Still Climbing Out Of Hole
June 18th, 2018
Helped set team back years.
Joe was so aggravated, he wanted to launch his plate of wings at the TV.
Joe was spending his Saturday afternoon as usual: parked on his leather couch watching TV. Yardwork beckoned but every time Joe mustered enough energy to trim the bushes, Joe realized the air conditioner was working just fine and his DirecTV signal was clear. Thus, there was NFL Network to watch.
The yard wasn’t going anywhere.
So NFL Network was broadcasting a rerun of a Redskins-Eagles game last year and after about three minutes, Joe was just so ticked off watching D.J. Swearinger tackle LeGarrette Blount. And it got Joe to thinking about two former Bucs coaches who, for far different reasons, wrecked the franchise and the team has yet to fully recover.
Joe really liked former Bucs commander Greg Schiano. Not many others did. But Joe cannot let his fondness for Schiano cloud his vision. For reasons not fully clear, Schiano could not get along with guys like Michael Bennett, Aqib Talib and Blount. As Schiano himself may have said, they weren’t “Buccaneer Men.”
The mystery of who pulled the trigger on Bennett (for no good reason) is still unclear. If it was Schiano’s call, one would have to logically think (hope?) there was a checks-and-balances system in place at One Buc Palace to stop such a mind-numbing dimwitted stunt.
Though Joe has heard a story from very high up at One Buc Palace what (allegedly) went down, Joe likely will never be able to confirm the story.
Blount and Talib didn’t mesh with Schiano and they were sent packing. Those three harebrained transactions were the beginning of a three-year nightmare of moves that have dragged down the Bucs since.
Enter inept Lovie Smith, who replaced the fired Schiano. Joe is convinced in retrospect that a high school football player has better talent evaluation skills than Lovie, who wasted little time running off Darrelle Revis and booting Donald Penn out the door. There were others including but not limited to Mason Foster and Swearinger.
So in the span of three years, the Bucs ran off at least seven quality starters including two guys who both could be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame someday — that’s damn near a third of your starting-22.
Just exactly what deranged organization willingly shoves two potential Hall of Fame players out the door for zero compensation?
The Bucs, that’s who.
And people actually wonder why last place in the NFC South is known around JoeBucsFan.com international headquarters as “Buccaneers Cove.”
And this is why the Bucs are still, as of June 2018, trying to recover and claw their way back to respectability.
June 18th, 2018 at 5:10 am
All 3 have records that speak for themselves.
Police records.
Not a huge mystery to me.
June 18th, 2018 at 6:31 am
I know Bennett has some sacks and such but the guy truly is a D-bag with his debunked cries of racism and police brutality.
June 18th, 2018 at 6:36 am
Liking Schiano makes me question Joe’s football intellect altogether. Schiano was the absolute worst NFL head coach. He loved Bill Belichick so damn much that he screamed at our players to listen and do every single thing he said in practice games with the patriots. Then he turns around and gives/trades them Blount for a ham sandwich. Such a bonehead move. I don’t blame him for cutting Talib st the time. That guy was grade A jerk with all sorts of off-field issues. But Schiano was an over-disciplining General on a tirade that turned us into Tampa Bay Rutgers. There was him having us blowing up the line at the end of games when he couldn’t accept the games (losses) he coughed up. The staph infection outbreak. Cutting Bennett for presumably smiling during a loss. Publicly screaming at guys in practices. He tore the team apart and made us the laughing stock of the NFL. It was a complete circus. By the end of his short tenure with the Bucs, he looked like he had been chewed up and spit out by the NFL. He looked defeated. I remember almost feeling sorry for the guy. But then I’d think about how his attitude when he started with the team was, and it was like karma.
Enter Love who was the far extreme opposite. So lax that our players couldn’t go a single game without 50 penalties while Lovie sat on the sideline seemingly careless about it. Never saying a word. Cuts more awesome players. Turns us now into the Tampa Bay Bears.
