Bucs “Wanted A Teacher, Not A Tyrant.”
January 21st, 2011
Bucs offensive line coach Pete Mangurian was more taskmaster than teacher, not what the Bucs wanted.
Joe has been working the phones with trusted sources trying to determine the genesis of the news this morning that offensive line coach Pete Mangurian will not return to the Bucs.
One source told Joe that Mangurian’s firing, along with the exit of Todd Wash, was a no-brainer due to underperformance of the offensive line.
Joe didn’t totally buy that. Consider that the Bucs offensive line was ravaged by injuries yet the offensive line may have been playing its best toward the end of the season.
Joe’s not about to knock Davin Joseph. The man is a beast and a helluva guard. But when Jeff Faine and Jeremy Trueblood were sidelined and replaced by Jeremy Zuttah and James Lee, the Bucs barely lost a step, if not improved.
Now Joe has written several times that Mangurian, who tried to implement zone blocking, was a round peg in a square hole as the Bucs offensive line was drafted, molded and shined with Chucky and Bill Muir without zone blocking.
Joe even spoke with former Bucs offensive lineman Jerry Wunsch who noted how difficult it is to learn zone blocking.
Now the following is pure speculation: Could it be that perhaps Zuttah, Lee and Ted Larsen were more adept at Mangurian’s tactics? Or maybe Faine and Trueblood had tuned out Mangurian’s constant tongue-lashings?
Again, the previous paragraph is pure speculation and just Joe thinking out loud.
Now what is not speculation is that Joe received a text this morning from a Bucs beat reporter who also noted how sour of a personality Mangurian had and added that the Bucs “wanted a teacher, not a tyrant.”
Look, some of the best coaches in the NFL are in-your-face guys. Chucky was. So too was Bill Parcells and Mike Holmgren, among many, many, many others. But most of these guys knew when to shut down and turn off the drill sergeant act.
Apparently, Mangurian’s brusque ways carried over far too much and too often inside the walls of One Buc Palace.
In short, Mangurian wasn’t as much a teacher as Alex Van Pelt, Dwayne Stukes and Jimmy Lake.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:06 pm
This was a surprise, since the O Line did so well with cast offs plugged in. A Zone blocking scheme, IF implemented correctly, has a lot of advantages. Blount ran well, and Freeman had few sacks, with cast offs. One HAS to wonder if this is more about a personality conflict ?
January 21st, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Pat Morris is the latest buzz for his replacement. Olson is connected through the Lions and 49ers.
I’ll take a teacher over a tyrant anyday – especially with young players.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:13 pm
I ppersonally thought he did an excellent job, especially with what he had to work with. This is FOOTBALL! You’re supposed to get yelled at or slapped around!
January 21st, 2011 at 1:14 pm
A sour personality on the football field?
Egads!
January 21st, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Not A Rocket Surgeon
From what Joe hears, he’s pretty convinced that is exactly the Bucs’ philosophy.
Apparently, Mangurian’s rough-around-the-edges was creating too much friction at One Buc Palace.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Mangurian sucked. Did anyone not catch Davin Joseph sucking balls for the last two years? He sucked so much that we did not notice any dropoff when he got injured.
Now, may be Mangurian is getting into the head of these rookies and getting them to play as good (or bad) as the vets, but our so called best player of O-line getting owned by no name DTs and Jeff Faine regressing as well since this man has taken over, obviously Mangurian has done a bad job.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:29 pm
10-6 and making changes.
The Bucs are gonna get SOFT brotha!
January 21st, 2011 at 1:34 pm
So Raheem wants the Bucs offense to play like the defense… nobody deserves to have their feelings hurt, nobody should be told that they aren’t doing their job or blowing assignments 🙂 … Raheem thinks the bucs need nice guy teachers who won’t put you in your place?
Sheesh, you would think this team was full of pro bowlers getting their feelings hurt.
