"You know Mr. Glazer, maybe if we gave Chris Hovan some more facepaint to use, he could have played the two-gap system better? I dunno."

Let this be known as the second time in the history of JoeBucsFan.com that Joe has linked to a John Romano column.

The columnist for the St. Petersburg Times came out firing last night (Joe was awake when the column was posted) at the Bucs hierarchy, namely general manager Mark Dominik and coach Raheem the Dream as the problem with the Bucs, not deposed defensive coordinator Jim Bates.

Romano even dares to suggest that the move to demote Bates smacks of hypocrisy.

Have Morris and Dominik done better in their jobs than Bates did in his?

Even if you say the problem with Bates was more philosophy than performance, the hiring was still a mistake. You don’t hand a guy a roster that was built for the Tampa 2, and then tell him he’s free to run a completely different scheme. And then have the audacity to blame him when it doesn’t work.

The issue today is credibility. Because of their youth and inexperience, Dominik and Morris started with very little. And 10 months later, they have even less.

Whoa!

As readers will notice later this morning, Joe too finds the timing of the move a bit curious if not a desperate move. While two coordinators never making it past Thanksgiving is bad, at least Dominik and Raheem the Dream had the common sense to cut their losses and get rid of both Bates and previously, offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski.