A Rockstar “Set Up”
March 2nd, 2015
The new regime appreciates the old regime
By now, most Bucs fans have realized their beloved Buccaneers are about $30 million under the 2015 salary cap, and the free agency dinner bell rings in eight days.
The Bucs can play the game, if they desire.
Classy guy that he is, Bucs general manager Jason Licht won’t take all the credit.
“It was set up, you know, the prior regime did an outstanding job putting us in good shape,” Licht said recently on SiriusXM NFL Radio, referring to the Bucs’ flexibility under the salary cap.
Yes, Tampa Bay was well managed financially under the regime of former rockstar general manager Mark Dominik.
Heck, the Bucs would still be in great shape with Darrelle Revis on the roster right now. (The secondary would look better, too!) And the Bucs can add about 25 percent more cap room by cutting punter Michael Koenen and safety Dashon “Hawk” Goldson. Both overpaid for their production.
During that radio interview, Licht repeated that the Bucs have “holes to fill,” are seeking more “Clinton McDonalds,” and don’t feel compelled to make a free agency splash but would not hesitate.
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:25 pm
Yea….the “Rock Star”…….The Realist’s “Pop Star” really left us in great shape…..the long-lasting top draft picks….wow….Thank you Dom!!!
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:26 pm
Doesn’t matter how much FUKN money they have or spend if they keep acquiring garbage.
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:31 pm
Take all the freaking credit for finances you want. Ima start cheering when someone takes credit for WINNING!!!
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:35 pm
I think love earned the top draft pick. The rock star didn’t cut 10-12 players that went on to START in the NFL for other teams. Including as Joe wrote, letting Revis go and him being a 2-time pro bowler, an all pro this year since the trade with the Jets. Hopefully this year we won’t waste 150milliom plus on Collins, Johnson, mccown, verner, etc, etc, etc…I don’t blame dom for this anymore
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:35 pm
^Lovie
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:36 pm
Six wins in the last 2 years. Yep, we’re in good shape alright
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:38 pm
Laughable…
Pretty easy to keep a team in good financial standing when you draft so poorly, for so very, very long.
Dom’s drafts were so horrible that nobody besides McCoy was good enough to get a second (expensive) contract.
It’s a f**king joke how behind this franchise is in the development of drafted/homegrown talent over the last ten years… Absolute joke.
No wonder Mr. “Rockstar” only has a part time media gig now.
Hope Licht can do better.
Go Sucs!!!
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:59 pm
Have to admit…if there was 1 positive with Dom it was the money side of things…for that I’ll give him a B+…as for player evaluation/drafting he gets an D-…The only reason I didn’t give him an F was because of McCoy, David, and Martin…Drafting a Punter instead of Greg Hardy was just sad…
March 2nd, 2015 at 6:33 pm
Jason Licht sucks.
The Browns just paid 2 1/2 times what they could have gotten McCown for in trade, and, as usual, he blows it. Releases him. A 6th would have been better than nothing.
I don’t see how anyone can give him a passing grade. All of his trares have sucked.
March 2nd, 2015 at 6:50 pm
the guy knew how to structure damn good contracts, unfortunately he repeatedly found the wrong players to give them too. that made it all the more important that we could walk away from almost any deal before the 3rd year
March 2nd, 2015 at 6:50 pm
*typo….”give them to”, not “give them too”
March 2nd, 2015 at 6:51 pm
This article should read, “Rockstar was a salary-cap-mess away from being a complete failure.” Not to mention the real figure he left behind should be $16 mil less – we gotta mention that if you’re leaving out throwing away a first round pick.
March 2nd, 2015 at 7:08 pm
Licht has to break the trend set by Dominik and Bruce Allen and be able to draft and develop!
March 2nd, 2015 at 7:28 pm
He was an administrator
March 2nd, 2015 at 7:47 pm
Really, Joe? The Dominik love affair is just played out, and a little sad at this point. He’s gone – it’s time to let go. If the best thing you can say about a GM is, “He was excellent with numbers,” then he wasn’t a very good GM.
March 2nd, 2015 at 7:50 pm
Yep we should thank BRUCE ALLEN-
Because when HE lift the organization in 2009—Raheem & Dom had over $45million in cap space to spend-So lets give credit where credit is due.
March 2nd, 2015 at 8:01 pm
It is NOT “easy” to simply draft poorly and produce a low salary cap numer…because we carry a 55 man roster – as well as an allotment for a developmental squad, AND there is a floor to the salary cap…meaning that every team has the same minimum…
You can make the case that we spent too much on players, but I’d argue that the deal that allowed us to sign Darrelle Revis to a to one year contract, with no salary cap impact even if he was cut – made up for overpaying Koenen, Goldson, and Johnson…
The cap and the floor are the same for the Bucs as they are for the Patriots.
The reason your Bucs suck, is because you have owners that rate unproven position coaches, and terrible college coaches as highly as a head coach that won division championships and Super Bowls.
See, each time you hire a coach, he has the right to take a team in a different direction – offensively and defensively. Each has a right to draft their future QB’s and hire high priced free agents.
Each time you hire a coach, allow him a minimum of two years, it means he’s going to make as LITTLE change as he A) commits to (in Raheem’s case), or as MUCH as he thinks he needs to (as in the case of an idiot like Schiano)…
It’s why the Tampa fanbase has to start holding the owners accountable for the lack of intelligence in hiring-firing head coaches. These SAME owners TRADED their franchises future to cover up for the terrible way they fired Tony Dungy (thinking they were going to sign Bill Parcels, who actually had NEVER SIGNED A CONTRACT TO COACH for them – because THE OWNERS RENEGGED on HIS requirements. That forced the Keystone Cop coaching junket where they offered a contract to 1st Ralph Freidgen, Steve Marriucci, and finally trading the future for Jon Gruden.
