Raheem Can’t Throw Enough Love At Chucky
October 3rd, 2011
"Raheem's a good kid, man. It was easy to be nice to those guys on D. I didn't mess with the freakin' defense. I told Monte, 'I'm here at 3 a.m. trying to make Griese look like an NFL quarterback.' That's a fuc*n full-time job in itself."
It seems the Raheem Morris, while on Chucky’s staff, wasn’t one of the “angry workers” he wants on his football team.
Numerous times over the past week Raheem has glowed with love for his old boss. On his radio show, Raheem said of Gruden “noboby knows how hard he worked,”and Raheem has paid incredible homage to “Coach Gru” since.
eye-RAH! Kaufman of The Tampa Tribune served up more love today with Raheem sharing how his mentor let him address the Bucs when he was way down on the totem pole.
“To me, he’s boss. I’m not surprised he shut it down this week, because Jon has never wanted to be the story. He likes it to be about the team, the people around him. He’s always been a guy who pushed people into the light. He nurtured all of us. He was the first guy who gave me an opportunity to speak in front of an NFL team as a quality control coach. Who does that?’ Raheem said.
Now Joe’s not sure what Raheem meant when he said Chucky “shut it down this week.” It’s probably, in part, an answer to a question about Chucky seeking the spotlight for his return.
To his credit, Chucky has not. It would have been one wild buildup over the last few days if Chucky had lashed out at Team Glazer in some way for his suprise firing.
Then again, Joe’s not ready to grant Saint status to Chucky. There’s a darn good chance he reached some form of contract settlement agreement that forbids him from speaking his mind.
October 3rd, 2011 at 10:56 am
I just hope the stadium give Gruden some love. He brought us our first Super Bowl. He was a rock star for like 3-4 years. His star fell like all stars do, but he was the best thing for Tampa at the time and he did something NO other coach in franchise history has done (not even the “untouchable one” Tony Dungy)
He’s not the opposing coach. He did what he thought was best and at the end he failed. Why hate the man when he brought you what I would garner is one of the greatest nights of your life (I know it was for me – standing in the middle of ale Mabry with beer in hand screaming!”)
Act like classy adults and give the man some love. You can go back to talking about him tomorrow. Tampa fans always had class. I was always so proud of them, but then a strange thing happened. We started winning (consistently) and then a lot of the Tampa fans started sounding like Yankee and Patriot fans. I guess success does influence people. I never thought it would happen in Tampa, but it did. Funny how fast people forget where they come from once they get a little taste of the “high” life. Oh well – Go Bucs!!
October 3rd, 2011 at 10:58 am
The one thing I am surprised that Jon Gruden hasn’t lashed out about is the Glazers towards the end tying his hand in free agency. Yes Jon enjoyed free agency prior to winning the Super Bowl and was able to land Keyshawn and others but towards the end the Bucs stood pat while the Saints gobbled up Drew Brees and the Falcons pulled in Michael Turner. At first I thought it was Allen who was keeping the purse strings tight but its obvious the Glazers have never liked free agency and never will. If they did they would have spent money this off season. Its obvious once you lash out at your former owner as a coach you will be cast out of any future NFL jobs by the ownership fraternity.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:07 am
nick2:
Not too many sane people want to piss away $4 million (or more).
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:10 am
I went back and crunched the numbers:
Gruden’s career winning % : 540 (594% w/Oak, 509% w/Tampa)
Gruden as Offensive Genius: Oakland 24.4 ppg, Tampa 19.7 ppg
Best season 12-4, twice (once in Oakland, once in Tampa)
of 11 years as a HC he had 6 winning seasons, 2 seasons of 500 and 3 losing seasons.
Playoff Record 5-4, one SB.
Didn’t win a playoff game after 2002 SB
Basically, he was an average HC who shouldn’t garner the amount of attention he gets, but as long as you are breathing and upright and a member of the Ex-HC fraternity you will get some attention when jobs come open.
