Give Raheem The Dream Time!
June 24th, 2010
Former Bucs secondary coach Herm Edwards (left) believes former Bucs secondary coach Raheem the Dream (right) just needs some time to develop the Bucs.
Bucs fans have largely beat up on Raheem The Dream for the past year or so. At times it’s very sad to Joe because he can’t help but sometimes think the vitriol is somehow racially motivated, which truly disturbs Joe.
This year will be interesting for Raheem The Dream. If the Bucs, now void of the heinous Jim Bates Experience and loaded with highly-regarded rookies, can make progress, it will go a long way for Raheem the Dream’s job security.
Like Raheem the Dream, Herm Edwards is a former Bucs secondary coach. He believes Raheem The Dream has promise, he just needs a chance. That’s the clear message Edwards sent this morning during his daily early a.m. Twitter session.
@DatDudeEasy: What’s your assessment of Raheem Morris?
@HermEdwardsESPN: Young coach needs time, had a good draft.
Given the fact the Bucs are depending on so many rookies to contribute, never a safe move, Joe believes if Raheem the Dream can double his wins from last year, Raheem the Dream is safe.
June 24th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Raheem is horrible – its got nothing to do with race joe. PFT posted his admission that he “lacked direction” last year.
We hate him b/c he is horrible. Before the Dallas game I supported him over Gruden – what we saw was hard to believe re level of incompetency.
Even Herm says he needs time – more proof of 2012 or later resurrection. Lets Go Jags!
June 24th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Racially motivated? What the hell are you talking about? Tony Dungy was beloved all over the Tampa Bay area. Why? Because he won games and built a fantastic team. It had nothing to do with race. Stop trying to stir the pot with racial BS. That is what liberals are for.
June 24th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Don’t play the race card, Joe! Nobody here dislikes The Dream because the color of his skin — they take issue with him because he screwed up royally last year. Plain and simple.
June 24th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Racially motivated? Cmon, Joe, you’re better than that. Geez, if we were racist would we even watch a sport that is predominantly comprised of men who are the same race as Raheem.
June 24th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
I don’t think it was racially motivated at all. The Bucs hired a guy who was woefully unprepared and has even stated it in recent interviews. Now he knows the direction he wants to go in?? What the hell is that? The Bucs wasted a year on Raheem’s learning curve. Ridiculous. Heck I remember Bucs fans being just as hard on Richard Williamson. He was out of his depth too as a head coach. Both hires were because the owners were cheap.
June 24th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Go read some of the local papers sites, I think that may be where Joe is getting it from.
Anyway, I like Raheem, and think he will grow into a good coach. I have been a fan since I was a little kid, and the Bucs sucked worse than they did last year back then. At least we see some promise with the ypung guys. Anyway, all coaches need time at one time or another.
June 24th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Yeah it really just annoys and disgusts me how the players just LOVE Raheem so much and think he’s the greatest. He’s their BUDDY and they hang out to together all the time!! Ronde Barber helps him out and gives him advice!! What the hell is that??? Oh, and the players PLAY HARD for Raheem. What a joke. Not only that, but they call their coach by “Raheem” all the time. by his first name.
That’s not what makes a good coach. So what if the players play hard for him?? So when Gruden was the one in charge, with the players it was probably like……oh, whatever. No one liked him. He disciplined, was hard, and was actually a real qualified coach, but he wasn’t NICE enough for the baby players on his roster and wasn’t their bud. No one played hard for him, but now they do for Raheem! The roster is full of a bunch of airheads.
June 24th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
9 wins was considered disgraceful, now six wins is considered good.
Very strange.
June 24th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
If you guys were true fans….which you don’t seem to be…..you would respect the Bucs’ decisions and their personel, even if they put a 2 year old as head coach!
June 24th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
@Eric
Yeah, it’s a joke.
The Lions are probably gonna have a better record than us next year! And they were 0-16 two years ago, when we went 9-7.
June 24th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
I would not listen to Herm Edwards about anything Football related unless it was a motivational speech. Not once during the Hard Knocks: Kansas City Chiefs did I see this guy go over anything directly related to football strategy, he was always running around spouting off motivational crap and things like that. He’s not a coach, he does not know his x’s and o’s!!!
June 24th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
All the usual suspects. The mention of Morris is irresistible catnip. Sad. Joe, look at the responses. It’s not racism, its Grudenism. In some cases delusional Gudenism
June 24th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
What a bunch of racist.
