Lovie No. 22
June 16th, 2015
The Sporting News does not believe Lovie is trending forward. Photo courtesy of Buccaneers.com.
Once upon a time, Lovie Smith was the toast of the NFL.
Guiding the Chicago Bears to a Super Bowl with the ball-and-chain known as Rex Grossman was a feat that had the frostbitten souls of the Windy City toasting their disgusting Old Style swill.
But in recent years, Lovie has had anything but success. A year removed from being shown the Bears door he came to the Bucs and saw his team nosedive into the Gulf with a 2-14 mark (but winning the Chase for Jameis).
It is because of this that in their ranking of NFL coaches, the Sporting News has Lovie in the bottom half at No. 22.
Another question of whether someone is a bad coach, or a victim of a bad G.M. — because they’re the same person. Smith bombed as head of personnel in his first year in Tampa with a 2-14 embarrassment. Now he’s staking everything on Jameis Winston becoming as mature as he is talented. His bears coaching years can’t be taken away from him, but 2014 put a real dent in his rep.
Well, the Bucs can’t go anywhere but up from here. Right? RIGHT?
As Joe has stated, six wins would show marked improvement. Yes, when you triple your wins from the previous season, that is a feat in the NFL, even a measly six wins.
That would mean the needle is pointing up. And that is what Team Glazer looks for after each season.
June 16th, 2015 at 2:07 pm
I’m sorry, but I’m not gonna be happy with six wins. I wont be happy until we’re in the running for the playoffs. Yes, its true we were last year till late, but that was a joke. I mean solid contention for a wild card. I’m not trying to be too optimistic, I just want some playoff action baby!
June 16th, 2015 at 2:22 pm
It was Lovie who threw out the eight-win number last year, so six this year is still rotten….
Yuck.
June 16th, 2015 at 2:24 pm
I think we will have closer to 8 wins but we shall see.
I am just ready for some damn football! 🙂
June 16th, 2015 at 2:26 pm
yes he took a nose dive!!! came here and turned this bucs team full of superstars into a 2 win team after winning 4 games the year before. fired after a 10 win season i dont think anyone in this state would complain about a 10 win season oh wait dungy doesnt count lol. yea we get it, everyone hates the bucs, our line, our coaches, our running backs, our pass rushers, our quarterbacks, everyone thinks they are going to lose yes yes we get it thank you thank you, another team evaluation from some outside source that knows nothing about the team. with all this negativity joe your 6 win season is like a best case scenario to everyone
June 16th, 2015 at 2:30 pm
Time for another Lovie Confidence Poll…..
June 16th, 2015 at 2:31 pm
Mark it down………9-7 and that’s good enough to win the NFL South.
It’s the right mix………good chemistry.
June 16th, 2015 at 2:38 pm
Actually a little surprised he was ranked that high? I would have figured more in the 25-27 range based on what he’s shown so far in Tampa (bad personnel moves, 12 man on the field stuff, not wanting to score more points before halftime, NFL Network massacre, etc).
June 16th, 2015 at 2:41 pm
No I do not write for Sporting News! If I did incompetent Lovie Smith would not be No 22. There aren’t 10 worse HCs in the NFL in 2014 as evidenced by the fact that 31 teams did not make Josh McCown their starting QB in March and did not finish the season with a total of 2 whole wins.
June 16th, 2015 at 3:00 pm
Lovie showed nothing last year. If he’s such a great coach he would have managed to have more success than Greg Friggen’ Schiano! In your logic Joe, this team was half as good as Schiano’s team the year prior!
June 16th, 2015 at 3:04 pm
fyi dallas buc another team just made josh mccown their starting quarterback moron. some of you need to be virtually biotch slapped. bucs are in a good position to be competitive for a very long time. WE DO have a good defensive coach and we do have a good offensive coordinator and some pretty good offensive weapons so young we don’t know whether they are stars in the making or busts. I swear I don’t know how some of you have the nerve to actually say you support this team. all that negative talk your like a penis in thongs it just doesn’t fit. didn’t know a man’s entire career could be rewritten based off one season of coaching a team that had already been losing for a decade but apparently it can.
June 16th, 2015 at 3:10 pm
bucs4lyfe there is a difference between supporting a team and blindly drinking kool-aid. I would love to see the Bucs succeed, I just don’t think Lovie has done anything to show that he can turn around this franchise’s fortunes. And yes, a coach can show that in one 16 game season.
June 16th, 2015 at 3:14 pm
Ignorance is Bliss…amiright bucsforlyfe?
June 16th, 2015 at 3:15 pm
I said it before I’ll keep saying it. Belicheat had a garbage winning percentage before the emergence of one Tom Brady. How magical an elite QB can prove to be for the career of a head coach. Lovies number will be rising here shortly I assure you all.
June 16th, 2015 at 3:16 pm
Like posters- most Sports writers are total idiots( other than our Joe). They don’t put in any real work. Why should they? They aren’t held accountable. They can say one thing today- and the exact opposite tomorrow.,
They write only what is in front of their nose, whit a spoon full of media created hype- and full measure of snoozing up to the big cities and their players
Movie Demoed a horrible- that had inexcusably layer down on two previous coaches. It was stocked with guys, who were just cashing a check- putting no effort into improving or winning.
You can see a plan in place finally. We are drafting good players, who fit the scheme. And if L&L make a mistake on a player- they aren’t afraid to cut that loser lose- something that ” the worst GM in football history” Dom refused to do
It’s on the right track now, and getting better.
That said- rookie QBs with Rookie LTs don’t win more than 6 games
Which will let us draft our DE next year.