And don’t forget the rebuild of this team started with young and inexperienced Raheem Morris and cutting all our old veteran players. Like Derrick Brooks. I will never forgive the team for that. And it was the start of our ongoing downfall. Lots of really bad decisions that started with the Head Coach.
June 18th, 2018 at 6:42 am
Joe you’re 1000% right…The 2 coaches you named were here just long enough to get rid of some of the best players we had on the team at the time…
I personally was never a big fan of the Darell Revis move; I felt we gave up to much to get him…However, letting Donald Penn walk was a big mistake; he wasn’t a super star but he was a cap friendly solid football player, who wanted to be here.
In the case of Bennett, Blount and Talib…at the time we could have resigned these 3 guys for peanuts…What people have to understand is we’re dealing with football players, not choir boys…Would it be nice if every football player was a role model, yes. But the truth is, about 50 to 60% of these guys in the league are imo “mentally disturbed” due to multiple blows to the head…
June 18th, 2018 at 6:47 am
The house that talk show host dominik and rah made had to be torn down!!!!! The Glazerrs order Coach Schiano to tear down and out the culture at One Buc!!!! And we are not talking about a win/lose or football culture to fix!!!!!!!!!!!
The mistake was leaving talk show dominik as GM!!!!!! He stripped down and had a young team, and what vets/leadership did he want?????? Win-slow and Haynsworth!!!!!! He only got one orginally then later finally got the other loser!!!!!!!
loser lovie was the worst of all!!!!!! Like I told the sheep before he coached a game that this was not an NFL roster!!!!! But the incompetent one had no plan!!!!!!!!!! No vision or idea!!!!!!!!!! It was the same playbook from when he stole from the Bucs back in 1999!!!!!!!!!
It is too bad that for unsaid reasons that joe cannot say the two culprits of why this franchise has been so bad for so long!!!!!! Talk show dominik and incompetent one loser smith!!!!!!!!!!!!
After giving these buffoons so much time, when it was obvious they were running the franchise into the ground, that joe and the sheep would now scream for “accountablity” now!!!!!!!! after one distracted, injury filled season, joe and the sheep wanted to tear down, the best GM and Coaches we have had at One Buc in a very long time!!!!!!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 18th, 2018 at 6:48 am
Oh and I almost forgot. Schiano ruined and ousted Josh Freeman who has never been the same. He constantly leaked to the public all the issues with him and did everything he could to ruin him and finally cut him. Freeman was a great QB on the rise, breaking and setting all kinds of franchise records. Until General Schiano didn’t like him. That’s all it took. Thanks a lot Schiano. Worst HC ever.
June 18th, 2018 at 7:32 am
Schiano did not ruin Josh Freeman. I wish people would stop with that nonsense. The guy had major personal issues that got in the way of his commitment to the game. It’s no surprise to anyone who looks at this with open eyes. We hate Schiano because he trashed our club but he was right about Freeman.
June 18th, 2018 at 7:34 am
Two of the best all time players on the Bucs,were jettisoned by Gruden and Bruce Allen. Sapp and Lynch were team leaders. So the problems date back
well over ten years.
June 18th, 2018 at 7:41 am
Okay, people seem to be forgetting some things here.
Greg Schiano was originally brought in by the Glazers because of the total lack of discipline the roster had developed during the Raheem Morris years. You had guys coming in late or not showing at all, you had guys getting in fights during games, you had a CB who threatened officials and got in trouble off the field.
Greg Schiano was under strict orders: make examples and clean the team up.
The Walkout was looming at the time. Owners all over the league, outside of the Cowgirls and Redskins were cutting salaries to prepare for it.
Then we got a kicker with a recent history of MRCA, and suddenly we have a MRCA issue in the locker room. That kicker denied bringing it and actually sued the team…but come on..he had it months before coming to Tampa too.
Greg Schiano was viewed as too strict, though he was exactly what the team needed at the time.