June 24th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
JimBuc-You honestly feel good about Rah after he said he now has direction for this year? Are you freakin kidding me? You accept that from your head coach when he basically says he didn’t have direction last year??!! Huh?! What do you have to say about that? Fans should demand that their head coach knows what he is doing. God almighty. Dungy knew what he was doing in his first year here. You know why? Because he had plenty of experience as a coordinator at the NFL level. Rah had 0 experience as a coordinator at the pro level. If Denver wanted him, I would let Rah go if they wanted to hire him. The guy was not ready and may not be ready for a few more years. I get tired of this rose colored glasses horse crap. I still think the Bucs could have gotten Cowher in 2009. But no the Glazers wanted a guy as green as the grass.
June 24th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
I wonder if Herm Edwards comments are racially motivated. If Raheem were white would he say the same thing or was he asked only because Rah is black?
June 24th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Well done, Eric S. I’d buy you a beer if we were at the game. And Joe I’ve said it before. I love how you use others words to bury them. Most of the time you know just when to shutup and let the truth hurt.
June 24th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Race card I am black and I hammer Morris more than anyone but at the same point I am trying to have faith in him. The 2 Cordinators , 3 kickers, Phillips experiment, Talib going off on everybody, 3 QB’s, constiently diahrea mouth has irked me. But I think Morris like this team has upside but he better get 6 or 7 wins
June 24th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
As long as Rah has the team behind him I’m with him. I totally disliked some of his decisions last year but I’ll stick with him while he’s head coach. I guess people don’t understand rebuilding years. The Lions are the joke – the Ford family stuck with Matt Millen several years too many – their fans have a reason to gripe!
June 24th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
What i have read and seen of the Glazer’s plan when they bought the team was to build it to be a winner long term. They hired Tony Dungy and with Rich McKay the started to do just that, build a team that will win long term, Build it through the draft with a “few” good fit FA.
As Glazer’s said they got away from that for some years and they takes responsibility for that, (their words) maybe it was the high price we had to pay in getting Gruden and the Super Bowl 2- 1st 2- 2nds and more… (hard to build a team long term like that.) Or the overall age of the team who can say?
So as i have read and watched Glazer’s have again told us they have a plan to build their team OUR team to be again a winning franchise year in and year out, and Coach Morris and GM Dominik are ready and willing to move forward with this plan, of rebuilding through the draft and getting a “few” good fit FA.
Lets do what took us to the Super Bowl, Having a Total commitment to build a winning team long term. Be that with drafting that team and letting them grow and adding a “few” good FA. So be it.
June 25th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Amazing how many fans have fallen for the Glazer rebuilding BS, to the point of happiness with 6 wins.
There really is a sucker born every minute.
June 25th, 2010 at 12:37 am
Give him time??
Alright, I’ll give him time. I’ll give him this season to get it together and make to where I finally have some confidence in him. If I don’t see AT LEAST 7 or 8 wins, I’ll be calling U-Haul to send a moving van to his house. I think 7 or 8 wins is reasonable. 5-6 wins: unacceptable. I can’t believe some of you guys, even the patient ones, would actually be okay with that. Another double digit losing season?? Sorry, the progress needs to be A LOT faster than that.
Signing Donald Penn is gonna make all the difference in the outcome of our season. Dominik needs to get it done soon, this is ridiculous. Without him signed, we’re no better than 4 or 5 wins.
June 25th, 2010 at 5:26 am
You are right Eric. 6 wins and many Bucs fans will be jumping for joy. That just shows how bad this team really is.
But most importantly I want to see how the team peforms. If it looks like a mess….if it looks like the same thing as last year…if Raheem is still making stupid mistakes with timeouts and challenges…and if we are losing to teams like the Browns and the Rams… then Raheem needs to go at the end of the year. Because it means we have improved nothing.
June 25th, 2010 at 7:17 am
I, like every single one of us on this board, don’t know if Raheem is a good coach or not. We are not there everyday, and we don’t know half as much football as we think we do. I know that I want him to be a good coach, and I would really like to see him given a fair chance to be a good coach, which means having some talent to coach and letting the young talent develop. That being said, I do think we need to show some improvement this year for him to deserve more time. It’s not really about how many games we win as much as how we look. We looked decent in a few games last year, but just awful in others (both NY games, New England, Philly, New Orleans, etc.). I want to see the awful games go away.
What the players call the coach is irrelevant. Any of us who played sports in high school or college would never think of calling a coach by his first name, but it is much more normal than you think in ALL pro sports. Have you ever heard anyone on the Lakers call Phil Jackson “coach Jackson”? These are grown men in a league driven by the players, not the coaches. This is why college coaches don’t make good pro coaches, in any sport. By the way, I hope all the players hang out with Raheem, because there is a much less chance they will be swinging at cab drivers or doing drugs and getting suspended. If anything positive can be taken from last year, it’s that the players didn’t quit on their coach, and that is pretty rare for a team as bad as we were.
