SB Nation User Blog: witty

Honest Question: Last Time the Bucs Were Rebuilding?

witty — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:17:31 -0000

This is a thought that's been nagging at me ever since Week 2, when it became unshakably clear the Bucs were going to have one of the lousiest seasons in team history. It wasn't a sudden realization, but it dawned on me that for all the fan talk about this being a 'rebuilding' year (even though the organization was clearly trying to avoid that word), it really had been a long time since the Bucs went through a rebuilding process...

To note: there is a difference between 'Rebuilding' and 'Having a Crappy Year.' A Crappy Year is when your team has an established coach, solid veterans, a decent but possibly questionable rookie draft... and the season just goes awry with career and life-threatening injuries, bad luck, and lousy timing. To wit, 2004 and 2006 were Crappy Years for the Bucs, especially when Chris Simms lost his spleen (!) and derailed his development into a starting QB (he wasn't great but was getting better... kinda... before the injury nearly killed him!) By comparison, you could view 2007 as a Rebuilding year when you look at the facts that the team overhauled the defense with a slew of rookies (half of whom exceeded expectations) and the offense with a vet QB (Garcia) that steadied the team into the postseason. It didn't feel like a Rebuilding year because we had a veteran coach (Gruden) and marquee team leaders (BROOKS) to make it seem like a smooth transition from the Super Bowl era roster to the new lineup.

But an Honest to God Rebuilding Year is when the entire slate is getting wiped clean. Usually when a new coach gets introduced, replacing the older regime that had calcified or failed to maintain leadership and winning ways. The new coach comes in with new plans, new schemes, new players to fit said schemes, and so on. Pretty much what we've gotten out of the Bucs for the 2009 season.

When was the last time the Bucs truly wiped the slate clean like that? It wasn't 2002, when Dungy left and Gruden entered the scene. The only thing that truly changed then was the coach: the team that Dungy and his era built remained mostly intact. The only massive change was at the RB position: changing from Dunn to Pittman. Gruden brought with him a more effective offensive scheme and that was it... and he *did* acknowledge after the Super Bowl the debt he owed Dungy for building the team he led to victory in San Diego.

No, I put it to you that the last real time the Bucs had a Rebuilding Year was 1996: Dungy's first year. And that *was* a debacle of epic proportions. But only for the first 3 months or so. By the end of the season the Bucs actually won a few games and fans could see the foundations of a winning defense being formed. Next year 1997 was the Breakout year that ended the Bucs' long history of losing seasons, and Dungy's near-perfect record of making the postseason for his career as both a Buc and a Colt HC.

Just think: after 1996 the Bucs hadn't really had a team that was wall-bangingly, soul-shreddingly, historic-breathtakingly bad. From 1983 to 1996, thirteen years of hideousness that made it hard for people to watch games through paper bags eye slots. Then from 1997 to 2008, teams that either made the playoffs or had talent but bad luck, and never teams that at beginning of each season made you think "Oh GOD help us." Eleven years of teams that made you think playoffs and Super Bowl appearances were good bets.

In some respects we fans had gotten spoiled. We didn't go through this back when Gruden came on board. Gruden had Brad Johnson and Keyshawn and Alstott, he had Sapp and Brooks and Lynch and Barber and Rice, he had Gramatica before he lost his groove, he had Tupa as Punter... okay that wasn't that good, but still he won with that existing lineup. Gruden didn't really twist the team into his own until 2004 which was a bad year, but the fans could forgive it due to the lack of top draft picks that hindered the team's ability to obtain/develop talent but in return got us a coach that won us the Super Bowl.

I can't blame us for getting spoiled: living through team years like 1976-78 and then 1983-96 would make a lot of people forget those years actually happened. And a lot of that was due to the Building and Rebuilding process those years endured, especially the cycle of disasters that were Bennett, Perkins, and Parcells, oops I mean Williamson. Wyche also went through the Rebuilding cycle, but honestly if he had a more spendthrift owner willing to pay FAs and retain good players earlier on, well then we wouldn't have been under Culverhouse's ownership to begin with. And the teams during the mid-late 80s would have been better, meaning fewer coaching changes anyways. But I digress.