Then we will be serious playoff contenters
June 16th, 2015 at 3:20 pm
Damn phone!! ” snoozed”, !”lovie demoed a horrible team””loser loose”
Sorry about that
June 16th, 2015 at 3:31 pm
Captain Stagger Says:
June 16th, 2015 at 3:14 pm
Ignorance is Bliss…amiright bucsforlyfe?
—————————————————————————-
ignorance is just plain ignorance because even when your told your being ignorant it doesn’t compute. Jason licht is getting all this love and every mistake made by the front office is going to lovie because a lot of you seem to have a hard on for him. what coach is going to overcome jeff tedford marcus arroyo? granted the o line was on him AND LICHT but who overcomes that? mike glennon couldn’t beat mccown and you wanna actually believe that’s lovie’s fault yea that is ignorant. im not blind to what happened last year but atleast I have the freakin common sense to see how all these issues TOGETHER caused that horrible season. it’s lovie’s fault captain morgan wanted to celebrate a touchdown get a penalty and lose a game for us? I think it’s ignorant to ignore everything that happened and say lovie did it
@ShutTheBucUp
one night of erectile dysfunction issues and your wife would probably say the same thing about you so yea ok one season out of like 11 tells a coaches entire story.
June 16th, 2015 at 3:32 pm
The fact that he had the worst record in the league and still was ranked in the top 2/3 should shut some of the people up thinking he’s like the worst coach in football. Non-Buc fan writers that would typically rank us dead last in everything they can are not even ranking Lovie as bad as many do here.
Last year; despite the horrible record; was one of the few years I can remember where we improved a lot in something (defense) as the season wore on.
June 16th, 2015 at 3:49 pm
When you accept six wins, up from 2, as a good job you have defined yourself first and then also, the team as mediocre. It’s a mindset folks, a mindset. And a sad one at that.
June 16th, 2015 at 4:08 pm
I wish I could be around to see your face dallas when Lovie hoist his first Lombardi trophy.(Smiling)that chit would be priceless. Passing on WINSton would have made him incompetent. Drafting him well that might have very well punched his ticket to the Hall.
June 16th, 2015 at 4:17 pm
@DallasBuc
“No I do not write for Sporting News!”
You make that pretty evident with all your other posts. I don’t think anyone on here honestly believes that someone who writes sporting news stories for a living is as dumb as you are.
Thank you for the clarification………
June 16th, 2015 at 4:38 pm
Nole- if Lovie Smith is hoisting the Lombardi for the Bucs you wouldn’t see a happier face than mine and I hope that happens because I am a Bucs fan first. Passing on Winston would have done even more to prove his rank incompetence which I am very thankful did not happen but you assume that it was Lovie Smith’s decision. You don’t know that after earning the Bucs a #1 overall pick the Glazers didn’t step in and say you better pick a QB if you want to remain the HC in Tampa. Not too many times does a coach earn their franchise the top pick and stay employed to make the selection. It doesn’t take a genius or even much professional competence to realize you take Winston with the 1st overall pick in this draft. If Lovie does hoist that Lombardi it will be because of the exceptional talent of Winston and possible Glazer wisdom and speak less to the competence of one Lovie Smith. But hey let’s cross that bridge when we get there!
June 16th, 2015 at 4:40 pm
OneLove- you are clearly a guy that needs people to explain jokes to you and I am the dumb one? You Lovie-loverboys are too funny!
June 16th, 2015 at 4:50 pm
Since we clearly tanked the last game against the Saints, we would have had 3 wins and therefore tripling that would be 9 wins this year. I mean really, we can’t actually count that tank job as a legitimate loss. It was simply a must to secure our future QB by locking up that 1st pick. Getting 1st dibs on the waiver wire does not hurt either.
June 16th, 2015 at 4:57 pm
Strange, I heard they were hiring Idiots . .
Lol
June 16th, 2015 at 6:04 pm
More rankings and ratings signifying nothing.
June 16th, 2015 at 7:14 pm
@bucs4lyfe
Thanks for saving me the time…you’ve nailed all this nonsense with one great sentence…
didn’t know a man’s entire career could be rewritten based off one season of coaching a team that had already been losing for a decade but apparently it can.
June 16th, 2015 at 7:51 pm
I’m predicting 10-6, even that’s bad compared to Lakeland standards. We haven’t had a losing season in 39 years at Lakeland High. I’m going with 10-6 with a few breaks here and there we could end up 12-4. I’m high on the Bucs this season,I believe we have the talent at key positions. I believe we have an experience coaching staff, in my opinion this team has more depth than any team since 2000. Coach Castle taught us one motto ” Second To None”, Lovie need to install that in the Bucs players mind. Playoffs here we come, we gonna pickup where the Lightning left off. GO BUCS
June 16th, 2015 at 7:54 pm
More Depth than any Bucs team since 2000.
June 16th, 2015 at 8:41 pm
Who is “rewriting” Lovie Smith’s entire career?
I don’t see how it makes a bit of difference what that man did with the Bears or with some JV team in nowhere Texas. His prior experience and reputation is what got him hired as Bucs coach and de facto GM…after it becomes entirely irrelevant to the Bucs. As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach with full control over personel he has been nothing short of an incompetent abject failure. Any other assessment is a rewriting of his entire career as Bucs head coach. However I will give him some credit for drafting Winston even though that decision was beyond easy and probably already made for him by the businessmen that actually own the team.
June 17th, 2015 at 8:14 am
Oh well Dallas feel however you see fit to feel about Lovie Smith. It is my opinion that you will be seeing him on that Buccaneer side line for a long time friend.
June 17th, 2015 at 8:19 am
He did nine seasons in the chi without the services of a franchise QB how much more time do you think he’ll have as this team’s HC with one. Some mention a losing record against winning teams,well history has shown all of us if that team has an above average QB and you don’t your team usually loses. Lovie’s ticket has been punched with the drafting of WINSton bro.