June 25th, 2010 at 7:20 am
You Racist bastards, I KNEW it!, lol!
Nah, that ain’t it. He made a lot if rookie mistakes. That’s way some of them dog him out.
Buuut, several of you asked if anyone was Ok with that. Yeah, honestly, I am ok with him screwing up some last year. Sure. Because that’s the way it works! Eric S. Says he was “unprepared
June 25th, 2010 at 7:28 am
Sorry, new IPhone keeps posting before I’m done!!
“unprepared”- what, didn’t he take “NFL headcoaching 101” in college?? NO ONE is ever prepared to be a head coach. They are only 32 of those jobs in the entire world, are there ain’t no class ta teach ya! The Glazers promoted Raheem a little faster than some, but that’s because
June 25th, 2010 at 7:49 am
Damn it!!
-they saw traits in him they liked. Like a rookie Qb, rookie head coaches are gonna make rookie mistakes. His mistakes probably cost us a few games last year! Big deal(sacriledge!!), we were gonna suck last year, no Matter what!
I think we are just starting to realize how bad this team had really gotten. We know how bad the Dts and Wrs were last year.checked our depth at OL?, secondary? Lb? We have NO young players ready to step up-nada!!
So the Glazers know we had to have a coach that can teach young players, and quickly! Raheem did that for this team, with our secondary. So, why not?
ErIc said the fans”have the right to demand more in a head coach”No, you have the right to expect the people who own the team to do what’s right for the team. They just might know a little bit more about the team than you do.
No
June 25th, 2010 at 7:55 am
So, yeah. Raheem learning on the job doesn’t bother me a bit, IF he can get these rookies and young players up to speed and playing at the NFL level quickly. IF. And that’s a big if, because Jon Gruden proved he couldn’t do it at all!!
We are in this for the long haul.we’ll know soon if Raheem is da man. I can be patient a little longer. Because with this depleted team, I have to be!
June 25th, 2010 at 8:24 am
Vince Lombardi with Chuck noll and Bill Walsh couldn’t have won with this team (or the schedule) last year. Several coaches over the years have told me that in the Pro’s; it has way more to do with talent or lack of then is does in college. I’m not sticking up for Morris because sometimes I think he might lack the experience and especially the maturity to run this team. All I’m saying is the team is suffering from years of poor drafts. Whether from lack of quality picks or poor judgement; the main reason the organization is in this spot is none of our prime draft picks has worked out. Just think of all the wasted picks in recent years where the player isn’t even servicable enough for special teams. All you have to do is wait and see what the final record is this year. 3-13 he is gone and most of you will be happy; 7-9 he stays and everyone will be pleasantly surprised.
June 25th, 2010 at 8:39 am
Yeah with quotes like these, I’d listen to Edwards too
– “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
– “If it doesn’t kill you it makes you strong.”
Pfft!
June 25th, 2010 at 8:42 am
9 wins was not the problem, it was the up and down seasons, and the decline of the 2008 season at the end. Was the Grudens issue, maybe, or maybe it was Kiffin’s bad timeing. It does not matter, since the guy in charge is ultimatly responsible. I am a big fan of Gruden, but it was not that the 9-7 year was a bad record, there is more to it.
If you read the entire quote from Morris, and you understand that he is not the best public speaker, all he was really saying is that he has grown and learned from last year.
I think Joe got what he was looking for…a bunch of comments in a really slow time of football. Great job Joe, keep it up. You have the most content availible in these dark boring times.
June 25th, 2010 at 8:48 am
Eric S — I don’t have an axe to grind so I don’t hyperventilate about everything that Morris says. It does not surprise me at all that Morris would contrast this year to last year. Besides, if Morris learning on the job is upsetting to people, they should be mad at the Glazers, not Morris.
June 25th, 2010 at 9:47 am
I think the best way to look at this is aking to players.
When players come to the NFL, they are rookies, they are drafted by teams. Scouts evaluate them and sometimes get it right, sometimes wrong. Coaches, like Raheem, in their first year of being a head coach are like a Division II kid being drafted to the NFL in the 3rd round. Sure, there were head coaches worthy of a first round draft choice (Cowher), but there are nice surprises sometimes in these other guys. Many of the 3rd round choices make mistakes as rookies, have to work harder to correct things, need to change their game (direction) to get where they want.
