A Little Love For Team Glazer
January 3rd, 2011
Even if one ascribes questionable motives to Team Glazer gutting the Bucs and hiring Raheem Morris and Mark Dominik after the 2008 season, one can’t deny it took a hefty set of tomatoes to fire a popular Super Bowl-winning coach following a 9-7 campaign and kick beloved veterans to the curb in the name of rebuilding.
Team Glazer essentially told Bucs fans to take it or leave it because they weren’t budging. They knew best, they said, and were prepared to take their lumps to build a winner their way.
The master plan was stuffed down fans’ throats, invevitable backlash, blackouts and all.
And there sat the Bucs on Sunday, with half the payroll of the Saints, kicking the ass of the world champs en route to a 10-6 season.
Mission accomplished by Team Glazer. The first step of their vision — a winning young team with a franchise quarterback — was realized in just two seasons.
Joe feels good knowing that Team Glazer has tasted NFL glory once before. Joe can’t imagine that these guys will have the patience now to wait around for another ring.
Joe hopes Dominik gets the nod from Team Glazer to do what he has to do to win now at all costs.
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:07 am
I always said the team needed an overhaul. In all of Gruden’s years in Tampa, he had pedestrian boring offenses! The defense was Dungy’s. Some offensive Guru! This team has what I call offense!
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:17 am
“Joe hopes Dominik gets the nod from Team Glazer to do what he has to do to win now at all costs” – that’s what got us in trouble before. While opening the checkbook to bring in a couple of GOOD FA’s is good, we have to be more cautious than the Allen\Gruden era. Don’t just bring in a body to fill a spot, that stunts the growth of younger guys who are hungry and talented.
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:24 am
Next season we have the afc south and the NFC north we better be ready
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:26 am
Family has been season ticket holders since Day 1 – 1976. I’ve had my two seats for years. Hope more people find a way to buy tickets for the next season, whenever that is. This team is worth it.
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:46 am
Congratulations to Team Glazer, Mark Dominik, Raheem Morris, the Assistant Coaches and all the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Players for an exciting, fun season. You all did Tampa Bay proud with your hard work and focused effort this year and I for one can’t wait for next season to start. Prayers to all the injured players for a speedy recovery and continued success in 2011. God Bless & GO BUCS!!
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:50 am
Joe just doesn’t get it. Joe keeps making these silly blogs about how now that we are good we will go all out and change our philosophy. Joe doesn’t seem to understand the premise that building and maintaining a great NFL franchise is an endless marathon, not a 40 yard dash. Joe just doesn’t understand that we will stick with what got us here. We will continue to get better and upgrade the talent level through the draft and young free agents. The days of signing other teams’ heroes are over. The days of pinning our hopes on over priced 30 year old Free Agent like Julius Peppers or Albert Haynesworth our over. Why on Earth would we change up the business model now when it has worked so well? We will continue to find our own super stars, not buy other teams’ heroes. Joe just doesn’t get it.
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:02 am
Jackson5,
Joe is not advocating going crazy in FA and scraping our current plan. All he is saying is that the plan has to be accelerated a little bit. In our current rebuilding plan, we go after GOOD and YOUNG FA’s later on during our development when we are close to being a dominant team. Thing is we are ahead of schedule, so thats why we should go after 1 or 2 impact FA’s.
Dom is not stupid, he isnt going to magically transform into Bruce Allen and go for old losers past their prime. He will go after the right young talent we need to get us over the top, as he should. All people like Joe and I want is to keep an open mind, rather than turning a blind eye to impact players like woodley who are young and good.
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:15 am
I’m ok with 1 or 2 quality, young FA’s that help the team, BUT Mark and Raheem seem to be doing pretty well with the guys and philosophy that got us turned around so quickly.
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:30 am
I was highly critical of the direction and the approach the team took prior to this season. Have to admit, I was wrong as it worked out quite well for the team.
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:33 am
With the core team’s performance over 2010, you have to inject some adrenaline (a few killer veteran free agents) and push the envelop. We cannot wait on this opportunity forever. But Dominik is smart. He ain’t going for some Bruce Allen-style retreads that can’t help but sell tickets. He knows how to find the unpolished talents. Be ready for some under-the-radar free agent signings that, when placed into our system, flourish.
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:52 am
Tampa better lock up Mark Dominik before he gets away. This man is near genius in finding good players. I am in total awe.
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:54 am
Well 10 wins was quite a surprise, unfortunately it didnt mean anything. Good enough for a third place in the division and missing the playoffs.
There is undeniably some nice young talent on offense, and Freeman is turning out to be excellent. Defensively, they stink. Yesterday, was a Saints team prioritizing not getting key players hurt, hence the inactive status of Colston, Thomas, Shockey and pulling Brees in the fourth with the game in the balance, playing Julius Jones mostly in the backfield etc.
