the Browns, part of the reason this bunch keeps losing, 1-7 midway though an already endless season.

“The two picks in the first half were not good at all,” Glennon said. “Should have been potentially two touchdown throws that I needed to make. Just bad plays right there. Who knows what the outcome would have been if I had made those.”

Who knows? Another week, another referendum on No. 8, with Josh McCown on the Bucs sideline and ... Johnny Manziel watching from the Cleveland sideline. Remember way back when, leading up to the draft and ... oh, forget it. But there were plays Mikey Football needed to make Sunday. And didn’t.

My guess is the Bucs win this game, going away, if Glennon is on his game in the first half, or if the Bucs’ special teams weren’t pathetic, or if a Bucs defender was within three miles of Cleveland’s winning touchdown.

It shouldn’t have come down to that penalty call on Mike Evans, or the Vincent Jackson drop, or the penalty that wasn’t called on Cleveland’s Joe Haden. The Bucs had second-and-1 on the Cleveland 37-yard line and didn’t get it done. Glennon was as guilty as anyone in that first half.

The Browns defense entered Sunday’s game ranked 30th in the 32-team NFL. The Bucs run game was great in the first half, awful in the second, but at first it helped set up Glennon for a chance at a big day. Evans and Jackson were licking their chops. “It was a day to really do some things in the passing game,” Bucs coach Lovie Smith said.

Yes, Glennon did some things, throwing for 260 yards, but he did other things, too, bad things. He and Evans connected on a pair of 24-yard touchdowns, good stuff, the second one, a sweet over-the-shoulder job, giving the Bucs a 17-16 lead late in the third quarter. But Glennon and Evans could have had four touchdowns if Glennon’s arm had any consistency.

Late in the first quarter, Evans got behind the Browns, wide open, and Glennon underthrew him. Evans tried to come back on it. Haden batted the ball. Browns safety Donte Whitner intercepted it. In the second quarter, seconds after Bucs cornerback Johnthan Banks’ interception gave the Bucs first-and-goal at the Cleveland 10, Glennon threw for Jackson, too high, and it was picked off in the end zone by Cleveland’s Tashaun Gipson. It was the first red-zone interception of Glennon’s career.

No points there, either. Killer. “We got our turnover and turned the ball right back over to them,” Smith said. “You’ve got to protect the ball better than that, simple as that, especially after a turnover. You can’t give it right back to them. Mike made some good plays throughout, but not good enough.”

“Both picks were not good on my part,” Glennon said. “Two throws I need to make. Two throws that could have possibly been touchdowns.”

We didn’t mention Glennon’s other underthrow to Evans in the first quarter. That could have been six points, too. And didn’t Glennon underthrow Evans last week against Minnesota for an interception on the first Bucs drive? Not good enough. Simple as that.

Glennon is stumbling, mid-audition, after leading the Bucs to their only win in his first start this season. The bigger picture? The Bucs have scored 17 points or fewer in half of Glennon’s 18 NFL starts, including six of his past eight, including three of his past three. There are a lot reasons for that, but Glennon reminded us Sunday that he is one of them.