Upheaval
June 23rd, 2014
Some are surprised at how Lovie Smith and Jason Licht have gutted the 2013 Bucs roster. Joe isn’t.
Joe is a history guy and, in particular, loves football history.
A favorite story Joe heard from Bobby Bowden was about how the Florida State legend attended Vince Lombardi and Paul Brown training camps to try to learn from the masters and to experience what those coaches were like behind the scenes.
That love of history is why Joe pays rapt attention to the “America’s Game” series on the NFL Network, which highlights each Super Bowl winning team via stories never before publicized.
During those broadcasts, two like-minded quotes were delivered by Chuck Noll and Mike Ditka when they took over the Steelers and Bears, respectively. In the first team meeting, the coaches basically told players few would be around to see brighter days. Why? Because the teams stunk and that’s why they had a new head coach.
Steelers linebacker Andy Russell noted that only five guys who were on the Steelers roster the year prior to Noll coming to Pittsburgh survived to eventually wear a Super Bowl ring six years later.
As Ditka later said, “Was if fair? No. Was it the truth? Yes!”
So, armed with this knowledge, Joe didn’t blink an eye when he read this Twitter from the “Custodian of Canton,” eye-RAH! Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune, concerning the Bucs roster.
The 2014 Bucs could feature at least 11 new starters, including 8 changes on offense. Tough to imagine another team having so much turnover
— Ira Kaufman (@IKaufmanTBO) June 22, 2014
The Bucs stunk last year, plain and simple. If Team Glazer was going to change the front office, which they did, and bring in a coach known for getting his team into the playoffs, which they did, then Joe wholeheartedly supports a housecleaning.
If guys aren’t getting the job done on the field for whatever reason, then why continue to trot those guys out on gameday and expect better results? As Lovie often says when asked about why he didn’t retain a specific player from last season’s roster, “We were 4-12.”
June 23rd, 2014 at 7:22 am
Gotta love the L&L attitude. Even though they’re going through a massive rebuild they are not asking for “time” to produce a winner. They plan on winning this year. And yes ya gotta love when they respond to personnel changes with “we were 4-12”.
That sends a nice message to this year’s guys as well. 4-12 is not acceptable. Finish with a horrible record and you could be on the way out!
June 23rd, 2014 at 7:27 am
With what the Rockstar left them, can you blame Lovie? This team needed to dump a overpaid OL and release Revis to fill other positions of need.
June 23rd, 2014 at 7:30 am
hmmmm sounds like joe is singing a new tune to me, It was was more like the Bucs just needed a new coach and Johnny football and the Bucs could be lasting contenders. In fact I remember after Lovie was hired and the Bucs took there time searching for a new GM, Joe said ” that Dominick did such a good job no one wants to follow him” from his 620wdae 1 hour radio show, ( heard ususally on Wed at 5:00.)
June 23rd, 2014 at 7:53 am
Let’s not invent history. Joe didn’t say “no one wants to follow Dominik.” Please.
Much of this depends how you define “upheaval” or roster gutting. 11 new starters is a lot, but as Joe has pointed out, Mr. Defense, Lovie Smith, is likely to retain eight starters from Schiano’s defense. That speaks a lot for the talent the previous regime assembled on that side of the ball, and doesn’t say much for the coaching in 2013.
June 23rd, 2014 at 8:05 am
Yeah, the Bucs pretty much stunk up the place last year, a collective effort. Thus the housecleaning. Onward to greater heights and a real contender.
June 23rd, 2014 at 8:21 am
Let’s just hope Lovie being the 3rd HC post-Gruden, and the first to actually have NFL head coaching experience on his resume can get this team playing as young, fast, and hungry as they should be. What I doubt most about Lovie Smith, is that he’d allow this team to go 15-33 when we’re talking about his Bucs team 3-4 seasons from now.
June 23rd, 2014 at 8:37 am
Having to clean up this house is all the more testimony as to the ineffectiveness of Dominik, who was not a “rockstar” at all, simply a guy with a garage band that can’t get a gig……
As Bill Parcells has so often been quoted: “You are what your record says you are….”
So when you go 4-12, you are bad and teams are bad for a reason.
Lovie Smith knows and understands that.
June 23rd, 2014 at 8:45 am
Didn’t Gruden have 8 new starters on offense his first season?
June 23rd, 2014 at 10:18 am
Hmmm, Maybe i am wrong, but the audio at 27:00 sure seems a little more to my side. http://www.620wdae.com/media/podcast-steve-duemig-podcast-steveduemig_01/joe-bucs-fan-12214-24223296/
podcast from 1-22-2014, very strange, i could not find it in your archives. I shall take your silence as an apology.
Thank you for linking the archive. Joe doesn’t hide from anything. The context was Joe talking about comments from other GMs Joe spoke to at the East-West Shrine Game. Joe would encourage all to listen.–Joe
June 23rd, 2014 at 10:29 am
I don’t blame them for gutting the roster one bit, Tampa was terrible last year and it’s not like they got rid of any pro bowlers, minus Revis and his ridiculous contract…
June 23rd, 2014 at 11:25 am
If we just had a regime change, and 8 of the 11 expected changes are on offense, where the biggest mistakes were made, then I’m not sure the case can be made that we’re re-inventing the wheel here?
The defensive scheme was terrible – and that was the thing that numbskull was brought in from Rutgers to fix, that and the general disaray the franchise was left in by the Raheem Morris experiment (not to be confused with the Jimmy Hendrix Experiment)…
It seems that the bulk of the defensive talent looks to fit the scheme like a glove…
Meaning the thing that made the Buc’s bad last season was…the head coach…who was supposedly a defensive/organizational strategist. One wonders what last seasons offensive talent would look like fitted to the new offensive scheme?
June 25th, 2014 at 3:00 pm
That’s Jimi Hendrix “Experience”.