Now that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 0-4, the “casual fans” are out in force, declaring anything and everything related to the Buccaneer franchise a farce and incompetent (actually, they say that the owners are cheap bastards, the coach is a dumbass, and the players are a bunch of *******).
Then, just when I thought
“The firing of Gruden and Allen will prove to be a very costly mistake
And will set this franchise back for years.
Get ready for Lions/Raiders territory...
We had stability at the 2 most important positions within a NFL franchise. We were competitive year in and year out, despite a lack of the financial flexibility to be players in Free Agency. Allen brought us back from the depths of financial hell, and Gruden was able to keep us competitive despite a lack of talent.
I put the over/under on the Morris/Dominik tenure at 3 years. And then we will be in a perpetual hunt for a new head coach and GM every couple of years for decades...
Trust me I hope I'm wrong, but the writing is on the wall, and I'm just telling y'all to prepare yourselves...
I'll bump this thread every offseason for the rest of the Morris/Dominik era...”
Honestly… what the hell? Do we, as fans, have such a short memory that we can’t forget what happened to this football team last December? We were 9-3, poised to make a push for home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
How did the season end? Monte Kiffin announces that it will be his final year so he can join his son at the
The.
That’s when we knew that Chucky had to go. It wasn’t the 5-11 2004 season, or the 4-12 2006 campaign. It was the 9-7 meltdown that led to his January 16th firing and new coach Raheem Morris’s rapid ascent to being the youngest head coach in NFL history.
Now that the Bucs have gone the first month of the season winless, people are calling for the return of Gruden, or at least damning the Glazers for making the decision to go in another direction. They are saying that Raheem isn’t qualified for the position and that he should be fired at the end of the season in favor of the likes of retread coaches such as Mike Shanahan, Mike Holmgren, Marty Schottenheimer, and Bill “The Chin” Cowher.
This is where I have trouble agreeing with those people. I won’t jump into whether or not Raheem is the right guy for us, because it’s too early to have a clue and I’ll give him the season to show improvement. He’s 33 years old and wasn’t exactly given much help in the offseason. I’m not necessarily happy with what is going on, but I expected as much because of the problems we’ve had the past several years.
I do have a real issue, however, with those people who wish that Jon Gruden was still the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It’s common for veterans of the TB Bucs Message Board to call such posters “Grudenistas” or other lighthearted slurs, because after last season, it’s hard to believe that people are so willing to accept mediocrity. Jon Gruden had 7 years to rebuild this team. He had more years than most coaches are allowed to return to the playoffs and actually win a game. He was allowed to run Rich McKay out of town and bring in his personal GM-puppet, Bruce Allen. He was given anything necessary to succeed, and he failed in fantastic manner.
He was known as an offensive guru, but the Bucs never finished in the top 10 of offensive production while under his direction. He was supposed to work well with quarterbacks, but the only QBs to ever really play well under him were all over 35 years old (Brian Griese’s stint doesn’t really qualify as successful, that guy’s a bum too). He was notorious for killing his young player’s confidence and coaching players down and severely misusing their talents, such as Michael Clayton and Carnell Williams.
Speaking of quarterbacks – Jon had 7 years to draft just one damn quarterback who was worth our time. Instead, he fell in love with one player and made sure that was the pick, no matter what. He hated working with young quarterbacks, so we always signed over the hill vets who never had a future in
How could we expect our current team to not suck when he didn’t leave us with any real young talent? His drafts were always riddled with bad mistakes. One thing that always really bothered me was that Jon would always try for the big homerun in the later rounds, while being ultra-conservative in the 1st round year after year. That led to two things.
1. No elite players.
2. No depth to speak of
Jon and Bruce always tried to grab a late round quarterback and hope that they would “get it.” They tried for high impact picks when you should look for quality backups, and never really rolled the dice when they had the chance in the early rounds. FOUR offensive linemen in the first 3 rounds since 2006? Are you shitting me, Jon!?? No wonder our offense never scored, we were too busy spending all of our valuable high picks on blockers! Good scouting teams find their starting offensive line in the 3rd-6th rounds, but we spent 1st and 2nd round picks on these guys. Now, I love the linemen that we have, but think of all of the pro-bowl talent we passed on to draft OL.
Then, they turn our top 5 picks into massive busts. I absolutely love Carnell Williams; I don’t think there is a single player out there with the kind of heart that he has to come back from back-to-back severe knee injuries. But, with that being said, Cadillac shouldn’t have been a top five selection. He hasn’t had nearly the kind of impact that that pick warrants. That’s supposed to be a perennial pro-bowl type of player, and Jon fell in love and Carnell was all that he saw. Then, you have Gaines Adams – another guy that I personally like (met him at Westshore – super nice guy, he talked to me for a good 5 minutes) but it’s obvious that Gaines is never going to be the dominant pass-rusher that we thought he would be. We could have traded our 2nd round pick along with that #4 for Calvin Johnson (who is going to be the best WR in the league, possibly even this year) or we could have taken the best player in the league – Adrian Peterson. Sure, we had Caddy… but when you have the opportunity to take a player who could be the best in the league, you don’t pass.
There are several more reasons why Jon was rightfully shitcanned, but I’m already far past the word requirement and my fingers have gone numb. I’m sure I’ll return to this topic, because the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Bulletin Board (TBBBB) is full of frickin’ morons who never shut up about Jon Gruden!
I was at that Raiders game--it was tough to watch. JaMarcus Russell almost looked competent at quarterback.
ReplyDeleteIn the book on Belichick, Education of a Coach, the author explains that Belichick considers offensive line the most coachable position. Essentially, you should be able to coach any physically-gifted 300 lb athlete into playing on the line. During Belichick's tenure, the Pats have only selected one offensive lineman in the first round: Logan Mankins. I say this to agree with you: Gruden's drafting significantly hurt the Bucs. In fact, I think Gruden-the-player-evaluator killed Gruden the coach.
I find the Williams situation tricky, because he did seem top-5 worthy before injuries. And, with a few exceptions, its hard to blame injuries on any particular person.
The 2007 draft was weak at the top, but I think the Gaines Adams selection is exceptionally poor. Not only for skipping Peterson, but also for skipping Landry, who came from a much stronger program and thus had a much more significant body of work. I also thought that Patrick Willis, though from another smaller program (Ole Miss), looked like a wrecking ball with legs. I secretly hoped the Pats would trade up for him, but 'chick never does that.