It’s called rookie mistakes. Players have them, coaches have them, GM’s have them. Last year, we had a rookie GM that made some mistakes, combined with a rookie head coach that made some rookie mistakes, combined with a rookie QB that made some. We had some veterans that made some mistakes as well (Piscitelli is one example, Clayton another).
In year two, many rookies have figured out some or most of their mistakes and show big improvement. That OL learns that he had a “tell” in his stance as a rookie and corrects it and becomes a Pro Bowler. That WR perfects a double move that blows DBs away. That DL works a stutter step that gets the OL off balance and leads the league in sacks. Raheem Morris is now a 2nd year player. We have to see how much he has improved this year. This is the year to see if he’s a NFL head coach or not. Last year was a rookie head coach starting for his team, and rookie GM, etc.
More rookie players this year will make it tough to show MAJOR improvement, but the team should still show improvement. As for his “new” direction… maybe that’s just him saying he’s learned from some mistakes he made last year and is “fixing” those things.
June 25th, 2010 at 10:14 am
“Vince Lombardi with Chuck noll and Bill Walsh couldn’t have won with this team (or the schedule) last year.”
WRONG! Countless other coaches would have won more games because other experienced coaches wouldn’t have fired BOTH coordinators. That alone would have resulted in more wins last season.
June 25th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Louie,
Meybe we might won another game or two. Who cares, then we miss out on Gerald McCoy. NO coach coulda won with that roster. Coulda brought in some old guys- But ThATS WHAT PUT US In THIS PREDICAMENT TA BEGIN WITH!!! If you think otherwise, you should go bury yer head at the beach,cause ya ain’t using it fir nothing
June 25th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Louie,
All I’m saying is the team is drastically short on talent and it stems from poor drafting. There is not one position on the entire team that I can look at and say hey we have a Pro Bowler there. (Maybe Winslow when healthy) This is the number one reason we (the Bucs) are in the situation they’re in. Even teams like the Lions & Rams have superstars on their teams, but we are waiting on the potential of these young guns to develop.
June 25th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Joe,
I can’t believe that you played the race card! I’ve heard that “race card” thing played all last year, even though it was obvious even to the Pope that Morris was completely in over his head. I can’t stand that Lying ass Dominik either! Does that make me a reverse racist? Incompetence is incompetence! Doesn’t matter the race! If a board of a Billion Dollar Corporation suddenly fires their CEO and promotes the mail room clerk to CEO, would the shareholders of the corporation be racist if they were unhappy about that promotion and the kid happened to be Black? I think not! I think those shareholders would know that the mailroom clerk doesn’t know his head from his butt when it comes to running their Billion dollar business! And anyone making such a promotion is either dumber than a box of rocks or wants to lose any chance at making a profit! ie the Glazer kids! Our unhappness has nothing to do with race, just lack of experience & incompetence in our current leaders. Year 2 will tell you that the General Manager & the Head Coach are still just as inexperienced & incompetent as they were last year. In fact, Dominik is off to an early start in that Department.
June 25th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Even if the Bucs go 0-16 I will be happy. I am a fan of my beloved Bucs. I have ZERO expectations out of this team in 2010. And i will ride on Raheem’s bandwagon until the wheels fall off. He deserves 6 years like the past 2 coaches got with Tampa.
Thanks ownership for putting Raheem Morris in charge!
June 25th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Race card???
Joe said this:
“Bucs fans have largely beat up on Raheem The Dream for the past year or so. At times it’s very sad to Joe because he can’t help but sometimes think the vitriol is somehow racially motivated, which truly disturbs Joe.”
Joe said he was disturbed.
How is he playing the race card?
And why is everyone so afraid to talk about the elephant in the room? When the Dungy enthusiasts didn’t like Gruden, was that not racist? Now that the Gruden camp doesn’t like Raheem, isn’t that racist?
Or is it???
So he says:
“At times it’s very sad to Joe because he can’t help but SOMETIMES THINK the vitriol is somehow racially motivated…”
And then he says,
“which truly disturbs Joe.”
Joe is saying that sometimes from some individuals it appears that way. That’s all Joe said. And considering the history with our fanbase in regards to Dungy, Gruden and Raheem… it’s pretty clear that it can sometimes be sensed.
So what is the next best move for Tampa to bury this hatchet?
Hire Bill Cowher?
June 25th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Hey, maybe the team watched the old Michael J Fox movie “The Secret of My Success” where you can plainly see that the mail clerk has more potential than anyone gave him credit for and actually can run that billion dollar company. I mean, movies are real, right?
