Noted good guy (despite being a Maoist) and great writer Mike Silver of Yahoo! Sports has his annual rankings of NFL owners and he dropped the Glazer Family from last year, though they are still in the Top 10 at No. 9.

9. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Bryan, Joel and Ed Glazer: I think the Glazers are very good owners, but sometimes they make me mad … like when they tried to woo Bill Parcells as a replacement for Tony Dungy while the classy coach was still employed … or when they disrespected Marvin Lewis and decided not to hire him as coach after a press conference announcing his arrival was already in the works … or, most recently, when they stopped spending the money necessary to field a competitive team. I could be wrong; perhaps newly hired coach Raheem Morris is the next Mike Tomlin (his good friend, and a fellow former Bucs defensive backs coach), and he’ll lead the Bucs to immediate success despite the team replacing offensive coordinators Thursday morning and having enough salary-cap space to fund throwback Creamsicle Trent Dilfer(notes) jerseys for every male in China. It’s more likely that this year’s team will struggle, and I don’t think the Glazers are all that stressed about it, which explains their lower-than-usual ranking. What they’re doing – minimizing spending in preparation for a possible lockout – makes sense, but it’s not comforting for the paying customer. And while on one hand I give the Glazers credit for having the guts to get rid of a coach, Jon Gruden, for whom they traded so much to acquire and will inevitably associate with the franchise’s finest hour, they seemed weirdly naïve in the process. Moved by the sentiment expressed by players like receiver Michael Clayton(notes), who publicly called Gruden a “turncoat” who would “tell you one thing and then do something else,” the Glazers seemed to be the last people clued in to their coach’s reputation in league circles. Ultimately, however, I think they’ll get back on top of the situation and start going after it again, spending aggressively enough to give Morris a chance to succeed – and, if he can’t, pursuing a big-name replacement.

Silver makes an interesting point: The Glazers aren’t spending money because, like a squirrel on the cusp of winter with nuts, they are stashing away cash in case of a lockout or at least through the coming labor turmoil.

Say what you will about the Glazers, but they pulled the trigger on Father Dungy when they figured out he was a dead-end street, paid a king’s ransom for Chucky and got a Vince Lombardi Trophy.

That’s what it is all about.