Mark Dominik’s Mea Culpa
May 27th, 2015
Former Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik explains some mistakes he made during his administration.
But for one year, the records are terrible. And as former Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik said Tuesday, it’s on his resumé.
In what Joe believes is the most telling Dominik has been publicly about his Bucs tenure, Dominik shed light on his former administration, confessed mistakes, and sort of explained why some moves later backfired.
Dominik, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio, said over and over that the errors were on his “resumé and implied he was trying to please too many people at One Buc Palace: Only when it was too late he realized that he had to be true to himself and make moves of his own convictions, and if people at One Buc Palace were rubbed the wrong way, too damned bad.
Dominik offered this take while co-hosting “The Blitz” with Bruce Murray. The subject arose when Murray and a caller wondered aloud how first-year Bears general manager Ryan Pace could have been conned by Ray McDonald.
For those living in a vacuum, McDonald, no stranger to cops and always seemingly involved in a domestic violence incident, was arrested Monday for hassling his former fiancé. Depending on who you believe, McDonald broke down a door and tried to rip a baby from the woman’s arms.
“That is one thing that is hard on a young general manager or a general manager that gets that opportunity,” Dominik explained. “You think you know what the job entails in your head and then you realize how many different places your head has to be at once: Look, I need to be ready for free agency but I have to get ready for the draft and by the way, we have the offseason program and I’m trying to help negotiate contracts and we have a marketing deal that is about to go down. We have all these different things that are happening and, you know, there are so many different things.
“Younger general managers fall in the trap – and I did too – you are really trying to build a happy building. You are trying to make sure the coaches like the players and the scouting staff is getting along with the coaching staff and that there is an open door and the communication is really strong. When you do that, sometimes you end up either signing players that two years later is on your resume that you regret, saying, ‘I was just doing what everybody wanted’ and/or making these decisions [signing dirtbags]. I was guilty of both of them.
“I signed players to extensions where I look back and say, ‘You know what? I should have just stood my ground.’ But I didn’t. It is what it is. That’s on my resumé. Or, we gave [The King of Turds] Jerramy Stevens an extension, I gave him a two-year extension and he made a poor choice right before a game [chuckles]. I sat there – it’s on my resumé. I didn’t sign Jerramy Stevens the first time but I did give him a small deal to come back. That’s on my resumé.
“That is the hardest thing as a general manager when you are in that situation because you are trying to build the building and try to change the culture of the building with a very positive mentality of we can all work this together. But when [McDonald] happens, it goes back to your resume. It’s what you have to live with and you have to be very careful not to go down that road again.”
Again, this seems to be the most candid Dominik has been about what went wrong and what eventually led to his dismissal. Joe is going to guess when Dominik referred to “extensions” — plural — another had to be the ill-advised re-signing of wide receiver and blocking icon Michael Clayton, who was catching-the-football challenged.
Joe remembers part of Dominik’s rationale. He wanted to throw the ball deep and Clayton could block downfield so well. Sounds good until you realize that a wide receiver’s key responsibility is to catch the damn ball. Blocking is secondary. A receiver is pretty much worthless if he can’t catch the ball. That’s like signing a turnstile of a tackle because of his ability to catch.
If you sign a player for any other reason than his ability to perform his primary responsibility, you are setting yourself up for trouble.
It doesn’t take Columbo to read between the lines of what Dominik was saying to conclude he had a lot of people in his ear that he was trying to appease. He should have thrown everyone out of his office and told folks, “I’m in charge, we are doing it my way because it is my arse. If you don’t like it, there’s the exit sign.”
It sure seems like while trying to make folks happy, he dug his own grave.
May 27th, 2015 at 8:17 am
Cue the Dominik haters, but geez that’s see…Jason licht in his first year signed all those free agents, signed back guys like Casillas and it all blew up on him too. Blame Lovie right??? Very honest opinion by Dom. You learn on the job, if licht struggles then we will be trying another new GM. Just great. Buc realist please save your hot air and stick with your own place to hold “court”room
May 27th, 2015 at 8:29 am
In the NFl it’s all about the draft then developing those picks. Dominik consistently drafted poorly and didn’t have good coaches to develop that talent. Not sure if it’s the scouts or the front office but the 8-10 years of bad drafts is the real reason the Bucs are the Raiders of the NFC.
Dominik sucked, but he should’ve never been a GM in the first place. I hope when Lovie and Licht are fired the glazers bring in a vp of football ops to run the show as they suck at hiring coaches and gms.
