What Could Have Been
January 23rd, 2015
In what turned out to be his final game, Jeff Tedford thought he had the offense right on track.
Though the Bucs now have a new offensive coordinator and a new quarterbacks coach, Joe thought he would give readers one last peek into his interview with former OC Jeff Tedford last week.
If Bucs fans haven’t quite washed away memories of 2014 with their favorite brand of bourbon, they’d remember that after a couple of horrific offensive performances in the preseason, the Bucs’ offense looked sharp in the third preseason game at Buffalo.
Tedford said at that point, the offense was right on schedule. Sadly, that was the last time Tedford ran the offense. He had blacked out prior to that very game, and in a matter of hours after touching back down in Tampa, found himself in the hospital.
“Oh, yeah. For sure. I thought we played pretty well in that first half with the starters,” Tedford said. “That’s the game, as you know, all the starters play for at least the first half. So, we moved the ball pretty well and scored some points. We had a pretty productive first half.
“So, yeah, I was very encouraged by it. Even in the second half when we needed to run clock we ran clock. So I was very encouraged.”
Obviously, we can only speculate what would have happened had Tedford never gotten sick. As it happened, ill-suited Marcus Arroyo, no longer with the Bucs, took over the offense and all hell broke loose.
No one will ever know what might have been.
January 23rd, 2015 at 7:46 am
Please Joe(s), can’t you just let Ted Jefford stagger off into oblivion?
The guy eerily looks like Bob Newhart……
January 23rd, 2015 at 7:51 am
joe, get out of here with the look good in that one pre-season game. You know who dominated that game? GMC. and what happen the rest of the year. It did not look like it did when the regular season started.
Also Tedford would still have to work with McCown and the O-line. They might not have the #1 draft pick, but they still would be top 5!
January 23rd, 2015 at 8:52 am
If only we could have run the very secretive yet highly touted “speed in space” offense with the great Trash McCown all would have been right with this Bucs offense.
Spare me.
January 23rd, 2015 at 8:55 am
Tedford is history, gone, departed, terminated, through, finished, vanished, elsewhere, SYONARA, ADIOS, AU-REVOIR, Auf WIEDERSHEN, CHEERIO, ADJO, ANTIO, DO SVIDANIYA, HASTA LA VISTA, BYE-BYE…. SO LONG Of course, Schiano would say CAIO!!!
January 23rd, 2015 at 9:13 am
I love the new QB coach hire!
January 23rd, 2015 at 9:21 am
It’s still a mystery why the TE’s and slot WR were so underutilized.
And Love me Not is still talking balanced attack?
January 23rd, 2015 at 9:24 am
@Robert9
yep, every Bucs coach hire is the answer, and every coach fired was the problem!
January 23rd, 2015 at 9:35 am
you got me there realist.
but arroyo was a joke, and tedford was not there.
so I am happy with these two hires.
January 23rd, 2015 at 9:37 am
Realist, you still have Lovie as HC. Hint… Warhoo is still here too.
January 23rd, 2015 at 9:42 am
warhop still being there is a head shaker.
I think lovie was horrible, but have not jumped on the fire lovie bandwagon. I still think tanking the season was part of the bigger plan. He payed mcclown 5 mill to do it too.
now we have the 1st pick and the 2 new hires look like they have a lot more experience than the ones they are replacing.
January 23rd, 2015 at 10:05 am
Makes me so sad. Here’s to a better season in 2015
January 23rd, 2015 at 10:12 am
Losing can persuade you to change what doesn’t need to be changed, and winning can convince you everything is fine even if you are on the brink of disaster. – Garry Kasparov
January 23rd, 2015 at 10:31 am
Is someone ever going to fess up to what the hell actually happened w that whole mess?
January 23rd, 2015 at 10:43 am
Mike10- that would involve taking responsibility for mistakes made and as we all know Lovie Smith can do no wrong
January 23rd, 2015 at 10:46 am
Let’s just hope Dirk “Diggler” Koetter can bring back some sort of respectability to our offense. Maybe some long deep shots with some short to intermediate stabs then pound it again with some long deep shots down the field. And of course there’s always time for a little run action, like they say, “if there’s grass on the field play ball”!
January 23rd, 2015 at 12:38 pm
I just want to personally thank Tedford for helping us achieve the top pick this year.
If our offense runs smoothly maybe we go 7-9 this year, who knows. But instead we have the first blue-chip QB to come out since Luck. Who would you rather have 2013 No. 1 Eric Fisher, 2014 No. 1 Jadeveon Clowney or 2015 No. 1 Jameis Winston(Marcus Mariota)…I’m taking 2015 thank you Tedford 🙂
January 23rd, 2015 at 3:03 pm
all i can hope for now is that we look back and say losing tedford at the last minute was the best thing to happen to the bucs since the Superbowl. the depends entirely on how our draft pick and new OC turn out
January 23rd, 2015 at 3:10 pm
I don’t care about Tedford, don’t care why he didn’t come back after week 11, he is a non-issue. Maybe he helped us suck more by not being there, but it doesn’t matter, we sucked, he is gone, we have the first draft pick….next.