Lovie Smith Talks To Joe
February 20th, 2014
Lovie Smith is one busy man today at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Lovie’s granting so many interviews today there probably isn’t an aspect of the Bucs he hasn’t talked about, short of what uniforms the cheerleaders will (not?) wear this fall.
Squeezed among these briefings, Lovie gave Joe a few moments of his time to talk, yes, Mike Glennon, Davin Joseph and Doug Martin.
JoeBucsFan: Understood that you don’t want to comment on the past year in respect to the Bucs because you weren’t here, but was Mike Glennon placed between a rock and a hard place, a bad situation? Maybe he wasn’t ready to take over when he was placed in the starting lineup? You know, the team was winless for a long time; some say there was a lot of off-field drama involved. Maybe that is part of the reason some fans say he’s not “The Guy?”
Lovie Smith: No, I can’t say that at all. I would say, and I think you can ask Mike Glennon the same, if you have an opportunity to become a starting quarterback for an NFL team, it doesn’t get any better than that whenever you can take it or get that opportunity. For Mike, it was a great situation. And I think he took advantage of it. I remember the first game he played and how he looked. What you want to see is improvement from the start to the end. And that’s what we were able to see. We definitely saw that. Mike had his team with a 21-0 lead against the [soon-to-be] Super Bowl champions on the road. For a rookie to go into that environment and play that way? That’s pretty impressive. I think [Glennon] is in a good place for a rookie. I am still going to say “for a rookie” because he still is a rookie. Even though we liked some things we have seen from him. Now, he hasn’t played his best ball yet. That is what is exciting.
Joe: Davin Joseph. He’s a stand-up guy. He’s been to a Pro Bowl. He had an ugly knee injury prior to the 2012 season and had major surgery. Do you think maybe one of the reasons he struggled last year was he still wasn’t quite back from that surgery? He kind of hinted at that and it seemed he played better in December. Could part of the reason he struggled be because he wasn’t yet 100 percent?
Lovie: I think it probably does take a couple of years to properly come back from an injury like that. We are hoping that is the case. Davin will be the first guy to tell you he didn’t play his best ball last year. We are hoping that is all in the past and now we will get the best Davin Joseph we can get.
Joe: On Doug Martin, from your comments earlier today, it seems like you don’t want a bellcow back, that you want to have a running back by committee or a rotation…
Lovie: Oh, no. We want a bellcow. But along with a supporting cast. You need a one-guy and Doug is our one-guy. But he needs a supporting cast. We want a bellcow with a great supporting cast. That’s what we have in our running back situation.
February 20th, 2014 at 4:37 pm
I think it was awesome that Lovie made time for you Joe!
I found his comments on Glennon “interesting”.
Either he really loves Glennon, or this is all a big smokescreen to hide the fact we really plan to take a QB, in the draft.
February 20th, 2014 at 4:38 pm
Dougie Fresh…. comeback player of the year comin on up.
Great coverage all day, Joe. Really looking forward to hearing something from Tedford.
February 20th, 2014 at 4:38 pm
This is sooooo much better than last year, just bc its Lovie
February 20th, 2014 at 4:44 pm
@Joe
Oh no now you did it… MGM is going to come out in full force now… Everyone BRACE YOURSELF!!
The same one sided stats over and over again!
The rookie QB comparisons to QB’s from 15 years ago!
The coaching excuses!
The personnel excuses!
February 20th, 2014 at 4:51 pm
We shouldn’t trade up for a QB in the 1st round because we don’t have enough picks.. But we should totally trade up for Clowney or Watkins..
Fingers crossed we get some speed at receiver through the draft or FA(Emmanuel Sanders)
A big athletic tight end through the draft or FA
A QB in the draft Bortles Manziel Bridgewater Garoppolo Brett Smith(project QB for depth) or through trade(Mallet)
And use the rest to build depth at CB DL OL and S..
February 20th, 2014 at 4:51 pm
If he is here (he should be) the Bucs media relations staff did not make Tedford available for interviews.
Thanks for the kind words!
February 20th, 2014 at 4:52 pm
I didn’t like Schiano – he was an a$$clown, but Lovie is basically saying all the same things Schiano did, or that every other coach does.
I’m not knocking Lovie at all, I think he’s a great hire for the Bucs, but let’s just keep coach speak in perspective, shall we?
What IS different, is the manner in which you go about handling your team – and THAT is where Lovie will excel with his experience and demeanor.
February 20th, 2014 at 4:59 pm
” but let’s just keep coach speak in perspective, shall we?”
You haven’t been here long, have you?
February 20th, 2014 at 5:05 pm
“@Joe
Oh no now you did it… MGM is going to come out in full force now… Everyone BRACE YOURSELF!!
The same one sided stats over and over again!
The rookie QB comparisons to QB’s from 15 years ago!
The coaching excuses!
The personnel excuses!”
——————–
Funny, I think a lot of the fire Schiano crowd is the same crowd who refuses to give Glennon the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his (impressive for a 3rd round rookie) performance.
February 20th, 2014 at 5:42 pm
Good stuff, Joe.