However, the Bucs were prepared to play and played well, you can’t control that your opponent was not fully interested.
I am excited for next year. I am not convinced that this team is playoff caliber yet, but the signs are favorable. If they end up winning 7 or 8 games next year, then we will have some evidence that the schedule and the bad qb’s inflated the win total. If they win 10+ again then there will be little doubt.
It is a stretch to credit the Glazers, Dom should get the credit.
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:57 am
If you have been able to assess the talents of players that have been discarded wrongly, why change the format
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:59 am
You guys just keep holding your breath waiting for those free agents.
Do you think the guys that fired the Super Bowl winning coach , cut the best player in the history of the franchise and retained the rookie coach after a 3-13 season are the type of guys that change their plan that easily?
Yes they had a great season and yes they are way ahead of schedule but if you think that means they are going to suddenly decide to address the teams needs in free agency then you havent been paying attention. The whole reason we are having this conversation is because their plan to NOT use free agency to build the team is working.
They proved this season that the notion of needing “veteran leadership’ is a bunch of B.S. when you have good coaching and hungry young players.
January 3rd, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Dom’s done a great job drafting and picking hungry guys off other teams’ practice squad, but he doesn’t have the best track record bringing in quality FAs so far, so for him to go overboard on FAs this offseason, may not be the best idea. Have to agree with Jackson5, this is a marathon, not a sprint in regards to building a “lasting contender”–look at how the Patriots and Steelers do business.
January 3rd, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Actually Joe, I too agree that team Glazer has done a fabulous job at winning with a young coach and a team whose salary is the lowest in the league…
…but that’s where the agreement ends. No disrespect for team Glazer, I just don’t think the early onset of becoming “good” will cause them to deter from their “miserly” ways (as defined by NFL payroll standards). I think they will continue on with their plan to rebuild sensibly. I think they MAY spend more in acquiring SOME more talent at a couple of spots – but no way do they revert back to spending levels of Gruden/Allen – in my opinion.
…and who could blame them? They’ve had stunning success at half the price!
Now, I do think this seasons schedule fed into that a bit – but it would be difficult to quantify how much the favorable schedule helped our 10 win season with such a young team, while dedicating so little resources (relative to NFL standards) in the way of salary to achieving the 10 victories. I think Dominik using it (soft schedule) to justify spending MORE to get a better result, is going to be tough-sledding.
I think we will face a tougher schedule, the reigns won’t be loosened and reality will set in next season.
Does anyone think the owners of teams spending more money than the Buccaneers are going to want to be shown up by a team who is years away from their salary levels?
Think about the way Daniel Snyder and Jerry Jones (just to name two) view their efforts to acquire enough talent to gain an edge over their opponents…and how they view an ownership group who wins at half the cost….
It may be what each owner desires, but those spending MUCH more to get a comeptitive advantage are going to figure out a way to deny team Glazer thier low/cost high yield performance.
…but first they’ll deal with some playoff scenarios that will keep teams/divisions of teams with losing records – out of the playoffs. Maybe a re-seeding committee that uses records as a means of eliminating any possibility of teams with losing records from making the playoffs while 10 win teams sit home…?
January 3rd, 2011 at 1:32 pm
I agree with Joe on this…There is value in sticking to a plan. However, if you hang on to the plan TOO long, and do not recognize an opportunity to take the initiative and WIN, you could lose a battle or a war.
There comes a time when good leaders have to recognize a change in circumstance, and roll the dice. I think that time is NOW.
My disagreement is only that extensive FA work is needed. I think we have almost all the pieces now.
I have a question: Do teams in the NFL have to spend to the cap base? If they DO, that might shade my opinion of FA signings…If they MUST spend that money, there could be great signing opportunities…And I could see a few marquee players wanting to jump to a Bucs team that is clearly going to be in the hunt next season.
January 3rd, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Picking up a Simion Rice would be sweet. He came via free agency. But Rice was the exception, far too many haven’t worked out so well. I’ll trust Mark Dominic however. If he likes a guy I’ll support it. Dom pays attention to details and does his homework. The Bucs are lucky to have him.
January 3rd, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Why do some idiots insist on drafting well and AND signing a few free agents as being mutually exclusive concepts? if anyone thinks you win super bowls by never signing free agents your a flat out idiot.
January 3rd, 2011 at 3:44 pm
I agree with the plan of rebuilding as they did. I felt that Raheem was hired too early and the growing pains of the past two seasons prove that… He hardly was perfect this season but did a great job and is getting much better every season. That being said it worked wonderfully.
My issue is with maitaining premium ticket prices while slicing payroll during the rebuilding. They sure didn’t maintain ticket prices when the team was up and the demand was high. As I recall tickets were escalated every season. (Joe you wrote as a reply to a post that discount tickets were available on ticketmaster and thats just not the case. Both 620 and 1010 would talk about the cheapest tickets available as game approached and the cheap ones were gone early. I don’t know about stub hub but the supply on there is variable as they come from aftermarket sources. I will be checking there next season.)
