Raheem Morris Knew Bucs Tanked On Him
April 17th, 2012
Yesterday, a man from Iowa who went by the handle “Hollywood” called to talk Bucs on “The Blitz,” co-hosted by former Super Bowl quarterback Rich Gannon and popular sports radio personality Adam Schein, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio.
“Hollywood” explained how he felt Greg Schiano was a breath of fresh air for Bucs fans and scolded Gannon and Schein for softballing questions to jettisoned Bucs coach Raheem Morris in Morris’ weekly appearances with the duo last season.
“Hollywood” added how “sick” he was of what he deemed Morris’ excuses for losing when Gannon cut him off to defend Morris.
Rich Gannon: It was hard for Raheem Morris to come on here each week, team losing 10 in a row, it was hard. You feel bad for the coach. He has to address his team. He has to address the local media. He has to address the national media on our show each week about what went wrong. After five or six in a row, it’s not only tough on the coach; it’s tough for the guys on the other end of the microphone. It’s tough trying to find something positive during that interview.
Adam Schein: In eight years, the two toughest spots we’ve had on this show, “The Blitz,” where a team was absolutely spiraling, was Raheem Morris and Dom Capers in his last year in Houston, the last year he was there, but particularly Raheem because the team quit on him, the team just did not play hard for the man. He always talked about how he liked the tempo in practice and we love Raheem, but he didn’t have any answers.
Gannon: It is hard on these men, they are family men. This is their profession and the losing pained these men. Then you feel bad because you have to ask him tough questions and then you ask Raheem if the team quit on him and he says, ‘No, no.” But you know deep down in his heart he knew that. He watched the same tape everybody else did. There is no way he felt that way. That team clearly quit on him last year. There was a lack of leadership. You talk about what they have to do forward, the biggest challenge this season for Greg Schiano is to implement a new system and to find and develop leadership on both sides of the ball for Tampa Bay.
This is why Joe applauded the dismissal of oft-suspended Tanard Jackson. Not only could the guy not be trusted, it was time for Schiano to weed out the bad influences and take control of a team that not only woefully lacked discipline, but took advantage of their head coach far, far too often.
Joe believes those days are coming to a screeching halt beginning this morning at practice, if the law wasn’t already laid down.
April 17th, 2012 at 8:23 am
Can’t wait for football to kickoff so we can move on from the Rah-gime era. I rooted for Rah because I’m a Bucs fan, now I root for Schiano because he is our new coach. Good luck to Coach Morris except against the Bucs, simple as that…let’s go forward.
April 17th, 2012 at 8:25 am
I find it hard to believe that a player coming back from a year’s suspension in mid-season took advantage of his coach and ruined this team. Raheem was the worst coach since Ray Perkins, who might have been the stupidest and most stubborn man alive. He didn’t want his team to even shake hands with the other team, he thought they would hand over to them our team secrets.
Raheem refused to make adjustments and instead just spouted platitudes like, “We just have to run faster, jump higher, hit harder, play smarter and stay youngry. That’s what the players expect to hear from Rachel Watson not the man selected to lead them into combat or as it turned out, slaughter. In Viet Nam we fragged leaders like that.
The man was completely in over his head. He had never even run a professional defense before, never mind HC and DC simultaneously.
April 17th, 2012 at 8:28 am
When your plan is to “keep being our best self” you don’t belong as a Head Coach in the NFL you belong in a self help session.
April 17th, 2012 at 8:34 am
Joe, is the practice open to media? Or just pen and mic sessions? (Or should I say ‘Schiano Pen and Mic seesions’)
April 17th, 2012 at 8:40 am
One has to wonder if it was only the players that gave up on Raheem. How many times does an offensive coordinator get to run an end around and be successful 2% of the time before it gets thrown out of the playbook?
April 17th, 2012 at 8:50 am
Gannon: “That team clearly quit on him last year. There was a lack of leadership.”
Funny…I thought Raheem was supposed to be the leader.
There were a few players who revealed their true selves last year, but the “team” didn’t quit until Raheem started throwing them under the bus and saying “I was a runner up for coach of the year the year before…it’s not the coaching.”
That’s when I started to quit on him too.
April 17th, 2012 at 8:56 am
At what point does Gannon say that he gives Dom’s performanc a B or B- grade?
April 17th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Move ON!!!
What, nine days from now……..THE DRAFT!
April 17th, 2012 at 9:02 am
Joe here,
@thomas 2.2 — That was a different part of the show when Gannon focused on a small handful of teams and the relatively recent drafting and needs.
April 17th, 2012 at 9:03 am
Be honest the Bucs still are reeling from the day they released Derrick Brooks.
April 17th, 2012 at 9:28 am
Ugh. Can we move on from Raheem? Its day one of mini camp with a new regime. Let’s look forward, not backwards.
That picture makes me nauseous.
April 17th, 2012 at 9:30 am
I think for the first day of practice, to show who is now really in charge of the team. Schiano should make Dominik turn in his headset in front of the whole team.
April 17th, 2012 at 9:46 am
The Glazers’ hung Morris out to dry, then ran like jell when it’s was time to show some ballz. Morris said it “we ALL agreed to go young”, to me all means all or all inclusive that would include dominik and the glazer. Every year the team got younger and younger ,because the gm said as the team draft picks mature ,the leadership will start to develop instead of bring in experienced players and when this idea blew up everyone in the ring ran to cover their own posie. Quess who was left standing. Did he deserve to be fired,heck yeah. Was there others who could have and may be should have shared similiar fate too,you darn skippy,but that was then and this is now. The gm is NOW saying we’re tired of the youth movement ,we’re tired of rebuilding,huh, imagine that. Doesn’t all this crap from the gm make you want to have a movement,too? Go Coach Schiano ,Go Bucs !!!!
April 17th, 2012 at 9:49 am
Quit blubbering. All Raheem had to do was get his guys to play hard and he’d still be here. They wouldn’t. That’s not Mark Dominik’s fault
April 17th, 2012 at 9:57 am
Make all the comparisons you want. Good guy,bad guy, disciplinarian, party-goer, fundamentals, no fundamentals, play hard, quit, build thru the draft, go to FA, spend , don’t spend – whatever! At the end of the day, there is only one measurement in the NFL – YOU GOTTA WIN! Bottom line!
April 17th, 2012 at 9:57 am
It is very hard to motivate a young team like the Bucs. It requires focus, discipline & structure. None of these were Raheem’s strong points so anyone could easily see how and why this happened. Not to mention he was outcoached on a regular basis. Most players WILL quit when they know the system & coaching is flawed. Why get hurt when there is little chance of winning or even competing.
April 17th, 2012 at 10:01 am
@ Mister V
Completely agree.
“We’ve had long talks about this. And really, the general message is: You think long-term, we think long-term. It’s plain and simple. You start thinking short-term, we start thinking short term,” Glazer said.
LMAO what a crock.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/bucs/2010/04/bucs-gm-dominik-abiding-by-glazer-familys-wishes.html
April 17th, 2012 at 10:29 am
@miguel grande said it best totally agree!
April 17th, 2012 at 11:47 am
Dom refused to sign Caddy and Ruud- team captains
Let taliban slide, let retard Jackson slide
Big neon sign at One Buc- we cut class, we sign trash!
Trash got the message- layed down
As you’d expect
April 17th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Tampa’s young team developed “leaders” LOL
Leaders into the Club and the Dope House.
April 17th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
I liked Raheem, but in the end, he absolutely no freakin clue. The guy was 100% lost. I think he quit too. Can you blame him? I don’t know, but his brain was out to lunch.
Maybe it was just complete denial. No, he was lost.
April 18th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Good post, Joe. Appreciate you relaying that conversation. I wish someone would try to answer this question: Why would a team quit? These guys are all talented athletes who obviously have had a fair amount of success. What do they need not to quit? What’s the key?