Taking A Year Off
April 2nd, 2014
Lovie and Pat Kirwan discuss
Now Joe knows the vast majority of his readers would in no way be able to take a year’s vacation after being jettisoned from a job. Mortgages, car payments, rent, NFL Sunday Ticket fees, bar tabs, they all keep us working and unable to blow off a year of work, short of winning the lottery or robbing a bank.
That is not the case always with NFL coaches. Often with seven-figured salaries, not working for a year doesn’t exactly pinch unemployed NFL coaches like it would most folks. So recently when Lovie Smith appeared on “Movin’ the Chains,” co-hosted by Pat Kirwan and Jim Miller heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio, Kirwan, in a roundabout way, explained to Lovie what he thought of the year off for the new Bucs coach.
Pat Kirwan: When Tom Coughlin took a year off after he was fired in Jacksonville – I told this to him – I thought it was the greatest thing to happen to him. I still think the best thing to happen to him and I have told this to a lot of my friends that have been fired: One year [off] is a good thing for you. Don’t look at it as a bad thing. It is not just the re-energizing, but the refocus of some things you might want to do different and getting ideas from people without the pressure of games and everything else. Talk about how the year off molded you for the future.
Lovie Smith: I will say the same thing Pat. It was a great year. One of the best years of my life. You know I am a family man. Husband, granddad. I got a chance to spend a lot of private time with family members. My wife and I had a list of things we always wanted to do but never had the chance to do. We were able to do that. Then to get back into football and to evaluate everything I believe in as a football coach, how you do things. And to see how I was also a football fan. I got a chance to watch high school and college and pro games and learned a lot from all of them and I did. I studied our game, the NFL game. I felt confident I could get back in and start making plans for this time and we are carrying out some of those now.
If anything, Joe is learning Lovie is a pretty good poker player. He is fairly adept at answering questions with just enough information that it’s hard to guess which way he is leaning.
What Lovie said to Kirwan really isn’t earth-shattering, but in the past Lovie has said he learned some things about football in his year off. He also stated his core beliefs on how to win in the NFL were reinforced by what he saw.
So what does this mean? It’s hard to tell. Some laud Lovie’s hiring of Jeff Tedford to run his offense, but it’s not like Lovie hasn’t made bold offensive moves in the past. Shoot, he hired pass-happy Mike Martz as his offensive coordinator in Chicago. It doesn’t get much more radical than that on the NFL level.
Bucs fans will only find out what the season off did for Lovie’s football thinking by watching how this season plays out.
April 2nd, 2014 at 1:16 pm
– And to see how I was also a football fan. I got a chance to watch high school and college and pro games and learned a lot from all of them and I did. I studied our game, the NFL game.-
Sounds like Lovie remembered, you know what. Football has been….and always will be- WON IN THE TRENCHES-No matter how you slice it-It was the staple of all the Great Dynasties.
April 2nd, 2014 at 1:18 pm
He’s had some very disruptive defensive lines, but never put together an equally affective offensive line.
April 2nd, 2014 at 1:23 pm
effective
April 2nd, 2014 at 1:44 pm
Their record is 0-0. But I already like what the Lovetrain is bringing to our team. And with all due respect to Joe who seemed to have a real affection for the “rockstar” GM…I think Licht is a tremendous upgrade in the GM position as well.
April 2nd, 2014 at 1:47 pm
Let yr LovieLicht shine!
April 2nd, 2014 at 1:54 pm
Thanks for the Spell check -Orca
April 2nd, 2014 at 1:58 pm
Robbing a bank is what the Bucs did when they drafted MG8 in the 3rd round. Great job.
April 2nd, 2014 at 2:07 pm
One of the most impressive things about the “Lovie Era” has been the putting together what appears to be a great staff. Remember the joke of a staff our last coach(?) put together? Just wish he had more draft picks to work with this year. Envious of SF having 12 picks. I feel this is an excellent teaching staff.
April 2nd, 2014 at 3:21 pm
Barry- ……really. I’ll pray for the glennon mob tonight…you guys are ridiculous we couldve had a better pick than glennon in the 3rd round hands down
April 2nd, 2014 at 4:28 pm
Yeah. But the real question would be if tmaxcon is still pulling.
April 2nd, 2014 at 9:23 pm
@Buchead407
Please forgive Barry. He tends to dip into the Kool Aide too often.
April 2nd, 2014 at 10:03 pm
“Shoot, he hired pass-happy Mike Martz as his offensive coordinator in Chicago. It doesn’t get much more radical than that on the NFL level.
Bucs fans will only find out what the season off did for Lovie’s football thinking by watching how this season plays out.”
– Joe
Pass-happy seems to be his preference. You said he’s stated that his time off reinforced his core beliefs. To me that means he is more strongly committed to the way he use to do things.
It follows with what we’ve been seeing. TEs that are not run blockers. Oline guys that are not strong run blockers. Talk of deep passing and not much said of short to medium range.
It looks to me like he plans a deep passing game, maybe a medium passing game, and using that to open the run, since the run blocking doesn’t seem to be a solid thing or desire.
April 2nd, 2014 at 10:14 pm
I have faith that tedford will bring something interesting to the game.
Back in Chicago, Lovey’s best offense was led by Mike Matrz if memory serves me correctly. Martz had some really good games where he outsmarted people, but many others where he just didn’t seem to get it. It was the first inkling of a offense in Chicago where they could actually move the ball…trouble was they didn’t have the horses at the time.
Also Martz has the ability to outsmart himself from time to time as well…
Tedford will have more weapons to use than Martz did back then as well. I think he is going to do pretty well.
Let’s be honest with each other though-Tampa has NEVER had a top of the league offense. The year with Freeman was a good year…and only shows how poor out offense has been historically.
I think for Lovey, lessons have been learned. This team WILL be better than last year’s.
April 2nd, 2014 at 10:23 pm
I would add that Matt Forte had a banner year under Martz. He accounted for about half of their offensive total at year end… But who else did they have?
I’m a Bears/Bucs fan and can tell you that right now, the Bucs Offense is much better than the Bears’ offense was at the time. Their other big threat was Greg Olsen at TE. We have better with Martin, Williams and Jackson and our own set of pass catching TE’s. With the Draft ahead, and very likely that we get at least a Wr and Qb out of it for the offense, we will be loaded.
Don’t forget the second round of cuts in June either.
With the focused attack with defensive players in the offseason they will be able to reload on offense. All in all I’m pretty excited!