Jon Gruden to Tampa Bucs Again

Written by Ryan Crutchfield, Gatorsfirst.com Contributor

Equally coach, Jon Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen say goodbye to the Buccaneers after their firings on Jan. sixteen. It's time to reverberate on just what happened and where the team is headed.

Information technology's been rare to see a coaching change in Tampa Bay in the final 15 years, just if history is any indication, adjacent twelvemonth could be a good year for the Buccaneers.

In 1996, the Bucs hired showtime-time caput charabanc named Tony Dungy and were rewarded a year later with their first winning season since 1982. In 2002, the team traded four high typhoon picks and $8 million for Jon Gruden—and immediately got a return on their investment with a Super Basin win.

Now, in 2009, the Buccaneers have taken a new take chances: Raheem Morris.

One calendar month ago, Morris was a defensive backs charabanc who has never held an NFL coordinator position, let alone head coaching job. He is younger than ten of his own players.

Now he's in Mobile, Ala. scouting talent at the Senior Bowl and trying to put a staff together. I take to admit this concept is a little unnerving, but change is sometimes necessary, and the Bucs felt it was fourth dimension to change and let "Chucky" go.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to reverberate on some of the Gruden pitfalls that led to this transition.

1) First, the catastrophic collapse to end the 2008 flavor. After winning the division the twelvemonth earlier and beginning the flavour 9-3, Gruden'south Bucs proceeded to drib their side by side 4 straight games to miss the playoffs.

The outcome was actually defensive breakdowns, but when you lose to the Raiders at domicile with the playoffs on the line, fingers have to be pointed. Monte Kiffin announcing he'due south off to Tennessee shouldn't have had an effect on the ability to tackle.

two) Ever since he took over in 2002, Gruden has had a piss-poor eye for talent. 2 years later, he brought in Allen as the GM and the typhoon failures continued.

Losing all those high draft picks left the cupboard a piddling bare, although in the years to come, they drafted Michael Clayton, Cadillac Williams, Davin Joseph, Gaines Adams, and Aquib Talib every bit their beginning rounders. Out of those picks, just 2 are starters.

In this past typhoon alone, their second-round selection was a Division Two receiver who had never caught more than 30 passes in a season.

He was widely idea of as a mid-2d-day pick, and even with DeSean Jackson withal on the board the Bucs traded down and selected "the bum," as my male parent and I like to call him, a few picks later. The fourth-round pick didn't even make the team.

3) The QB carousel. Gruden could never decide on a quarterback, non fifty-fifty through a full flavour. There is a theory that a coach will ever be tied to his early drafted franchise quarterback. If the QB fails, so does the coach.

Plain, Gruden subscribed to this theory, because the highest he ever drafted a QB was the lesser of the third round, when it was still Rich McKay's decision.

For 1 season, he started little baldy Bruce Gradkowski for 11 freaking games. This flavor, he went to camp with 5 QBs and kept four on the agile roster throughout the flavour.

four) Gruden's constant attribution of season failures to injuries. In this year's postseason wrap-upwards, he used the word injury 26 times. Every team has to deal with injuries. A good coach makes contingency plans with good depth.

With crappy drafts and bringing in bad free agent backups, ane injury was enough for the Bucs to lose some close games. The one silverish lining was the reclamation projects.

Some worked: Chris Hovan, Antonio Bryant. Some didn't: David Boston, Jerramy Stevens. I don't give this too much credit because of how low-take chances these were. Invite them to army camp on a minimum salary and see if they can play.

v) Another thwarting was Gruden'due south offensive statistics and coaching. While the defense consistently kept him in games, his offensive ranking was never impressive. He never developed a consequent running dorsum and the WR corps hadn't been the same since he scared off Keyshawn and Keenan.

Also, most long-term coaches are able to outset a "coaching tree" where their disciples keep to go coordinators and head coaches elsewhere (the Belichick tree, the Cowher tree, etc.). Non one offensive assistant or position coach ever moved on to a greater coaching position.

vi) Lastly, Gruden had a short fuse. If a player had a string of bad games, they were officially in his infamous "doghouse."

Once prominent players such as Chris Simms, Michael Clayton, Joey Galloway, Keyshawn Johnson, and Jeff Garcia all pissed Chucky off either personally or on the field and were never treated equally professionals again.

Players on offense don't want to re-sign when gratuitous bureau comes forth. Now reports from Garcia, Clayton, Earnest Graham, and Keyshawn accept come out that detail Gruden'southward shortcomings in player relations.

That said, though, I and other fans loved Gruden. His sideline tirades and mail-game interviews were priceless, even as his game management, personnel decisions, and actor relations were ever lacking.

At to the lowest degree the owners accept shown they're all the same committed to the team and are willing to spend money (although they all the same owe the GruAllen machine $twenty+ million).

Look for Tampa Bay to make a personnel change splash this offseason, such as trading for Matt Cassel or Anquan Boldin or taking a QB in the kickoff circular. With those changes and Morris at the captain, 2009 could be a proficient year.

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Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/114635-end-of-the-jon-gruden-era-in-tampa-bay