May 27th, 2015 at 8:35 am
Out of all the bonehead mistakes and poor choices that Mark Dominik made while he was GM the Jeremy Stevens signing was not that big of a deal…
Horrible draft choices, over paying every free agent, hiring Greg Schiano, poor choice of franchise QB, resigning bad players to lucrative contracts (Clayton,Black,Trueblood), the Revis deal, failing to draft offensive lineman…
There were so many mistakes over his tenure that I nearly forgot about J. Stevens… But thanks for reminding us how bad a GM Mark Dominik was…
If forget, which NFL team does he work for?
Oh ya, he is still unemployed… Go figure!!!
May 27th, 2015 at 8:37 am
Tampa tony I hope yo a$$ get fired. Ole busta…
May 27th, 2015 at 8:39 am
Dom was far from perfect…but did he ever have a chance with Raheem and Schiano? Raheem was out partying with his players and Schiano just never had a shot in this league. Raheem was the Glazers hire…and we know Schiano at least wasn’t one of their top options when they settled and hired him. Perhaps his biggest downfall was not ousting clueless Dennis Hickey early in his regime.
May 27th, 2015 at 8:44 am
I agree @mac. Stevens was small potatoes compared to most of his mistakes. The Revs deal really was a terrible job along with all those players we released or traded to go play for the Patriots in a Superbowl no less.
May 27th, 2015 at 8:48 am
At least Steven’s produced. If the guy was drowning I’d throw him a cinder block, but I don’t even THINK about that move when I think of the cavalcade of Dominik blunders
The Clayton extension was by far and away his worst move.
Drafting Mark Barron #7 is a close second – I have said since the MOMENT they made the pick, if Barron didn’t become Ronnie Lott, the pick was a bust. You don’t take a safety that high. Period.
Not re-signing Jeff Garcia and going with Byron Leftwich, when all Garcia wanted to do was a) start and b) mentor a semi-mobile young quarterback (i.e. Josh Freeman) is another one that I just scratched my head to the bone on.
Trading UP for Luke Stocker was inconsequential but it always perplexed me because after seeing him play, the guy wasn’t worth trading up for. It cost us an extra pick to do so and for what? 12 catches… IN A CAREER???
May 27th, 2015 at 8:57 am
Dungy built a culture before he built a team. The Bucs have had so much front office turnover they have no culture. Hopefully Lovie can help return it.
May 27th, 2015 at 8:59 am
Multiple bad picks in multiple drafts……enough said.
May 27th, 2015 at 9:14 am
I haven’t heard a worst excuse since last year when Lovie’s Defense said that they were not prepared for a three step drop by Baltimore. Like no one has ever run that in the nfl.
This article just proves what a “yes” man Dominik is! And why every offseason how there was a new “philosophy” and new “plan”. It was always amazing how “deep” the draft was going to be in the Bucs most glaring need. 6 years later the Bucs is one of the most talentless rosters in the Nfl, ( News Flash, a couple of good players does not make a talented roster!!)
I will not forgive the “Era of Ineptitude” until one of the Glazers grabs a mic and in front of media apologizes for the $h!t show that they put on the field during the pop-star era.
We still have not idea what kind of coaches Rah and Coach Schiano are because they had not chance with that Buffoon in the front office!!!
May 27th, 2015 at 9:34 am
This “Rock Star” will never get another shot at a GM position because of the horrible job he did.
He was never even remotely qualified for this job. This is what happens when your hire someone with good locks because you mistake it for being smart as well.
The guy had absolutely no experience in scouting or personnel yet here he is heading the Bucs drafts. Geeeeze.
One blunder after another.
The one thing he could do was write pretty good contracts although he did pay way to much for Quincy Black and Michael Clayton. I never ever understood those deals.
The only person who ever thought Dominick was a “Rock Star,” was Joe.
I’m praying his nickname for Jameis doesn’t turn out the same way.
May 27th, 2015 at 9:34 am
Michael Clayton. The man Mark Dominik signed in 2009 to a 24 million dollar 5 year extension coming off of not one, not two, not three, but FOUR straight seasons where he caught less than 500 yards passing. Tiquan Underwood was more productive for the Bucs for two years in 2012-2013, I bet he wondered why he didn’t get at least a 15 million dollar extension off of it instead of a pink slip. If you ever want a laugh you should read Clayton’s rotoworld updates, which commonly poked fun at “in over his head” Mark Dominik for the atrocious deal he signed Clayton to.
But glad to see Dominik could pass the blame on to his coaches for that one.
May 27th, 2015 at 9:35 am
Did he make some bad choices drafting? Yes.. As does every GM… But actually the dude was pretty damn good at handling the cap. He definitely didn’t miss on two players that Bucs fans rave about being cornerstones for years to come (McCoy, David). Also, with a better OL Doug Martin could be great and Spence is a good player as well. So was was he the Bill Polian of the Bucs? No. But he wasn’t as terrible as some of you are saying. Oh… He also brought in Vincent Jackson. i think given another opportunity he’d have a lot of you scratching your heads.
May 27th, 2015 at 9:40 am
as bad as the lovie\licht offseason of 2014 was, the worst offseason in team history for me remains dominik & morris’ first. they didn’t just make bad decisions, they made the worst version of every decision possible. who should replace the winningest coach in our history? a DB coach younger than our captains! should josh freeman be 1st string or second string in training camp? hmmm, how about 3rd string behind a guy we trade before opening day and another guy we abandon after 3 weeks! who should replace our iconic ironman at WLB? an injury-prone safety who has never played the position! coordinators? let’s hire 2 but go back to the same coaches who worked for the guy we fired by midseason!
May 27th, 2015 at 9:41 am
This is just as many have said. An even worse offense than bad choices? Letting other people make bad choices for you.
Now, when people want to even TRY to give you credit, you don’t even know if he’s the one who thought of it.
The Teflon Dom lives. “It wasn’t my idea.”
May 27th, 2015 at 9:42 am
and that’s before getting into michael clayton, the rest of the ’09 draft, and a host of other head-scratchers
May 27th, 2015 at 9:43 am
he was excellent and innovative at structuring deals, can’t take that away from him. it’s unfortunate we did not have a better modulator of who he was giving those deals to.
May 27th, 2015 at 9:54 am
Love the defenders of Dominik: Here’s the thing, the guy was given 5 first round picks, 6 second round picks (Gaines Adams trade done by Allen), 5 third round picks, 5 fourth round picks etc and hundreds of millions of dollars to build a team over those five years.
You see if you give me a million dollars to buy a house and I use all of it to buy a 200k dollar house, I did what Dominik did while he was here. Now the defenders can look at it like I bought a mediocre house, or that I just blew a ton of resources on something that I could’ve gotten with 1/5 of what I had (failure).
The result of those resources were a 28-52 record, commonly in last place, the Schiano debacle, Raheem partying with Josh Freeman, Josh Freeman in general, the majority of his picks turning out to be busts (we can basically say that virtually every pick outside of David and McCoy were disappointments) then the undeserved contracts to Clayton, Eric Wright (5 yr 37.5 million) bloated contracts to Michael Koenen, Dashon Goldson, Carl Nicks. MRSA, the Revis trade, being the joke of the league….yeah. His tenure in Tampa went swimmingly.
May 27th, 2015 at 10:03 am
PABucsfan Says:
May 27th, 2015 at 9:35 am
He definitely didn’t miss on two players that Bucs fans rave about being cornerstones for years to come (McCoy, David). Also, with a better OL Doug Martin could be great and Spence is a good player as well”
Thing is, how can he be given credit when we don’t know what his idea, and what was him appeasing others? Unless you think only the bad ideas were other peoples.
May 27th, 2015 at 10:12 am
The Bucs are in NFL purgatory because of Dominick. Hella nice dude, hella bad GM.
I agree with BucTrooper, TheBucRealist, and drdneast. Dom sucked something fierce at building a TALENTED ROSTER, and I pray that Joe’s “rock star” moniker for Dominick doesn’t have the same effect as “America’s QB” for Jameis. Let Winston play some football first! 🙂
May 27th, 2015 at 10:14 am
My opinion of Jason Lost is poor.
Both last years free agents and this years free agents are horrible. Last year most of them were bad choices and were over paid. This year, all of them have injury concerns.
BUT…the two drafts have not been bad at all…except for one bad decision in each.
And the hiring of Dirk was great this year, but that, I think, is a combination of Licht and Lovie working together.
The main reason I dislike both free agency periods is that they reek of desperation. Both years, it is like they are scrambling to patch holes in FA instead of building quality.
A good team is built through the draft and with wisdom in signing free agents. I have not seen that wisdom at all in FA. One year they over pay. The next they go for extreme bargains and quantity.
I would rather have 1-3 quality signings in FA per year than the way it has been done thus far.
May 27th, 2015 at 11:04 am
Seems that Dom didnt have a team building philosophy or strategy and having 2 head coaches with different schemes hinders that, but in the same sense dom should have hired an HC that fit the players he had and he didnt its on him. Now the new regime seems to have a set strategy in terms of building the team offensively and let lovie handle the defense thru FAs and he will make that end work….it remains to be seen if Lichts plan will work, obviously it was a horrible failure in year one. Dom as you stated should have ran the team and had the biggest ego in the building and loudest voice like costner on draft day
May 27th, 2015 at 11:06 am
Pretty sure he avoid talking about the no-signing of current NFL star Michael Bennett
May 27th, 2015 at 11:08 am
I’m not saying that there werent some bad draft picks. How many gms in the league get it rihht right year in and year out. The reference of tthe million dollars to buy a,house is terrible though. Heres the thing. The draft is a crapshoot and you very rarely know how it’s all gonna pan out. And i completely forgot about the human armoire lost to MRSA. The Revis deal was definitely out of desperation and who knows what tampa would’ve had with that 1st overall pick. I’m not saying he was a good gm. I’m just saying he wasn’t as bad as some thought. Over half the league has gms o 5 years or less with that team right now. And 2 of the top 5 are owners. I’m all aboard jason licht though.
May 27th, 2015 at 11:29 am
PABucsfan, it has been six years since the Bucs hired Mark Dominik, after five years here, and one by Licht, the team is coming off the worst record in the NFL and is in a total rebuild mode. If you spend five years as GM of a team that was rebuilding while you were here, losing it’s way to top draft picks (two top 5 picks) and yet after you leave we are still rebuilding off the worst record of a 32 team league you’ve done a heck of a bad job.
If Dominik wasn’t a bad GM, what does a bad GM look like? What does someone have to do to earn such a title, set fire to the building?
May 27th, 2015 at 11:58 am
Yeah, Dominik was really overall not too good. I hate to be critical when I have no idea of how demanding a job GM actually is. Hindsight is 20/20 but the Clayton deal, well you dont need hindsight to know how that was going to turn out.
Dom gets a lot of spit but really, he was with the Bucs for over a decade when he was hired. I beleive he worked in scouting before becoming GM. But.. how could someone who comes from scouting be so bad at drafting? Well Im not so sure about that. Once a player is drafted, its up to the coaches to, well, coach and help these players progress. Did these players, coached by Raheem and Schiano and their respective staff, have a chance here in Tampa at that time? Neither of these coaches had NFL head coaching experience which kind of wasted five years of football here in Tampa. The players, and Dominik, never stood a chance.
May 27th, 2015 at 12:44 pm
No one is even mentioning the two coordinators that Dominik hand picked in 2009! The D-coordinator made it 6 games and the O-coordinator did not make it to the regular season! and he did not even have a heart attack, He just Sucked!!!
Really would wish someone would ask Dominik why he Hand picked these guys???
May 27th, 2015 at 1:03 pm
Another good point. Dom was arguably worse at picking coaches (Jagozinski, Jim Bates, Schiano, Bill Sheridan) than he was at picking players in the draft or free agency.
May 27th, 2015 at 1:46 pm
I recall a 10-6 record under Dom. Only losing a tie breaker to the eventual super bowl champion packers. now Dom didnt draft a whole lot of great players. But i actually put the losing seasons on the shoulders of the coaches. Bad game prep, bad habits, then a coach who players just apparently ddidn’t Wanna play for. Also they didn’t know the rules of the game. So you don’t give Pete Carroll any credit out in Seattle? Their success is based solely on the never missing gm? I never said Dom was good. He just wasnt terrible. And he was good with the cap. Minus the revis deal. But revis sells himself. Just did it again with the Jets. Again, i’m not mad Dom was fired fired. It was warranted and i’m all for what Licht is doing. Have you forgotten about their 3 huge paydays they just handed out last season?
May 27th, 2015 at 1:47 pm
I wonder why he stuck with Dennis Hickey so long???
May 27th, 2015 at 3:50 pm
@ Bucrealist
Thanks for reminding me of that nightmare… We should make a top ten list of Mark Dominik worst mistakes…
1) Revis
2) Mark Baron > L. Keuchly
3) Greg Schiano
4) 2009 draft
5) Let’s build around number five
6) paying a guard a huge percent of the salary cap because you don’t draft lineman
7) Jim Bates
8) Jagozinski
9) Michael Clayton extension
10) J. Trueblood extension
11) goodbye Michael Bennett
12) Eric Wright
13) trading up for Stocker
I’m sure there are many more…
May 27th, 2015 at 5:37 pm
His biggest mistakes: Hiring Schiano, trading back into the first round to draft Doug Martin(while he have Blount) trading Talib for a 4th rounder(then trading a 1st and 4th for Revis)letting Bennett walk,drafting Mark Barron instead of Keuchly,refusing to draft 0-Lineman with top picks,wasting top picks on the D-Line year after year. McCoy 1st, Clayborn 1st, Bowers 2nd, Price 2nd, Miller 3rd.
