“The Triangle” At One Buc
February 13th, 2023
Two members of Team Glazer.
Many NFL owners either say they’re not involved in football decisions or they want that perception out there.
So Joe was intrigued to hear yet another renowned football coach say the opposite is true.
Broncos head coach Sean Payton, the former slimy Saints top dog, had a sitdown last week with The Pat McAfee Show. Joe already shared Payton’s take on Tom Brady referencing bad football. But more interesting to Joe was Payton talking about ‘The Triangle” in NFL organizations, and how it must unify to make decisions and set direction.
“The Triangle,” per Payton, is team ownership, the general manager and the head coach. Payton, of course, worked for the Eagles, Giants, Cowboys, Saints and now gets a check from the Broncos.
That intriguing chatter got Joe thinking about how Bucs head coach Todd Bowles, GM Jason Licht and the five-member panel of Team Glazer view their quarterback position, the vacant offensive coordinator gig and the Bucs being 10 miles over the salary cap, and more.
Is everyone on the same page with the same priorities?
Logic says that’s unlikely unless the direction was set before last season. However, Joe can’t go there because Joe cannot imagine anyone in the braintrust foresaw the 2022 Bucs season playing out like it did.
Joe wonders what the Bucs’ triangle of decision-making will look like. Will it be one of those skinny isosceles deals representing Team Glazer at the top, as JoeBucsFan.com columnist Ira Kaufman suggests, or will there be a more democratic approach?
Joe wonders if Team Glazer will tell Bowles and Licht something said to have been told to former Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik and head coach Raheem Morris: “If you think short-term, then we’ll think short-term …”
Translation: If you play to win now, then we’ll expect you to win now.
February 13th, 2023 at 11:48 am
I think that Arians wanted Bowles as his DC so bad, that he promised to hand over the HC role when he retired.
I think the Glazers honor that one more year.
So Bowles is getting a fair chance…but I also think the new OC may be someone who has the potential to replace Bowles next year.
I do believe the Glazers now trust Jason Licht…and that Licht is fully in charge of the roster. Sure, he’ll have to go some defense this year (no choice there), but I think he’s eyeing next year as well.
February 13th, 2023 at 11:49 am
The Glazers brought two Lombardi’s to Tampa and made the team relevant (despite the lost decade.)
I shall be forever grateful.
February 13th, 2023 at 11:49 am
WAY to many cooks in the kitchen!
the more people involved, the greater the chances of disagreement, conflicts, animosity and poor planning…
February 13th, 2023 at 11:49 am
I suspect before even Brady or Bowles that BA and Licht addressed this triangle.
The arrival of Brady simply refocused it.
I find it hard to believe that Licht/BA now Bowles haven’t created virtually every scenario possible and then discussed them all with ownership. Bottom line I do not believe Licht or the Glazers to be so lacking that they fail to prepare and re-adjust future scenarios.
February 13th, 2023 at 11:49 am
I would say the new OC might replace Bowles halfway through this year, but the Glazers do not like firing coaches mid-season.
February 13th, 2023 at 11:51 am
@Cobraboy
Agreed!
February 13th, 2023 at 11:56 am
*** If you play to win now, then we’ll expect you to win now.***
How much “rope” comes with this?
February 13th, 2023 at 12:02 pm
@gp. Hopefully not a lot. Licht got us I to this mess and Bowles can’t coach effectively. Yet we should still have a competitive team in the weak NFC South.
February 13th, 2023 at 12:02 pm
There is no triangle at one Buc Place the Glazers are putting all their trust in Licht. And Todd Bowles is too passive to demand players in the draft he will just ask Licht. The sad part Licht is only good for OLine players and Bowles defensive backs.
February 13th, 2023 at 12:05 pm
The “mess” was created to help Brady get two more Lombardis.
I’m OK with it.
But now no Brady, no real chance of a Lombardi, so time to clean up the cap and go forward building for another run.
February 13th, 2023 at 12:16 pm
They new they were going to be hot garbage water this coming season and that’s why the season tickets came with a 2 season minimum.
I would argue the Bucs are possibly in the worst situation in the NFL.
Questionable GM, loser HC (who inspires ZERO confidence), no OC, no QB, Salary Cap Hell, few if any elite game changing players, etc…
From the Pinnacle to the Pit lightning fast.
We all knew it was coming but it still sucks!