It looks as if Faine just managed to get his O-line crtitic canned because HE wants to be the boss. Remember that tactic Jeff in your future business endeavors. Your employees will throw people under the bus to get their way all the time.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:35 pm
Isn’t the fact that these cast-offs came in and played as good or better than the guys who had been coached by Mangurian for two years a strike against him?
January 21st, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Jonny- I agree. When undrafted rookie free agents can walk in and out perform high round draft picks, who have been in the system for years, you need a new O- line coach. Our line has always underperformed,and never been as good as the parts would indicate. Time for a Change. Raheem is still tweaking his staff, he knows what he’s doing!
January 21st, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Guest #27. I am the boss of between 40 to 250 , depending on the job. Constant berating only demoralizes your employees. Raheem is quick to yell at these guys for mistakes. He is also quick to encourage them when they are playing well. He knows what he’s doing. Pete has never had the line playing up to it’s talent level. I said last spring that our line always underachieved, and we needed to make a change. By the way, aren’t you “Buc-you” ‘s latest persona?
January 21st, 2011 at 1:45 pm
“Raheem is still tweaking his staff, he knows what he’s doing!”
That is the OVERSTATEMENT of the year.
Notice how I put it in quotes because I don’t want it to mistaken as my comment. 🙂
Raheem is the blind and dumb leading the finger crossers.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:51 pm
I suspect it was more philisophical than personality.
If the philosophy was producing at an optimal level, he wouldnt be fired.
The zone scheme hasn’t jelled since its use here, has it? Could be the wrong personnel rather than the wrong personality.
January 21st, 2011 at 2:20 pm
“the Bucs offensive line was drafted, molded and shined with Chucky and Bill Muir without zone blocking.”
Shined?? Who again where the 1,000 yard rushers for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? How many sacks did we allow? How many blown assignments, missed blocks etc where there during the “shining years” of Gruden & Muir years?
Record Year Rush yards Pass yards Sacks 1000 yard RB
12-4 02 1557 3665 41 none
7-9 03 1648 3941 23 none
5-11 04 1498 3773 44 none
11-5 05 1826 3171 41 C. Williams 290/1178
4-12 06 1523 2994 33 none
9-7 07 1872 3579 36 none
9-7 08 1837 3788 32 none
3-13 09 1627 3134 33 none
10-6 10 2001 3564 30 L. Blount 201/1001
Here is what I have found from Pro-Football-Reference.com
It sure don’t look like they “shined” to me those years of having the Gruden Muir OC/OL combination, compared with Olsen/Mangurian. Yes we have only 2 years of O/M to compare with but I would not say that Gruden & Muir Shined in the way they did things looking at this comparison.
But who am I to disagree with facts…
January 21st, 2011 at 2:21 pm
darn all that typing and it grouped them together…. ahhh…. oops
January 21st, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Rusty
Not so cut and dry. Last three years with Muir, the sacks remained about the same as under Mangurian. Those are the years the new drafts Davin, Trueblood, Sears(we missed him), etc started to gel. Notice improvement from years prior. Remember, we wnet back to power blocking again this past year. Also, there was the fact we switched QB’s frequently during the season from injuries, etc. And, one of the switches was to a lefthanded QB, twice. Oh yeah and a rookie 7th rounder one year. Plus, Garcia could play behind the best line in the league and still have multiple sacks and crappy yards!
As for Peterbilt Blount’s rushing stats, I don’t think it was all the o-line and thier abilities to open holes.
Were they great? No. Did they shine? In matter of speaking.