Lovie sent Penn and Revis packing. Yes. Aside from both having huge salaries at the time, Penn was starting to get injured and Revis never played well after that injury. Even at his prime, he was nowhere worth quarterback money which was what he was getting paid.
Revis embodied the selfish player, more concerned with money than results. He had no problem pulling $15m with the Bucs and showing nothing. It was a vacation for him. He suckered the team and the fans.
To this day, he STILL seems to have at least one Joe suckered.
Lovie Smith screwed up, yes, but not because of those cuts (and btw, it was Licht who cut them to free up money for the failed spending spree BOTH of them were responsible for).
June 18th, 2018 at 7:43 am
Heck, Talib even got in the face of the head coach in a London hotel lobby!
June 18th, 2018 at 7:43 am
Folks want to blame Schiano…..the blame is on ownership and Dominick. You target un-established coaches to train wreck franchises to reshape the culture and then wonder why some have to be let go…..Dominick hand picked Schiano, i can assure you when a college coach is picked by the GM, the coach doesn’t negotiate in final say of the roster…..NO GM is giving that to the new guy on the block. Sorry but not happening.
June 18th, 2018 at 7:45 am
It’s a Buc Life…
June 18th, 2018 at 7:50 am
I will be honest.. I was upset and routinely complain about losing both Talib and Bennet BUT given the recent nonsense, I have seen come from Bennet I can now see why he was not extended an extension. Talib seems to have matured while Bennet has made himself a joke due to his own actions.
June 18th, 2018 at 7:52 am
i thought sapp was a free agent who wanted to get paid> and he jumped ship to the raiders because they offered more than the bucs wanted to pay, i remember brooks and lynch getting cut, lovie sucked that was very easy to see, schiano was brought in to drain the swamp of malcontents, gangsta thugs, and druggies, i thought he did a good job with what he had, and imho freeman destroyed his own career the bright lights were too hot and the temptations too many for the young man
June 18th, 2018 at 8:00 am
John5 Says
“Oh and I almost forgot. Schiano ruined and ousted Josh Freeman who has never been the same. He constantly leaked to the public all the issues with him and did everything he could to ruin him and finally cut him. Freeman was a great QB on the rise, breaking and setting all kinds of franchise records.”The
Total bull.
First, back then the front office was well known to be over-staffed. The leaks could have come from anywhere…including the mentally unstable Josh Freeman himself.
Josh is bi-polar. That means plenty of highs and lows. At the time, he was on an extreme low, which was why his doctor prescribed stronger meds for him, leading to a suspension.
Clearly, there was something seriously wrong with his mental illness, because he never recovered. You cannot blame Schiano for that. If you have known serious bi-polar individuals, you would know that.
Josh Freeman self destructed because of his mental illness and the inability of his meds to control it. It is a sad story, but Greg Schiano bore no responsibility for it.
Freeman was one of those players who always showed up late (oversleeping), and a coach cannot have that in his starting QB.
Looks like you totally misread that situation.
June 18th, 2018 at 8:01 am
And yet people want to run Dirk out of the building – like the next guy won’t want his guys instead? That’s how it works and why regime changes can set your franchise back.
June 18th, 2018 at 8:04 am
Both Sapp and Lynch wanted to stay with Bucs. Two free agents that were signed
at the same time were Charlie Garner and Todd Steussie. Steussie was so bad they actually fired him and resigned him at league minimum the same year.
Both players got guaranteed money that should have been used to keep our own players.
June 18th, 2018 at 8:14 am
Josh Freeman ruined Josh Freeman.
The most credible thing Joe heard as to what happened to Freeman involves a guy currently locked up in a Southern California jail.
June 18th, 2018 at 8:17 am
Thanks historian Bonzai! Some have forgotten.
They also forget that some the Jets’ additional compensation of a 3rd round pick would have become a 2rd round pick had Revis remained with the Bucs that second year. He basically was paid 1mil per game to underperform and rehab in a cover 2 scheme. Easy money!