May 27th, 2015 at 5:52 pm
I didn’t like Dom, and I was glad to see him finally go. But at this poin TODAYt, I can’t say I would rather have Licht
May 27th, 2015 at 6:25 pm
I think the Revis trade needs to be mentioned in the conversation of “Worst Trade In NFL History”…. 1st & a 4th + $16m for one season and 4 wins… 1 INT.
I know it’s chic to blame him for passing on Luke Keuchly but drill down and remember the year before he drafted Mason Foster and in his (feeble) mind, he was set at MLB. So I don’t think that it was so much of a PASS as it was that he wasn’t looking under that rock…. BUT MARK BARRON???? GOOD GOD.
3 Dominik draft picks signed extensions… McCoy, Mike Williams (who got shipped to BUF), and Luke Stocker. So in 5 drafts, Dominik found 2 players worth keeping to build with…. one is a role player.
Worst GM in Bucs History…. period.
May 27th, 2015 at 6:34 pm
Its a shame that in Dominik’s first year that he was out guarenteed money for the Albert Haynsworth by Washington. it was only by a couple of millions! Had Dominik completed that trade he would have the title of “The Worst NFL GM” of all time!!!!
May 27th, 2015 at 8:23 pm
Amazing. PABucsfan chooses to remember the one season that they didn’t lose more games than they won and went 10-6. Five seasons under Dominik, and you remember that one season and somehow forget the four losing ones. We went 3-13 in 2009, 4-12 in 2011, 7-9 in 2012, and 4-12 in 2013 in case you forgot. Talk about confirmation bias. If I run an experiment and 4 out of 5 times you lose you left pinky you are telling me you’d take those odds? Because that’s why you just effectively said. You must love Vegas, heck, the odds are better in Vegas than that.
May 28th, 2015 at 6:49 am
mac Says:
May 27th, 2015 at 3:50 pm
@ Bucrealist
Thanks for reminding me of that nightmare… We should make a top ten list of Mark Dominik worst mistakes…
1) Revis
2) Mark Baron > L. Keuchly
3) Greg Schiano
4) 2009 draft
5) Let’s build around number five
6) paying a guard a huge percent of the salary cap because you don’t draft lineman
7) Jim Bates
8) Jagozinski
9) Michael Clayton extension
10) J. Trueblood extension
11) goodbye Michael Bennett
12) Eric Wright
13) trading up for Stocker
I’m sure there are many more…
—————-
Drafting a slow RDE-only in round 1 when there was an elite LDE (Cam Jordan) available and better, more explosive RDE-types available later (Sheard, Houston, etc). I had Jordan, Houston, and Sheard rated much higher and all 3 have been better NFL pass rushers.
May 28th, 2015 at 6:51 am
May 27th, 2015 at 6:25 pm
I think the Revis trade needs to be mentioned in the conversation of “Worst Trade In NFL History”…. 1st & a 4th + $16m for one season and 4 wins… 1 INT.
I know it’s chic to blame him for passing on Luke Keuchly but drill down and remember the year before he drafted Mason Foster and in his (feeble) mind, he was set at MLB. So I don’t think that it was so much of a PASS as it was that he wasn’t looking under that rock…. BUT MARK BARRON???? GOOD GOD.
3 Dominik draft picks signed extensions… McCoy, Mike Williams (who got shipped to BUF), and Luke Stocker. So in 5 drafts, Dominik found 2 players worth keeping to build with…. one is a role player.
Worst GM in Bucs History…. period.
———–
It was actually a 1st and 3rd at the time… plus Revis was coming off of the ACL, he never was healthy that one and only season and no guarantee he ever would be, and then he paid him well OVER market value.
May 28th, 2015 at 11:29 am
the revis deal only ever made sense in the context of a multi year deal, which dominik wasn’t around to see through. we’d be entering our 3rd year with a clearly effective revis and cap wise would be no worse off than the cap space committed to michael johnson + verner over the same span. under those conditions, and given our extremely healthy cap situation, i think the revis deal was justifiable and even impressive
May 29th, 2015 at 3:24 pm
Pick6, did Michael Johnson and Verner cost us a 1st and a 4th round pick to acquire? No. Were there other CB’s available in free agency that were also very good and would probably still be here had they signed without additional compensation because their cap numbers were far more tolerable? Yes. Argument invalidated.