January 21st, 2011 at 3:06 pm
RustyRhino- nice! Yeah, I missed the success part of that also. Guest#27/Bucyou- probable coach of the year. Huge turn around in record with a team of rookies and unsigned rookie FA. A 10-6 record. Yes, he obviously knows what he’s doing. Try to pay attention- were you asleep this season? Posting ” Informed” opinions is the only way to get credibility here, as this is an informed crowd! Posting uninformed stuff just gets you ignored! Just trying to help 🙂
January 21st, 2011 at 3:49 pm
@Guest #27,
Just curious, what makes you think the coaches are soft on the players? Where are you getting that inside information? Do you have a sideline pass? You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. There is, however, a huge difference between yelling at someone when they deserve it versus yelling at someone all the time. Trust me, that doesn’t work with grown men making tons of money. This isn’t college or high school. These guys are professionals, they don’t need that. How would you like to have a boss that goes around screaming at you all the time?
January 21st, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Oar
Was it Muirs O-line your referring to in your last sentence or Manguruian’s? “Were they great? No. Did they shine? In matter of speaking.” I am a bit confused.
To me we have had a good year with our old linemen/young linemen, we did shift to the power running game very true. As for it being shining during Muirs tenure I just don’t see it, as I recall we kept getting old”vet” linemen and getting the same results, year after year. Then we did get Joseph, Trueblood, Sears(yes we did miss him, not so sure about now though) and the line played better. Yes, but not as good as they where said to be. Was that the coaching or the players?
We appear to be at a crossroads as to our O-line Joseph & Trueblood are FA this year and Sears is no longer playing in the NFL(wish you well Sears) so what should we do now? Keep Joseph keep Trueblood or move on? And now that we will have a “new” O-line coach who will not know the strengths or weaknesses of our players it could get ugly quickly.
Crazy as it sounds I would have liked to have had another year of Mangurain coaching these young players, even with his abrasive nature. Now we will have to make decisions on who to keep and who to let walk the plank without having a coach who has had a season of games and almost a years worth of practices to evaluate them first hand.
January 21st, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Rusty,
The former. I think Muir did wonders with the line, beginning his first year. They brought in Jenkins and Oben, moved Walker from LT to RT. Sure there were down years, but they were putting together very good line with thier drafts. He was under GM Parcells with the Jets in 2001. Remember, he was hired with the assumption Parcells was coming here. Parcells knows football.
Also, he looks to have turned the Chiefs o-line around this past year too.
BTW does your moniker have anything to do with Rusty Rhino Rally racing?
January 21st, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Good. He did not fit, he was a zone blocking guy and they have some smash guys on the line.
They are young and need a teacher, I agree with that.
As far as Larson and Zuttah playing well…. Zuttah has done it before and a rookie stepping in playing well speaks to the drafting ability more than his teaching in such a short time… in my opinon.
They seem to have alot of young talent so I hope they get a good one in here… same with the D-Line
January 21st, 2011 at 5:34 pm
New coach- best players start! That is a good thing. Nobody has any job security. Meybe some of our Vets will start living up to their draft status!!
January 22nd, 2011 at 2:02 am
During Raheem’s first season I initially was looking forward to seeing what he could pull off. After the firing of both coordinators I quickly began to give up on him. I was angry over what I considered to be unrecoverable mistakes, which seemed to compound each week – until the final 3 games.
I approached this season with an open mind – I even admitted to misjudging, and ultimately confessed to being downright wrong concerning Raheem Morris.
I thought he AND his coaching staff did an excellent job under the circumstances, and the part of his staff that did the best job – under those circumstances – was the offensive line and the defensive line.
There was a third group that performed as needed, often, and saved our bacon several times – that was our special teams…
I do not know if Todd Wash was a good d-line coach – but the fact that he was able to use several different personnel to at least slow down opposing offenses…and while the offensive line was not stocked with great talent – Pete Mangurian seemed to coax the best from the talent we did have.
…leaving Biasaccia – he was a ST coaching stud who finally got access to some decent talent and made some great things happen for us.
Now, all of those guys are gone – for similar positions on other coaching staffs eslewhere…?
It’s downright peculiar, but I won’t condemn Coach Morris – the last time I did that, I had a lot of crow to eat…
…but it sure is peculiar….