June 18th, 2018 at 8:20 am
*…some OF the Jets…
June 18th, 2018 at 8:30 am
@Buccaneer Bonzai
Josh Freeman was bipolar?! That’s news to me. And you seem to have a lot of info to add on that subject. I’ve never heard anything of the sort. You can however, look up that the NFL Players association brought up a case against schiano leaking all of that information about Josh Freeman. He tore that whole team and locker room apart.
I’m not going to say Freeman was perfect, but there are plenty of other players with far worse issues looming over them. Freeman was an emerging star and Schiano hated him because he wasn’t disciplined enough. He treated pro players like college kids. Freeman may have been going down a path of the likes of Doug Martin and ASJ, but he got ousted before he had a second chance.
June 18th, 2018 at 8:31 am
Fake morality in The City Of Strip Clubs is why the Bucs hired Sciano in the first place. If you think any team has ever gathered 52 players all of high moral character, you are fooling yourself.
June 18th, 2018 at 8:34 am
The sheer fact that we know Freeman missed the team pictures because he overslept – Schiano!!! I guess Freeman is the first starting player in the NFL to do that ever too. Definitely cut him. Forget all his stats.
June 18th, 2018 at 8:57 am
Freeman was the very best qb bucs ever had for 1 year .. Schiano wanted Glennon and have to wonder if bucs had different head coach would Freeman have become the man!!
June 18th, 2018 at 9:13 am
lovie has been gone for how long now?….lol….if dirk doesn’t get us to the playoffs this year, he’s on his way setting us back even further than anyone!!!….
#NOEXCUSESIN2018!!!!…#PRESSURESONTHECOACHES!!!…GO BUCS!!!
June 18th, 2018 at 9:21 am
Psychotic analysis at its best
Our roster has never been this good and somehow you think we’re still trying to recover from those mistakes, no we’re trying to make the playoffs not recover from Mark Dominick and lovie era….fyi all of them are old now and we would still be searching for their replacements. Blount talib were immature and the problem is raheem couldn’t handle them. Schiano just sucked. We are set and you are the only one on the planet still agonizing over those bad decisions which equals an era in football years. That time is done and those players are no longer worth having. Revis is retired dude
June 18th, 2018 at 9:29 am
The man who made the kneel down play to end the game must see tv. At least until he got an earful from Coughlin. anyone remember that game?
June 18th, 2018 at 9:53 am
They don’t all have to be choirboys but a few bad eggs will mess it up.
Only a fool or a liberal would think otherwise.
June 18th, 2018 at 9:58 am
Lots of…ummm…interesting replies. All of these cuts and signings are done by general managers and not head coaches. At the time many of the moves made sense and in hindsight they still do. When Jason Licht (not Lovie Smith) got rid of Donald Penn, Davin Joseph, ect… the offensive line was overpaid and it under-produced. Darelle Revis was overpaid and under-produced. LeGarrette Blound was out of control here and when Drug Martin was drafted he really looked to be the future. He was a better back at the time. It was never going to work out here with Aqib Talib. Mason Foster and Mark Barron couldn’t seemingly defend the pass at all. I’m surprised this article didn’t mention Barron at all. Hopefully it’s because Joe remembered the Barron deal netted Ali Marpet and Kwon Alexander.
June 18th, 2018 at 10:05 am
John5 – That’s some serious revisionist history you’ve got going on in your head about Freeman.
BTW – what was the final result of that Freeman HIPPA “investigation”?
Josh absolutely had mental “issues”. And I’m pretty sure that (allegedly) his adding a bunch of alcohol and drugs to the mix didn’t help Freeman’s fragile mental state one bit either.
Nuff said – its time to let all that go.
Allen, Dominik, Rah, Schiano, Lovie, Freeman, Releasing Bennett, Penn and Revis, crappy results for the last 10 years – ALL of it. Its TIME to let go of negative feelings about the painful past and look forward to this team’s bright future!
June 18th, 2018 at 10:24 am
Hiring head coaches, like the draft, is a crapshoot.