You want to know why this franchise sucks? It’s because of THAT track record by ownership. I’m not throwing rocks at our owners, I just think they either don’t have a managing partner, or they don’t reach consensus – because there has been a complete LACK of direction since losing Malcom Glazier. When Malcom bought the franchise – he introduced the first true and consistent competitive spirit, ever. By hiring Tony Dungy and giving the lattitude to build the team his way, he gave him the support to bring in his type of coach and player, and the patience necessary to produce a winner – Malcom defined the role the ownership has with the community and the community to slowly respond to a well executed strategy to A) build a winner, B) build a fanbase. The fact is, Malcom was struck down by a stroke before his sons had the football wisdom he had attained – is clear. Some of do not remember the lessons of the Hugh Culverhouse era, this isn’t really our team – it’s the owners team. The owners mistakenly concluded that despite the poor quality of their product, we HAD to show up to watch THEIR team. Well, they finally got 100% of the fanbase that agrees with them. That’s about 1/3 of all available season tickets (and shrinking)…
…until the hiring of Lovie Smith.
Now, I can’t say I was a Lovie Smith fan…but I wasn’t against his hiring. It’s a clear message to those of us who remembered Malcom’s original strategy. He found a coach so similar to Tony Dungy, they once went head to head in a Super Bowl. he has ties to the successful foundation of the franchise…yet he is flexible enough to have learned the lesson his mentor had to learn the hard way (and in Indianapolis) in order to have a chance at ALL the marbles – both sides of the ball be competitive, both need great schemes, and BOTH need to have talent.
It takes time to re-build a franchise that’s been sent in so many directions in such a short amount of time. I think if you learn patience, you’ll be rewarded with success and pride.
March 2nd, 2015 at 8:02 pm
^^^Allen also left this team devoid of talent. His drafts were the absolute worst. Traded back to grab Dexter Jackson (the other one) instead of just taking Desean Jackson. Gaines Adams, Cadillac Williams, Sabby the goat, no franchise QB, etc.
Bruce Allen’s tenure is indefensible
March 2nd, 2015 at 8:24 pm
@DallasBuc
You right they both did an equally terrible job. I’ll give the edge to Bruce- for being the better GM though.
Bruce Allen (2004-2008) 38-42 (.475) 0-2 playoffs
Mark Dominik (2009-2013) 28-52 (.350) 0 playoffs
March 2nd, 2015 at 8:55 pm
I think Dom would do well with a proven, veteran coach. One that already had an offensive and defensive philosophy – then Dom would be masterful at identifying the right mid-round draft picks and the exact role players needed to keep a consistently performing team – competitive.
He’s not a guy who can pick an up and coming coaching talent. He’s not a guy that can develop a strategy and direction for a bottom dwelling team (ala Bill Polian).
He wasn’t bad at salary cap management – but it gets back to keeping a pretty good team…pretty good. He maintains, he’s just never proven to improve a struggling team. How much of that was his issue versus how much the ownership handcuffed him to their vision/strategy remains to be seen…
March 2nd, 2015 at 9:23 pm
Jeez, Dom must’ve been a great source for Joe to be pimpin a bad GM this much. Strong money on Dom never being a GM again. He put together some of the worst rosters in Bucs history.
March 2nd, 2015 at 9:35 pm
Having cap space is nice – but a lot of that is because Dominik didn’t draft anyone other than McCoy (and soon David) who was worth extending. I’d rather have an 11 win team without a lot of cap space than a flexible 2-14 team any day.
March 2nd, 2015 at 11:12 pm
Worst gm in buccaneer history, any cap hit can do contacts, you don’t credit for the cap with bad signings. Writing was on the wall for Dominick as agm when he gave Eric wright a boat load of money
March 3rd, 2015 at 1:47 am
Saving 30 million means he wasted about 90 millions.
March 3rd, 2015 at 9:05 am
Dominik was awful but GM Gruden was worse.
March 3rd, 2015 at 11:26 am
There are only 2 reasons we have cap space:
1. We have no franchise QB.
2. Because we continue to cut the players we’ve drafted instead of signing them to 2nd contracts. Thats because we draft poorly.
Period.
Thats it folks. Thats how it works. When you have a QB and nail draft picks you have to resign them. Thats when you run out of money to spend.
So thanks Rock Star for signing big money deals that make it easy for us to walk away from when they dont pan out. And from drafting players we never have to resign.
March 3rd, 2015 at 1:37 pm
Don’t give him praise, the entire reason we have so much cap room is because we’re so short on talent worth paying & that shows in the record.
I think most Buc fans would love to be up against the cap and struggling to find room every year if it meant seeing some wins.
March 3rd, 2015 at 6:49 pm
Folks are not arguing to the point of this article. Mark Dominik left in great shape as far as cap room to pursue free agents this year. That cannot be debated.
March 3rd, 2015 at 6:52 pm
bucs4lyfe, the fact that Hugh Culverhouse once served as GM means that no other GM could ever qualify for the title of “worst GM in Buccaneer history.” You could put a monkey or a cat in that office and they still wouldn’t earn that title, let alone Dominik.