You’re working your a$$ off. Thanks for the Bucs nuggets in boring February.
February 20th, 2014 at 5:47 pm
I’m confused, nothing about his grandmother or the room temperature of the meeting room.
A man who knows what he’s talking about.
It’s a shock to the system.
February 20th, 2014 at 6:08 pm
@Rob
Ya that’s EXACTLY it… Good job…I don’t want the MOST IMPORTANT position on the BUCS to succeed so we have to constantly keep drafting or signing them till we get it right because he was loved by Schiano..
Man dude get your head out of Glennons @$$
Here’s the list of QB’s for the Bucs since 1994 and tell me why I or any other BUCS fan shouldn’t be tired of mediocrity?
Mike Glennon Josh Freeman Josh Johnson Byron Leftwich Jeff Garcia Brian Griese Luke McCown Bruce Gradkowski Chris Simms Tim Rattay Brad Johnson Rob Johnson Shaun King Trent Dilfer Eric Zeier Craig Erickson
It’s sad when Brad Johnson is our BEST QB in FRANCHISE HISTORY(Thanks for the SUPER BOWL!!)
February 20th, 2014 at 6:58 pm
“A man who knows what he’s talking about.”
Let’s not forget Smith, like Schiano, was fired from his last gig.
Not saying Smith doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but to continue to harp on Schiano when the Bucs have hired damaged goods is silly.
February 20th, 2014 at 7:26 pm
Unlike Schiano he coached an NFL team to a Super Bowl, not a failure in the Big East.
February 20th, 2014 at 8:12 pm
@ lightningbuc. Ur an idiot. Lovin was fired with a 10-6 record. He got fired cause the offense was shit with crybaby cutler under centre. Tedford will do the right thing with the offense. With or without Glennon. I’m not a Glennon fan but I will give the kid a shot since he played under an idiot like u last year.
February 20th, 2014 at 9:14 pm
@ lightningbuc
Exactly! There’s a lot of things to be optimistic with the hire of Smith, but let’s see how enamored Bucs fans are with him if say we see the Bucs end up at 6-10 this year and start out slow the following year. He’ll transform from the guy who knows what he’s talking about to the guy who has to drive around Tampa and look at ‘Fire Lovie’ signs.
February 20th, 2014 at 10:57 pm
@Joe
Oh no now you did it… MGM is going to come out in full force now… Everyone BRACE YOURSELF!!
The same one sided stats over and over again!
The rookie QB comparisons to QB’s from 15 years ago!
———————————————————————————
Posted last night in a response to a comment from Harry:
Sorry for the repost, if most of you have seen this before.
“As noted above, there have been 51 quarterbacks taken in the first round of the NFL draft in the last 20 years. You are correct that their AVERAGE performance does improve somewhat the closer you get to the top of that round, but not as much as you might think. For instance, those 51 players have played an aggregate total of 384 seasons. If I were to pick an arbitrary QB rating as a standard against which to measure their performance, say 83.9 as an example to just pick a number out of the blue…… then there were 120 total seasons where those first-rounders had a rating higher than 83.9 (120/384=31.2%). Please note, this is any season ever in their career, NOT just their rookie seasons.
Or stated the opposite way, that means that almost 69% of those seasons resulted in a QB rating less than 83.9. Looking at the individual players, there were 17 (17/51=33%) who NEVER had a single season with a rating greater than 83.9 in their entire careers!
Let’s also pick an arbitrary number of TD passes in a single season…..oh say 19. Out of those same 384 seasons, only 114 (114/384=30%) seasons resulted in that many TD’s. And 21 of those players (21/51=41.1%) NEVER had a single season with at least that many TD’s. And another 9 players had a single season with 19 or more TD’s. Not even if they played 16 games. The numbers are even worse when you look for seasons with a TD/INT ratio greater than 2.1 (19/9)…… only 57 total seasons out of that 384 = 14.8%…… any season in their career, not just their rookie campaigns.
Now these are taking ALL first rounders, even those chosen later in the first round like Daunte Culpepper (11th), Ben Roethlisberger (11th), and Aaron Rodgers (24th), so the numbers MUST be better when you are talking about the studs taken near the top of the round? Actually they do improve……… somewhat.
Anybody interested?
tickrdr
BTW: Of those 51QB’s chosen in the first round, 37 of 51 (37/51= 72.5%) improved their career rating compared to their rookie rating, probably through gaining experience with the system, and their teammates.
BTW2: In case you missed it above, 21 players NEVER, and 9 more players only had ONE season (30 of those 51, or almost 60%) threw as many as 19 TD’s in a season, even if they got to play 16 games.
February 20th, 2014 at 11:24 pm
Sounds like Lovie may sit him behind a veteran. Let him learn a little bit… I have no problems with that, hell glennon was thrown into a crappy situation and he did happen to pass on the Super Bowl champs. All in all, it’s a fair competition and either glennon or a get will be holding a clipboard. Go bucs.
February 20th, 2014 at 11:24 pm
*vet
February 21st, 2014 at 1:07 am
Thanks for the kind words! Joe is in Indy until Monday so much more to come.