Leftwich's season over

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers placed veteran QB Byron Leftwich on injured reserve Tuesday because of a right elbow injury and released CB Mike Mickens.

In addition, the Bucs signed rookie QB Rudy Carpenter from Dallas' practice squad and rookie WR Terrence Nunn from New England's practice squad.

Leftwich started the first three games this season - all losses - after beating out Luke McCown in training camp. He completed 58 of 107 passes (54.2 percent) for 594 yards with four touchdowns and three interceptions. Leftwich was replaced by Josh Johnson, who went 0-4 before being replaced by rookie Josh Freeman. Leftwich was the inactive emergency quarterback the past seven games.

"The Byron Leftwich decision was just made (Monday) after he met with the doctors and had trouble with the arm," offensive coordinator Greg Olson said. "He hasn't been able to throw the last couple of weeks and he didn't feel like it sufficiently healed to throw this week. ...

"Rudy was someone we evaluated during the draft process and had a chance to watch during the preseason. We felt good about him coming out of Arizona State."

Carpenter joined the Cowboys as an undrafted free agent May 1. In four seasons at ASU, he completed 799 of 1,309 passes (61.0 percent) for 10,491 yards and 81 touchdowns.

Nunn was signed by the Patriots as an undrafted free agent from Nebraska on May 11. Nunn played four seasons at Nebraska and caught 136 passes for 1,762 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Freeman focused on improvement

Freeman spent most of Monday figuring out what he did wrong during Sunday's 38-7 loss to New Orleans in which he was responsible for four turnovers. Freeman completed 17 of 33 passes for 126 yards and one touchdown, but threw three interceptions and fumbled once.

Ball security is the problem Freeman is most focused on correcting before Sunday's game at Atlanta. It will be the first time Freeman plays in a dome.

"Obviously, I'd like to be a lot better," he said. "You look at the elite quarterbacks in this league, like Peyton Manning (Indianapolis), Tom Brady (New England) and Drew Brees (New Orleans), and that's my goal, to eventually play at that high level.

"Right now, I just have to be more ball secure, be better on third downs and try to find a way to win us football games."