February 13th, 2023 at 12:18 pm
Owners do matter and ours have given us 2 super bowls in 30 years, way Bove average.
Our guys are good enough for Brady and Bruce etc.
February 13th, 2023 at 12:19 pm
They knew the long term ramifications of bringing in Brady and giving him everything he wanted on the roster. I’m sure they came into it with their eyes wide open, knowing that eventually, the bill would have to be paid.
What’s going to hurt this team more than coaching and any of this salary cap business is Devon White, JTS, and Logan Hall not developing into the players that they drafted them to be. Players play the game, and if three out of the last four 1st round picks don’t earn second contracts that is a death sentence.
February 13th, 2023 at 12:33 pm
The sad part if they keep pushing money down the road in 2024 Whites up for a huge raise, Winfield is up for a huge raise and Wirfs 5th year option is due. So in other words its time to trim the fat. See yah Smith, Gage, Mason, Lenny and after june 1st see you Barrett.
February 13th, 2023 at 12:36 pm
Glazers suck, that’s a fact. They just throw money on a issue and expect that to work. SELL THE TEAM
February 13th, 2023 at 12:44 pm
I think the Glazers need to hands down say Licht you are safe because he has proven he is good. With Bowles I think they need to talk to him and get his expectations and work from there
February 13th, 2023 at 12:46 pm
SKBucsFan Says:
February 13th, 2023 at 12:02 pm
@gp. Hopefully not a lot. Licht got us I to this mess and Bowles can’t coach effectively. Yet we should still have a competitive team in the weak NFC South.
The NFC East was horrible the last two years and was expected to be bad again this year. Things change quickly in the NFL. Have two Super Bowls, enough said
February 13th, 2023 at 12:48 pm
Yeah Yucs. Guess every franchise should sell that hasn’t won a SB in a few years. Asinine comment, a number of franchises have never been or won even one.
February 13th, 2023 at 1:01 pm
You can dress it up any way you like, but this franchise turned around in a good way once the glazers bought this team. Take away a very very small handful of teams out of these 32 we currently have and we are arguably as successful a franchise as any of them if Lombardi’s are any indication. People here b!tch and moan all day about the owners. How do you think Lions fans feel? Texans fans? Jaguars fans? Panthers fans? Falcons fans? That’s just off the top of my head. Clearly we are going to into next year being nobody’s favorite. Even the Rams and their hotshot Coach and purchased quarterback took a giant dump this year. It happens. Not supremely confident but certainly interested in what happens next.
February 13th, 2023 at 1:03 pm
Patrickbucs
These glazer boys didn’t win anything in 2002, that was their daddy. These current glazers haven’t done JACK. They got lucky AF landing TB12 and I’d give most of that to Licht. Besides that they are HORRIBLE owners. You already forgot the lost decade and blackout galore huh? They are garbage.
February 13th, 2023 at 1:05 pm
What pi$$es me off is we got no comp picks….Leftwich didn’t get the HC job at Jax….we promote Bowles….and nada…..what a bummer
February 13th, 2023 at 1:06 pm
Joe my biggest question is, why was the offense staff let go and the Bucs didn’t have a solid replacement plan. Something interesting must be brewing at one buc place. I mean I am not gonna quit my job unless I have another one line up or I catch the lottery. Even if someone said they were willing to take the job. If they don’t sign on the dotted line it’s not a go.
February 13th, 2023 at 1:14 pm
Joel Glazer was the one who picked up the phone, called Al Davis and made the deal for Chucky.
(Al Davis initially told Glazer he would only deal with Rich McKay and Glazer told Davis that he fired McKay.)
February 13th, 2023 at 1:20 pm
Joe, good luck getting the glazer haters to see any kind of logic. And thanks for the clarification regarding the phone call. But even if it was the dad, so what? So they quote unquote got lucky with Brady? Well, I think money talks, and a team built to win talks as well. Brady doesn’t come here without either of those two very important components. And if the GM got that done? Well who hired the GM? It wasn’t Dad. You can never please people who revel in their unhappiness and misery.
February 13th, 2023 at 1:24 pm
@Cobraboy, I agree with all you wrote above!
I’m amazed at some of the criticism of our GM. He’s not perfect, but he built a championship team that won a Superbowl just two years ago and then kept the window open by bringing everyone back again the following year. While that gamble didn’t pan out it was very much worth the risk.
Everyone was completely aware that that move would have salary cap consequences down the road so our current circumstances should be no surprise to anyone.