Before replacing Gruden, Raheem Morris interviewed with the Broncos to be their head coach. You think he might have been another version of Mike Tomlin?
The Bucs interviewed Mike Zimmer before hiring Schiano. Zimmer reached the NFC title game with the Vikings.
Dirk interviewed with the 49ers before replacing Lovie. The Bucs also interviewed Sean McDermott, who broke the NFL’s longest playoff drought in Buffalo. Now, the Bucs have the NFL’s second longest playoff drought.
June 18th, 2018 at 10:25 am
Look at the idiot dooshlarue bringing in politics where it doesn’t belong. Crying about morals when the president loves to grab by the p@$$y is comical. But yea legarrette blount smoked a joint so he can’t run the ball for the bucs but the other guy can hold the top job in america. Joe is right, the bucs are still looking for an edge rusher, running back and #1 cornerback. You moral police dudes are funny.
June 18th, 2018 at 10:29 am
D-ROME
I agree…..these fans are bias…..anything good that happened to the roster its licht….anything bad, it lovie…..
it is what it is…..
what joe is doing is exposing dirk…..our roster was complete trash in 2013..2014…2015….since then we have added tons of depth and talent yet here we are sitting at 5-11…..
each time joe brings up the past, it only illuminates our 5-11 season and turns up the heat on dirks seat…..
#NOEXCUSESIN2018!!!….#PRESSURESONTHECOACHES!!!…GO BUCS!!!
June 18th, 2018 at 10:30 am
@John5 … Mr. Freeman, thanks for stopping by. I hope your son enjoys retirement from football.
June 18th, 2018 at 10:47 am
It just shows how amazing of difference in some good coaching did for this roster!!!!!! The past 2 years were very hard schedules!!!!! And yet with loser lovie’s leftovers, injuries and distractions they improved!!!!!!!!!!!
Incompetent loser smith was so bad that it was hard to even tell how bad the bums were on the roster that he was bringing in because “they knew his antiquated system”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Incompetent one was so bad that he should have been declared “incapacitated”!!!!!!!! It is still hard to believe that joe and the sheep declared a third year for that classless buffoon!!!!!!!
That third rate college is finding out what the NFL new when and are regretting giving that doltish, half-witted, imbecile any money!!!!!!!!!
Keep fixing the “real” problem!!!!! The roster!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!!!!
June 18th, 2018 at 10:53 am
I will say it again. Until we get a professional football man in here to run this franchise we will continue to suck. Changing coaches and FO people every 2-3 years has F$%ked this organization up. There is no winning culture to fall back on like “the good” teams have. And THAT is why we lose players from FAs to Draft Picks – there is little to no accountability and nothing to buy into. You wouldnt catch players acting and playing the way they do when they come here, in a place like say NE.. . . Hell no – they want to do the best because the best is expected out of them.
I loved what then Cardinals coach Bruce Arians said the first day of camp “We have one goal – a super bowl ring”
June 18th, 2018 at 10:56 am
Gotta love dooahlarue- he finds ways to sound dumber and dumber each day with his posts. Keep it up budddy.
June 18th, 2018 at 10:58 am
@BucNole
Its not firing coaches and FO’ that was the problem!!!! It was that Talk show host domnik was in the building, it was loser smith pretending to be a head coach!!!! It was rah who lead a three year long bachelor party at one buc!!!!!!!!!
We have a GM that is bringing in good draft picks!!!! We have really good coaching!!!!!!! While they are not the “best in the league”, they are the best that the Bucs have had in a very long time!!!!!!!!! I do not trust the Glazers to find better upgrades!!!!! So the “real” fans want to stick with this regime and build a very good team!!!!!!!!
Keep fixing the “real” problem!!!!! The roster!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!!!!
June 18th, 2018 at 11:03 am
Drafting Smith to replace Penn was a good choice long term. Penn is done, Smith is coming into his own and should man left tackle for many more seasons.
The stupid decision was trading for Revis to begin with. He was never going to stay here.