Here's my point: We fans need to remember that rebuilding a team takes time, energy, and sh-tloads of patience on the part of the owners, fans, and players alike. It doesn't take one year, it may take two, it better be by Year Three that the team is making playoff appearances and making highlight reels on an hourly basis. Is Morris out of his depth? Possibly so. This is his first year PERIOD in terms of major responsbility. It may have been reckless on the part of the owners to jump on promoting him up from Defensive Coordinator to HC within days, but you can't entirely blame Morris for accepting the job (would YOU turn down a Head Coach position?). The only true arguments we need to make about his attempts to rebuild should be on his shifting defensive and offensive schemes without truly considering the talent he had that could fit... which is why the defense seems so helpless and the the offense just barely clicking with a pretty-much rookie QB now at the helm.

The best thing to say in Morris' defense is that this is much a learning experience for him as anything as it ought to be for ANYONE who's a Head Coach for the first time ever: he's trying to find what works, and that's a basic element of Rebuilding a team. Rare is a first-ever Head Coach who starts with a winning team: it's usually because he's taking over a half-decent team that merely needed a new vision, and is someone who merely tinkered with a unit/system without having to start completely from scratch. Has Morris made mistakes? Yes. Is he learning from the mistakes? For the most part: Yes, I think he is. Is the team going to stay bad? Probably: as noted, this is an honest-to-God Rebuilding Year, and there are clearly spots of poor talent and lack of depth at enough spots that can't be fixed right now, only by - one hopes - next year's FA and rookie draft markets.

So for everyone starting up "Fire Morris" websites: LIGHTEN THE F-CK UP. Wait until next year to start complaining.

Okay?

Poll

Will I remain patient and allow this Bucs team to develop during a Rebuilding Year?

As a long-time long-suffering Bucs fan, I have developed a zen-like approach to bad teams, and will endure this Rebuilding Year

24 votes

I can give the Bucs and Morris this year, but next year dammit I want results!

17 votes

Fire Morris! I can coach better than him!

5 votes

Fire Morris! Bring back Ray Perkins!

0 votes

Patience? I got tons of Patience! NOW LET'S WIN YOU BASTIDS!

6 votes

52 votes | Poll has closed

Best Sports Bars to Watch the Bucs

witty — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:29:17 -0000

Okay, krewe. For those of us who can't spend $2000 for stadium seats, I gotta ask, which sports bars in the Tampa Bay area (Tampa, Clearwater, St. Pete, Bradenton, that hidden pirate cove off the coast of Gulfport, etc.) are the best for hanging out with fellow Bucs fans?

I'm thinking in terms of:

1) Fan positivity: people who are there to enjoy the game and enjoy the crowd;

2) Food: Best Cheesesteak! Best Wings! Best Appetizer plate! Unique Yet Tasty menu!;

3) Waitresses: preferably cute;

4) Best Line-of-Sight to viewscreens/ big TVs;

5) Best mix of other teams' fans who aren't going to act like total jerks when they're up by 50 points. You know, anyone other than Cowboys fans. >:-)

Bonus points if the sports bar(s) in question have decent billiards.

This isn't about QB Josh Freeman, it's about the Organization

witty — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:48:28 -0000

"I know the majority of Bucs Fans absolutely hate this pick, but at the very least support the guy. It’s not his fault the Bucs traded up to get him, that McCown has never stepped up to the fore front, or that Josh Johnson has yet to either." - Quote via JScott

I'm not blaming Freeman. You're right it's not his fault. But it still doesn't mean we gotta eat this bleepburger and proclaim it filet mignon.

This is more out of frustration with a team's ownership, the team's management, the coaches. This is more out of anger that the Bucs used their top overall draft pick unwisely: not to fix glaring needs at other positions on the team but to indulge in some kind of 'We've got a Franchise QB neener neener' ego boost.

Here's the Bucs current roster for DT:

Bradwell, Chris
Moore, Dre
Sims, Ryan
Hovan, Chris

Other than Hovan, which other guy strikes fear into the hearts of Centers and Guards and QBs and RBs?

Here's the Bucs roster for WR:

Bryant, Antonio
Seven ~~dwarfs~~ draft busts and walk-ons

Here's the Bucs roster for OLB:

Not Brooks, Derrick. Multiply by 4. Throw in a starting SAFETY

I exaggerate. But not by much.

We're looking at a Tampa Bay Bucs team that last December went through one of the team's most horrific collapses ever. And this is coming from an organization that has the entire 1983-1996 era of disaster to compare with. And where did that collapse take place? The defense. A defense that suddenly went porous against running attacks. A defense that gave up HOW MANY YARDS AND RUSHING TDs to the likes of THE RAIDERS?!?!

And where has the Bucs organization focused nearly ninety percent of their rebuilding efforts? On offense. The only major acquisition to defense was getting LB Angelo Crowell, and he's coming off an IR year.

This isn't about Freeman. This is about the Glazers, who are acting more like the Culverhouse era than ever before. Yes, getting rid of Gruden had to be done: Chucky lost that team, proved over seven years his 'offensive genius' was merely sheer luck of facing a team in the Super Bowl he knew backward and forward. But the Glazers went into INSANE mode, putting a rookie coach (Morris) who hadn't even been an assistant head coach/coordinator with major responsibilities yet. The owners seemed obsessed with the idea the Bucs should have drafted a Franchise QB this past decade, when previous experience showed (Doug, Vinny, Steve Young, Trent "I Am Trent Dilfer!" Dilfer, even Shaun King) that the Bucs really don't do so well with drafted QBs... ever... And now we've got this.

A raw QB the scouts universally say needs years to develop, a QB gotten with a top draft pick that could have easily been taken with a second rounder pick. The team could have traded down, didn't even matter to try for a Second rounder we could have taken an extra Fifth or Sixth if offered, and still gotten this guy. And I ask, if Freeman was such a certainty for the Bucs, if our coach and our front office guys knew they wanted him from Day One, why did they trade away the second rounder pick where they could have still gotten him? Didn't they think this whole thing through?

Look, Freeman could come up with a cure for cancer, and go out and save the endangered Florida Panther on his days off. It still doesn't excuse the fact the Bucs organization is not impressing us fans with their decision-making skills: it doesn't excuse the team from not giving us fans a lot of things in which to have faith.

Right now, not a lot of faith at all.

Question for Mockers: Best Draft Ever?

witty — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:28:12 -0000

I got a question fer ye all: which First Round of an NFL draft was the most successful in the last 10 years?

By successful, I mean:

1) Most players taken remained on their team as starters for at least 3-5 years (meaning the team got value for their pick up until Free Agency lets the guy move elsewhere) ;

2) Most players that have stayed in the NFL the last 10 years (meaning player of longevity, covering both the original team and any subsequent teams via FA) ;

3) Any trade move out of the First Round that provided great value in a future draft to the team that moved down (for example, while 2000 might not have been a great year for Team A, that high draft pick they got from Team B in 2001 led to getting a Pro Bowl QB).

I'm trying to figure out how much of a boom/bust a First Round draft day could be: is it roughly half and half that First Rounders are booms and busts? Or are the numbers better for booms? Should we be totally optimistic about Draft Day or wary?

My Bucs 7-Round Draft picks

witty — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:08:14 -0000

Basically, as long as the Bucs don't make any more trades, this is how I picture the draft to go down:

19th pick - WR Percy Harvin. The need for a home-run type of player, someone who can force the double teams away from WR Bryant, is higher than the need for D-line upgrades. Although I would not be surprised if we go after DT Peria Jerry if he slides down to this spot.
Second round pick sent to Cleveland for TE Kellen Winslow. This is a good value trade: Winslow immediately improves the front lines and the passing attack. As long as he stops yelling at the Cleveland Browns organization, that is.
81st pick - DT John Gill. He may not be the bulkiest DT left on the boards, but he's got room to grow and he's the most consistent player at the position the Bucs could get that could contribute as soon as possible. If the Bucs take DT Jerry in the First Round, expect this pick to go for the best available WR (hopefully Louis Murphy).
120th pick - DE Will Davis. Takes care of the D-line for possible starter talent. From here on any D-line pick is depth/developmental only.
155th pick - S Reshard Langford. Takes care of the Safety depth with Phillips being shifted to OLB spot.
191st pick - CB Kevin Barnes. Depth and developmental purposes only.
217th pick - WR Taurus Johnson. I'm a Bulls alum, dangit.
229th pick - C Brett Helms. Team needs a guy as a back-up Center who's actually played the job, rather than their recent habits of re-training Guards for the assignment.
233rd pick - DT Adrian Grady. D-line depth needs.

Plans for Draft 2009 Saturday

witty — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:44:12 -0000

As draft day is a big day for me, I plan ahead about going somewhere and hanging out (usually a sports bar, maybe even a Hooters if need be) during the First Round of the NFL Draft. As the times I've gone to a Hooters usually ended up creating a crazy-ass draft day, I try to avoid that and aim for a regular sports bar first.

Anyone know where in Tampa, other than the Ray Jay which gets too crowded and too... staged for my tastes, that a good number of Bucs fans will go to hang out during Draft Day? It'll be Apr. 25th by the by, starting at 3 pm, although the partying part of it can start earlier... :)

One thing I'd also like to do is liveblog during the day, so a place with WiFi and a power outlet would be a bonus.