Jason Licht did exactly what he gets paid to do. He built a championship team. If the Glazer’s trust him he certainly earned that trust and were smart to extend his contract.
February 13th, 2023 at 1:29 pm
Triangle or circle jerk?
February 13th, 2023 at 1:34 pm
this wasn’t a triangle or a triple…
it was a fourple…yes a fourple…
or a quad or quadruple, if you wanna be webster’s correct…
because brady, even tho a player, was involved in much more decision making than your normal guy on the roster
February 13th, 2023 at 1:36 pm
and now it’s dipped back down to the triangle, triple play, or trifecta…
or we can just call it the “triple mcdipple” here in tampa 🙂
February 13th, 2023 at 1:48 pm
without Brady ; Licht has lost twice as many games as he’s won …
February 13th, 2023 at 1:54 pm
When are they going to announce that they are going to sell the team?
February 13th, 2023 at 2:29 pm
Unless the Bucs have a winning season next year Bowles is probably gone. We have 23 unrestricted free agents. We could see drastic changes next year and a couple of surprise cuts to get under the salary cap. Licht more than ever needs to hit a home run in the draft this year. They can call it reloading all they want but it looks like it may be closer to a rebuild.
February 13th, 2023 at 2:31 pm
The Glazers are not afraid of the word rebuild if they don’t see playoff type success with the roster
February 13th, 2023 at 2:32 pm
Regarding the “mess”, I second what Cobraboy said. He articulated my thinking better than I could have.
February 13th, 2023 at 2:39 pm
SKBucsFan Says
“Hopefully not a lot. Licht got us I to this mess…”
The horror. Winning a Superbowl…
February 13th, 2023 at 2:40 pm
YucsBall Says
“Glazers suck, that’s a fact. They just throw money on a issue and expect that to work. SELL THE TEAM”
It’s not a fact…and just for clarification, you are now saying they are not cheap, right?
February 13th, 2023 at 2:42 pm
captivajim Says
“without Brady ; Licht has lost twice as many games as he’s won …”
Glazers did not trust Licht until the year he hired Arians. The other hires (and control) were forced by the Glazers.
I’d say he got a slam dunk when he was given the keys.
February 13th, 2023 at 2:52 pm
Likewise, BuccaneerFanSince 1996.
Joel is usually the spokesperson for the Glazers and represents their internal consensus. So we do have a Triangle as described.
Our franchise is in good enough hands to have engineered a second Lombardi season. I have faith and will watch how they handle our current situation this year. I don’t know if they are following Plan B, C, or D.
February 13th, 2023 at 2:57 pm
Sell !
February 13th, 2023 at 2:59 pm
Buccaneer Bonzai
They’re not cheap, they just got generational wealth from their daddy and no idea what they’re doing.
February 13th, 2023 at 3:38 pm
Jeebus guys do you not respect “scoreboard”?
Let’s compare the Glazers performance to the other franchises in our state.
Miami last went to the Super Bowl after the ’84 season. Thats more than 35 years ago for what was once one of the NFL’s leading franchises. IE During the time the Glazer family got to and WON 2 SB’s the Dophins never even made an appearance!
How about the other team. Jacksonville is one of four NFL franchises that have never played in the Super Bowl, alongside the Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, and division rival Houston Texans. That’s 12% of all the NFL franchise that have never REACHED ONE SB much less win two!
Jeebus can we stop being such soreheads? The losing around here is now centered in a fan base that seems to be impossible to please. When the Bucs win the Glazers are “lucky as F” when they lose then it’s all the Glazers fault.
Logic is not a strong point here.
February 13th, 2023 at 3:43 pm
It is by no means certain that the 2023 season is lost already. It might end up being that way, but we always knew Brady was a short term tactic, and to get him here we needed a quality coaching staff and a quality roster, and that was a fact.
We actually have a pretty strong roster still if we can keep most, if not all of our new free agents around. There’s a lot of maneuvering that Jason Licht can do with the salary cap just by restructuring existing contracts, which he’s done many times before with great success. Quarterback is a question mark, but by no means is it proven that Trask, or another veteran signing, can’t succeed if the surrounding roster is good.
Frankly our biggest question mark is not quarterback but offensive line, which killed us in 2022. Smith is probably a goner, meaning we have to replace him, and to do that would take either another expensive veteran contract or draft someone very high, probably first round, to replace him. Then draft or sign at least two more potential starters. If the O line is fixed, it will cover over most other weaknesses and be a great aid to a first year starting QB.