BTW – I still haven’t found any of the QBs he supposedly developed.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:45 am
It’s true that Gruden was more image than substance during most of his time in Tampa, but a Super Bowl brings a lot of cred no matter how you slice it. I’m not a fan of his because I try to see through image-based opinions of people and look at the actual substance (in his case, the numbers as flmike pointed out above). His numbers aren’t exceptional in any way. But…there’s that pesky little Super Bowl win. Like it or not he gets respect for that.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:47 am
How does one go about having 540%, 594% and 509% win percentage? Or is that supposed to be 54%, 59.4% and 50.9%?
If the latter, you are right. Those numbers aren’t anything eye popping.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:50 am
agreed Mike. He’s an overrated coach but there’s no reason to be mad at him. The collapse before he got fired was disappointing and upsetting but Gruden never did anything to sabotage the team…he’s just a very, very stubborn offensive coordinator and poor talent evaluator.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:53 am
Would anyone argue Gruden is/was a better HC than Andy Reid just because of the SB win?
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:11 pm
FL Mike: that’s some good research.
A lot of people like to say Gruden won with Dungy’s team, his defense certaintly not his offense. Educated Bucs fans know of all of the changes that year via free agency. For those same people that say he won with Dungy’s team shouldn’t it be said that the Raiders went to the Super Bowl with Gruden’s team? If not for the horrible tuck rule the year before I’m not so sure we would have ever been able to trade for Gruden as he may have won it all.
He has not developed young QB’s but he sure did develop Gannon into offensive MVP and Brad Johnson had an MVP type year in 2002. I am happy to have him even if we had not so great years after the Super Bowl.
I was tired of Dungy’s lack of attention to the offense (ask Sapp, Lynch, Brooks as they have stated) winning 9-10 games a year to get blown out by the Eagles. I will take 1 SB and some bad years instead of the Eagles that are always in it but never hold up the Lombardi.
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:32 pm
@Mauha Deeb those are winning percentages, so it can be read either way, but they come out the same, Average. As to your Reid question, I don’t know, Reid always builds good teams that consistently compete at the highest levels, did Gruden do that? There’s your answer.
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:39 pm
@flmike lol You got it. I was just commenting that his SB should mean relatively little when compared to the entirety of his career. Trent Dilfer has a ring but no one is calling him a great QB. Same should go for Gruden.
BTW the other way to write it is .540, .594 and .509. Writing it as 540 would technically mean 54,000%. Just for future reference, not that you or anyone else really cares lol
October 3rd, 2011 at 1:04 pm
@Mauha Deeb, I agree completely. Also, I have been doing my due diligence on the Colts this week, Peyton Manning, As we have seen and heard, has been running that team for at least 10 years, which puts Dungy squarely in the middle of this. When it comes to the offense he is ostensibly the HC/GM/OC, how do you as a team allow that to happen, what we are seeing is the only outcome the could come from the Colts allowing Peyton Maning to run the team. See if you can find the footage from this August when he came back from surgery and he was roaming the sidelines of practice, he was watching “His” team, you could see it in the way he walked around the field, and the way he interacted with Caldwell, it was Caldwell answering to him, Caldwell doesn’t matter there, it’s all about Manning. Watch when he announces his retirement he’ll just be move up stairs and take over the team as Pres/GM.
October 3rd, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Joe – FYI – Fired people don’t need to reach a contract “settlement”. Gruden can say whatever he wants about the Bucs.
October 3rd, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Theodore:
Good thing for Chucky you are not his lawyer. You really believe there wasn’t a gag order clause in his contract?
He’s still on Team Glazer’s bankroll through the end of this season.
October 3rd, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Joe – Clauses in the original contract is still not a “settlement”. Anyways, got party deck tickets for Rays game. Go Rays! Go Bucs!
October 3rd, 2011 at 2:19 pm
“Other” Joe here,
Theodore, it’s reasonable to think that Gruden and the Bucs reached a settlement on his contract after he was terminated. A negotiated lump sum payout would benefit both parties, and that may very well have included new limits on what Chucky could say and when.
October 3rd, 2011 at 2:56 pm
The NFL Ownership group is such a tight knit bunch that I doubt Chucky would say anything ever because he would be known as the coach that badmouthed his previous owner and his chances of getting rehired . Can you think of any head NFL coach that has badmouthed his previous owner? I mean how many coaches have come out and slammed Al Davis and if anyone should be slammed its him!!!!
October 3rd, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Theodore:
You going to try to make both games?