Then sticking hard and fast to the blackout rules (even when the fans were close), they announced blackouts well before they were required to by NFL policy. They didn’t even file a single extension this season. All the while they profit in a stadium that the citizens of Hillsborough paid for. This is being a bad partner to the fans. Period.
January 3rd, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Skookum…there was no cap base this season… that allowed the Glazers to drop payroll to the level that they did.
Free agency in the NFL is tough. Most players available have 2-3 seasons left in the tank but want 5-6 years which is no biggie due to no guarantees but you through the signing bonus in and that changes things. NFL is all about up front money and how many years you can prorate the signing bonus for. Better save some money to throw at these guys. Freeman, Blount, Talib, Williams are gonna need some money to stick around.
January 3rd, 2011 at 3:58 pm
tnew:
The reason the Bucs announced blackouts so far in advance was that, based on season ticket sales, there was no reasonable expectation aside from the Steelers game that any game would be close to sold out. And the Bucs were quite right on that. Therefore, there was no reason to ask for an extension. Again, the Steelers game something fishy was going on.
Why isn’t anyone taking WTVT-TV to task? St. Louis, for example, was close to a blackout a couple of times and the local Fox affilate there (along with other companies) bought up the remaining tickets to ensure a sellout. The Rams didn’t buy the tickets, someone else did.
Why is WTVT and WTSP (Steelers game) both getting passes on this? Joe doesn’t know of Rams fans b!tching about Stan Kroenke not buying empty seats to prevent blackouts.
January 3rd, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Joe,
Why so anxious to give the Glazers the pass on this one? Really, trying to extend the blame to the local TV station that profits a fraction of what the NFL franchise does is a stretch.
The Glazers lobbied the public to have there playing facility built with a deal that they are entitled to non-buc money. Now they have scaled back the product (yes I know they over-achieved on the field) but the financial commitment is at an all-time low, NFL revenue is still high, the Glazers are pocketing handsomely still. It is their right to operate their budget on a comparative shoestring, it is ours not to support them with ticket sales.
Is it too much to ask for them to buy up the remaining Steeler tickets and maybe another game or two?
January 3rd, 2011 at 6:23 pm
It always amazes me when the public expects private companies to give things away in order to support a false conclusion.
The Buccaneers are not a government institution. Buc player salaries are not tax deductible, and the owners aren’t subsidized to fill the stands.
If any of the “fans” were to own this team, not a single one of you would give 10,000 seats away for free.
The Tampa Sports Authority makes money leasing the stadium for numerous events – that is the reason the Glazers got a tax exemption…if the team is worth the cost of PSL’s and season tickets, then the stadium will be full – and games will be free to watch on television. You can also purchase a “Sunday Ticket” package and watch the games at home – or you can buy a slightly lower quality “Livestreaming” internet option.
Those complaining are the ones that aren’t attending the games and because they either WON’T buy season tickets, or one of these other options.
I only know that THIS fan never missed a single game this season…
If you are complaining because you didn’t get something for free – your the problem – not me…and definitely NOT team Glazer!
January 3rd, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Thomas 2.1:
Well, how come come TV stations in other markets do this but not here? Joe doesn’t see Stan Kroenke or Al Davis or the Spanos family buying up tickets either. But Joe guesses it’s just so easy to blame the Glazer family. Why, they are also the reason we have the common cold, don’t you know?
The Rams would have had half of their home games blacked out if it wasn’t for local TV station and local companies. Why isn’t that happening here? Detroit was also in danger of a blackout or two, but a local TV station came to the rescue.
Every NFL ownership group short of Joe Robbie and Jack Kent Cookie lobby the public for a stadium. So what?
The Glazers bought up hundreds of thousands of tickets last year. But that wasn’t good enough, huh?
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:59 pm
@Thomas,
Why is it a stretch to give the Glazers credit? That’s ridiculous. In order to be successful in pro sports, you need not only a good GM, but also a good coach and good owners. That is a fact. No one person is responsible for a successful season, as it takes a group to build a winner. This is the main reason why no coach has won a SB with 2 teams. This is also why certain bottom dweller teams rarely make a run, no matter how many different coaches and GM’s they have. I guess you are too busy scouting players to know how it works.
January 4th, 2011 at 10:07 am
I do know that this team hasnt made the playoffs in three straight seasons. Player salaraies are at an all-time low. Ticket sales at an all-time (RayJay history) low. Fan interest – an all-time or atleast recent history-time low.
Whos is responsible for that (see above) record?
Yes, Dom gets great credit for finding Freeman, in my view he is the real difference, also a little mike will. Dont be surprised if the next full season 2011 0r 12 is a step backward, if not, it will be because Free has continued his ascent.