February 13th, 2023 at 3:47 pm
This year will be in the Bermuda Triangle. Only a UFO could prevent the calamity coming fast. 2,000 light years from a good team and coach.
February 13th, 2023 at 5:10 pm
Joe…I think one of the vertices of the triangle is a square peg in a round hole. Or said a little differently, a Defensive Coordinator in a head coaching chair.
February 13th, 2023 at 5:29 pm
Bonzai … ‘I think that Arians wanted Bowles as his DC so bad, that he promised to hand over the HC role when he retired.’
I agree totally Bonzai. Without Bowles’ defense, BA’s offense would’ve still put up points (albeit not as many), but our record would’ve been a LOT worse. Look at Arizona after Bowles left in 2014. Defense continued good for 1 year (#7 again in 2015), then fell off a cliff in 2016 (#14) & 2017 (#19). Cards’ record also plummeted those last 2 years (to 7-8-1 and 8-8). BA knew full-well how much he needed a strong defense.
I’m HOPING that Bowles will pretty much mirror what Tony Dungy did at Indy when he took over there. Tom Moore was the OC, and Dungy pretty much let him run that side of the ball as he saw fit (much like Chucky let Monte run the defense without interference?). We just need to get a strong OC in here who can handle that kind of responsibility.
February 13th, 2023 at 5:30 pm
The Glazers have seen more than quota of maroons over the years. They have to know that BA’s fierce loyalty is no reason to keep a bed wetting drooler as head coach.
Until action is taken on that, the abyss gets bigger, deeper, while the team tumbles down the slope.
February 13th, 2023 at 5:35 pm
Never forget this is the franchise that dumped Doug Williams, Steve Young, Vinny, etc. Yes they can.
February 13th, 2023 at 5:40 pm
We just need to get a strong OC in here who can handle that kind of responsibility.
I think the best we will get is an unknown…a long shot. Still, hope springs eternal.
February 13th, 2023 at 5:42 pm
gotbbucs … ‘What’s going to hurt this team more than coaching and any of this salary cap business is Devon White, JTS, and Logan Hall not developing into the players that they drafted them to be.’
You nailed it gotbbucs. Too many are ASSUMING that Bucs can just absorb the CAP hits in 2023 & all will be right with the world. Unfortunately not the case IMO. Not only don’t we have any salary CAP excess to ‘buy’ FAs with, but we also have a lousy draft position (#19 earns us a OJ Howard type of player). And to make matters worse, like you said, our top picks these past several years are meh (probably not HOF material shall we say?). Top that all off with a lack of FIELD LEADERSHIP and the resulting alphabet soup doesn’t spell ‘Super Bowl’.
Question thus becomes … Are we really gonna be successfully rebuilding over these next 2, 3 4 years or just treading water for several years filling ‘holes’ with just average (at best) affordable players?
February 13th, 2023 at 7:10 pm
Get ready for massive pre season hopeium.
February 13th, 2023 at 8:30 pm
Yes D… that is the question. Do we make some bold moves and hope to rebuild into a real contender in a few years? Or do we founder much longer, being a lukewarm team, and be just good enough to maybe win half our games in the next decade and drafting midround. I think keeping Bowles just sets us back one more year. Of course, finding a hidden gem in the third round at QB would help a lot.
February 13th, 2023 at 9:48 pm
So there is one side of the triangle that needs to be found.
Hope will spring anew again in Tampa when a NEW HEAD COACH is hired,
Which in part leads to a NEW TALENT CYCLE.
Then there will be hope again in Buccaneer land.
Until then, buckle your seat Betsy, rough seas ahead for the good ship Buccaneer.
Just hope the wait is not as long as it has been in the past for a new Head coach and talent cycle to come to pass.
GO BUCS!!!!
February 13th, 2023 at 10:00 pm
The decisions made in the next two years will likely determine success or perennial failure of this team for the next decade. I’m just hoping the bright guys in charge show us how bright they really are, and we don’t have to go through a decade of embarrassment and futility.
February 13th, 2023 at 11:59 pm
We about to have 3 years of picking first in the draft….
February 14th, 2023 at 9:59 am
No triangle at One Buc. Bowels is clearly not in the loop. No point in bringing him in. He is going to think what he wants to think irrespective of the message coming from the brass.