Lovie drafted and protected Jameis, got Evans, Kwon, Ali, etc. But naturally those good decisions are never mentioned. If we do have a good level of talent now it is largely because of Lovie Smith.
But ultimately, this was all started by firing Jon Gruden and replacing him with Rah. But those that cheered that lunacy can’t bring themselves to admit they were wrong. But i suspect it will be further demonstrated when he does a great job in Oakland.
June 18th, 2018 at 11:12 am
Lol all these haters. And nothing about mental issues with Freeman abound. Just all the leaks from (evidently) everyone’s homeboy, Greg Schiano. Ya’ll can google all the recent news on your boy too, including Tennessee not wanting him.
Schiano tore that dude down, and I stand by that.
June 18th, 2018 at 11:15 am
The question, is who was worst for the Bucs, talk show domnik, or loser smith????????? While talk show dominik destroyed the team for 5 years, Incompetent one loser smith took the team to its lowest point in decades in a quick horrible nightmare two season!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I do wish that Joe could talk about his talk show dominik stories!!!!! I have heard whispers of how bad it really was!!!!! And if the truth really ever came out, that a lot of long time fans would finally hand in their fan cards!!!!!!!!
@Joe, was it the Butch Davis was pounding the table for LVD on draft day????? So many horror stories of people in one Buc stopping talk show dominik from making even more mistakes than that human train wreck made!!!!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 18th, 2018 at 11:26 am
I’ve said this over and over through the years. When i was lobbying to keep Aqib, lobbying to keep Blount, lobbying to keep other guys with a not so clean recor = This is not the National Nice Guy League…. This is not the National Upstanding Super Clean Citizen League. It’s not the National Character League. It’s the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. How has almost 2 decades of filling our roster with wholesome “Buccaneer Men” worked out for us? Give me guys who excel on the field.
June 18th, 2018 at 11:58 am
Everybody loves Blount but every offseason he is free to sign with any team
June 18th, 2018 at 12:49 pm
Unless the coach has it written into his contract he had control of the roster. Which Schiano did. Lovie oversaw all football operations. There wasn’t a player move he didn’t sign off on
June 18th, 2018 at 1:55 pm
LOL UB. Nice one!
June 18th, 2018 at 4:40 pm
Test
June 18th, 2018 at 4:42 pm
Eric Says:
June 18th, 2018 at 11:03 am
Drafting Smith to replace Penn was a good choice long term. Penn is done, Smith is coming into his own and should man left tackle for many more seasons.
The stupid decision was trading for Revis to begin with. He was never going to stay here.
Lovie drafted and protected Jameis, got Evans, Kwon, Ali, etc. But naturally those good decisions are never mentioned. If we do have a good level of talent now it is largely because of Lovie Smith.
^^BINGO^^
#NOEXCUSESIN2018!!!….#PRESSURESONTHECOACHES!!!…GO BUCS!!!
June 18th, 2018 at 4:44 pm
funny how every article about the past regime, rhealist is all over it….but when it comes to the truth about the regimes failures and underachievement he’s no where to be found….lol….classic cowardness!!!!!!
#NOEXCUSESIN2018!!!….#PRESSURESONTHECOACHES!!!…GO BUCS!!!
June 18th, 2018 at 5:00 pm
First off, anthony collins was signed to replace penn but he sucked and that is why smith was drafted. As for revis, he was under the bucs control if the bucs wanted to pick up his 16 mil salary every year for the life of the contract. He had no say in the matter. And i do not know how many times i have to post the link to multiple stories from ian rappaport, adam shefter etc that when the bucs signed licht, the agreement was he would be in charge of the draft and lovie had final say of the final 53. So no, lovie did not bring you jameis, kwon, ali etc. Licht specialty is and always was the draft. But lets not let facts get in the way of our own narrative
June 18th, 2018 at 10:13 pm
Lovie is on the hot seat again at Illinois with a 5 – 19 record in his 2 seasons there…..he was 8 – 24 in his 2 seasons in Tampa…..now that’s consistency!!!