Why the Bucs changed coaches

Angry Bucfan has been answering the question as to why Jon Gruden should not coach the Bucs for years. He's no good (with a variety of sub-rationalizations).

I don't happen to agree with that sentiment; neither did the team ownership. And I've already admitted that the coaching change surprised me. So why did the Bucs change coaches?

My reservation about coaching changes has to do with the value of the replacement. In general, one should not replace a good coach with a coach who isn't as good. Coach Dungy was better than most. Coach Gruden was better than most. You don't change without good reason, and the Glazers appear to understand that.

When Tony Dungy was fired, the team had attempted to force his hand in juicing up the offense. Dungy resisted, and when the results did not follow the Glazers replaced him. The move paid off with a Super Bowl championship the very next year--what the Glazers were hoping for, but probably not that quickly.

The situation with Gruden is different. Gruden has been able to lead the Bucs to the playoffs on occasion, but he has two legitimate weaknesses.

First, Gruden appears to have the type of personality where he tells players things he can't back up. Just to invent an example, maybe he tells Ben Troupe that he envisions him catching 40 passes and a half-dozen TDs. And Gruden probably isn't lying. He does have that vision in his head. But he might have a similar vision for the rest of the tight ends on the team. But there's no way that every tight end ends up with numbers like that.

I know people like that. They're generally nice people, and if you realize what sort of person you're dealing with the difference between the talk and the reality is usually no more than an annoyance.

With the Bucs, I think Gruden probably did enough of that sort of thing that he created a cancer of attitude among the players. Not a severe cancer, but one that made a difference.

Second, Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen did not deliver in terms of talent evaluation. That is not to say they were utter failures, but the Glazers have high standards for the team. The last superior defensive lineman drafted by the Bucs was Warren Sapp, and that is a problem for a defense that relies on the performance of the front four.

So, why change coaches? Reading between the lines, the Glazers thought that Gruden had lost touch with the team to some degree. Probably not to the point that the Gruden haters among the fanbase appear to think, but at least to the point where the team thought it had a clear upgrade in Raheem Morris.

Relating to the second reason I cite for Gruden's firing, I have already noted that we have some reason to think that Morris has good instincts with respect to talent evaluation.

That's the "why," in my view. Now we'll see what happens.


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Since announcing Morris' promotion to head coach, the team dismissed offensive line coach/offensive coordinator Bill Muir. Muir was originally hired after Tony Dungy was fired and the Bucs expected to sign Bill Parcells to coach the team.

The Bucs have a solid offensive line, so the team can go pretty much any direction it wishes in terms of offensive philosophy. But I don't see much sense in keeping Jeff Garcia if the team ditches the West Coast offense. Luke McCown and Josh Johnson both have arms suitable for a conventional offense. If the team drags its feet in announcing the new offensive coordinator the decision on Garcia might serve as a partial indicator as to the offensive philosophy the team intends to adopt.