All kidding aside, it is sometimes better to take the chance on the young, unpolished, new kid than the old vet. Maybe taking the chance on a new vision can work out in the long run over a proven but old system. If new coaches aren’t brought in and given a chance, we’d still have Knox, Shula, Gibbs, Reeves, etc. coaching all the NFL teams, no need for change, no need to grow or be innovative. Heck, let’s pull out the old Raiders playbook of the Madden era, should still work today, right? Change isn’t bad, it just doesn’t always work as fast as you want it to.
June 25th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Dungy had 9 years as a DC in the NFL. This made him very prepared for the next step as HC.
Raheem had 0 years as a DC in the NFL. He had 1 year as a DC at Kansas St where he didn’t exactly blow away the competition.
So who would you think would be more ready as a HC in the NFL? It is amazing how I have to spell out my point.
JimBuc-Yes I am mad at the Glazers for the hire and I said so in my post. But it does tick me off that Rah didn’t have a freakin direction last season and it showed practically every week. The Bucs wasted one year of development on Rah and that sucks. It sucks for the team and it sucks for the fans. It wouldn’t surprise me if Rah went through even more pleasant growing pains this year.
June 25th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
ZeroExpectations:
LOL!
June 25th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
I think he deserves six years! And only a dirty rotten racist would think otherwise!! Lol.
Let’s see if anyone cowboys up and gets the label. That one scares everybody!
All right hatred, let’er rip!
June 25th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Amzing how bitter some people get over this stuff. I jhope you negotive folks are wrong, and Raheem wins 7 to 9 games…of course I am sure that will not be enough for some of you.
June 25th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
McBuc,
Don’t worry,if they fire Raheem next year, it starts all over! If the new coach doesn’t win the SuperBowl his first year, all the “Slow Squad” will be bitching that they fired ” that energetic Coach Morris”. He had a plan!! The new coach is an idiot! The glazers fired Raheem because they are cheap, AND racist! These guys are great!
June 25th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
People, maybe rebuilding is the right thing to do sometimes, but look who the hell is in charge!! We’ve got too circus bozos running our team! Quit comparing this to when Dungy took over and when we turned the team around. Raheem is not Dungy and Dominik is no where near as intelligent as Rich McKay. Plus, back when they took over, the team had gone through 14 consecutive losing seasons so it was nothing new to us. We were used to it so that’s why we were fine with the slow progress, going 7-9 in 95, going 6-10 in 96, then going 10-6 in 97. Before 09, we were a winning organization pretty much for over a decade, and so I think everyone should expect better from the team.
5-6 wins shows me that the team is not even trying to be competitive. This method of going YOUNG, YOUNG, YOUNG, and building through the draft ONLY is really going too far. I remember Joel Glazer saying that free agency was “fools gold”. First of all Joel, nice choice of words. Second of all, YOU sound like a fool. He said that signing 29 or 30 year old guys is not the solution for building a winning team. First of all, 29 is not that old and not everyone is 30 or older. Second of all, you CAN STILL build your foundation through the draft and sign free agents idiot!!! It’s called trying to be competitive or at least have a chance of being competitive while you’re going through your great rebuilding phase. Start some proven, experienced players while the draft picks are being developed so they can start eventually! Sorry, going through a 5-11 season is embarrassing.
June 25th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I knew it! I think Patrick’s comments were racially motivated! Lol
June 25th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
9 wins is disgraceful………………………………….we will only accept “lasting contender”…………………………..10 wins and advancement in playoffs, year in, year out.
But boy if we could just get six wins it would be soooooooooooooooooo great.
Hey, what if we win the Division but lose in the First Round? Totally unacceptable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Raheem would have to be fired.
June 25th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Eric, obviously, is another racist! They are coming outta the woodwork!
Gee , Joe, playing the race card makes it easy!
I will be glad when white guys are the minority( predicted around 2015), I’m gonna play that card at every oppurtunity. Makes life easy, lol
June 25th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
@Capt.Tim
I’m so sick of you and other ignorant people saying that people are racists if they cut down Raheem the great!! Can you please show me where in my post that I showed racism?? I mentioned in my post that “Raheem is not Dungy”. Tony Dungy is black, and I mentioned how Raheem is no where near what Dungy was. I was speaking highly of him like I always do. Also, half of my post was directed toward the Glazers.
If I’m such a racist, then I guess I don’t like Josh Freeman, Cadillac Williams, Earnest Graham, Sammie Stroughter, or Davin Joseph either.
June 25th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
@Patrick They are messing with you. Don’t take everything so serious. Its the internet anyways, so why does what they say or think about you matter? Let it go.