Bucs icon John Lynch talks about Raheem's demise and says the Bucs' talent makes them a choice head-coaching vacancy in the NFL

In one of the more astute former-Buccaneer rants Joe’s heard in a long time, Bucs icon John Lynch gave a take on why Raheem Morris was fired during an interview with Todd Wright on Yahoo! Sports Radio this week.

Lynch opened by explaining Raheem is a friend of his and the two sat next to each other in position meetings when Raheem was an up-and-coming coach.

“He had somehow lost it,” Lynch said. “A young team, he had lost their attention. You know, it was kind of sickening to watch, I think, because there’s one thing that’s non-negotiable in this league to me from players, and that’s effort. In the last three or four games that I watched, there were numerous times where you were questioning effort. That doesn’t work. It’s inexcusable. And at that point you have to make a change.

“You know I think the next time around I would venture to say Raheem is going to come out and lay the hammer down. You know, I think it’s ok to be good to your players, treat them like men. But you also got to let them know that there are going to be standards to live up to on and off the field. And if you don’t, that there’s going to be consequences. And I don’t know if that ever happened. And I think that probably was some of his of his downfall.

“Ultimately when you’ve got a stud franchise quarterback and he’s not deveolping, in fact he’s going the other way, I think that’s what really more than anything did it. And that’s what happening with Josh Freeman. I really think that kid has the goods. And if I’m looking for a head coach for that team, that day No. 1 is to find a guy that can get the best out of him. Because I think then you build around him.”

Joe couldn’t agree more. Freeman having a solid 2011 surely would have brought the Bucs a couple more wins and cemented Raheem’s job (with a new defensive coordinator). Nobody would have wanted to mess with Freeman this offseason if he were thriving.

Lynch went on to say he thinks the Bucs have the most quality pieces of the NFL teams with a coaching vacancy, calling the Bucs’opening a job “people would really covet.”

As Joe’s’ written before, the Bucs gig is a plumb job, with loads of talent in the trenches, a 23-year-old quarterback with all the tools who showed he can put them together for a year, and a dangerous running back that nobody’s figure out how to use. That’s hadly a bad start to a new regime.

On the morning Raheem Morris was jettisoned by Team Glazer, Joe posted three questions that Morris must answer to if he were to keep his gig as the Bucs’ eighth coach in franchise history.

Apparently (at least) one of them he could not answer, and Joe would be stunned if the question wasn’t asked by Team Glazer:

“Why was your team seemingly never prepared for a game?”

Here’s an example of why, courtesy of eye-RAH! Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune, via the TBO Bucs Twitter feed.

Here’s a Buc nugget to chew on. TB scored one offensive TD in the opening quarter this season. Opposing offenses scored 15 TDs in 1Q.

Of course, Joe knows there will be some (many?) who will try to pin that on Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik.

That is, in a nutshell, the Raheem Morris era of the Bucs. It wasn’t just this year, it was last year as well, as Josh Freeman bailed the Bucs out of too many holes after slow starts.

To add to the frustration, Kaufman also notes the Bucs, despite having one of the most dangerous running backs in the NFL, had the fewest rushing attempts in the league, which is simply outrageous.

The Bucs’ gameplans remind Joe of a line that Bob Knight told Bob Costas on Costas’ old nightly interview show on NBC over 20 years ago.

The NCAA adopted a new policy that seemed discriminant against inner city youths. Knight said of the controversial policy, “It is an ill-conceived idea by they who themselves were ill-conceived.”

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Yesterday Joe brought a tidbit from former Bucs quarterback Shaun King’s emotional, fire and brimstone radio tirade Tuesday blasting Team Glazer and Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik over the firing of Raheem Morris and the state of the Bucs franchise.

For your evening listening entertainment, click below to listen to Part 1 of the audio, courtesy of WQYK-AM 1010. (Hat tip Justin)

Apparently channeling years of training as a social worker, Bucs beat writer Stephen Holder says some young, key Buccaneers lacked the mental capacity to handle adversity last season.

Holder offered his take during a live chat today for his employer, TampaBay.com.

Comment From PherbPherb: What do you make of talking heads like Shaun King saying Raheem go screwed? Shouldn’t it be obvious that his team quit on him and that’s all on the head coach?

Stephen F. Holder: Yes, the team seemed to quit and it’s his job to get thru to them. BUT, I think the makeup of the team is a reason they quit on him. In other words, you had SOME young and weak-minded players who didn’t respond well when the pressure got turned up. Last year, there was no pressure and they were winning. Everyone gets lifted by the high tide, you know? But this year, things got sticky and guys didn’t respond. A lot of those young guys had never been tested like that.

Joe interprets Holder’s take as essentially blaming a poor screening process, aka rockstar general manager Mark Dominik, for leading to mental weaklings landing on Raheem’s roster in key positions. And these softies caved under pressure.

Wow. Joe’s heard it all now.

The Bucs routinely came out in games outschemed before the opening whistle, often defeated and deflated only minutes into the game. For Joe, that was a complete failure of coaching, from motivation to preparation.

Somehow, in 2010, young Buccaneers stepped up in key roles, routinely while trailing in pressure fourth-quarter situations. How many rookies made starts in 2010? Hats off to Raheem and his staff for that. But in 2011 the team was allegedly infested with weak-minded players?

Joe doesn’t get why it’s so hard to just call the last 10 games what they were: a collosal, historic failure by the coaching staff.

With no coaching staff in place, a 10-game losing streak to end last season in a grotesque manner, perhaps the worst linebacker play in the NFL, and maybe losing its two starting cornerbacks in 2012, it’s difficult on face value to see the Bucs making the playoffs in the near future.

Don’t count Don Banks along with the naysayers.

The former Bucs beat writer for the then-St. Petersburg Times has been a popular NFL columnist for Sports Illustrated for some time now. He recently typed a piece where he believes the Bucs and the Lambs are much easier franchises to turn into winners than what many suggest.

Spagnuolo and Morris won’t reap the benefits, but an objective assessment shows the Rams and Bucs are in better position today than they were when they hired those two men in early 2009.

In the NFL, the teams without hope are the teams without a long-term answer at quarterback. On that front, the Bucs and Rams remain in decent shape. Tampa Bay’s Josh Freeman and St. Louis’ Sam Bradford both regressed this season and suffered setbacks in their development as first-round, franchise-type quarterbacks. Nothing came easily to either passer, and their first real blast of adversity in the NFL tested their wills and challenged their confidence levels.

But the things that ailed Freeman and Bradford are fixable, and their experiences this year were rather common for young quarterbacks who find themselves caught up in a season that spirals out of control. Yes, they struggled mightily at times, but that does not necessarily doom them to more of the same in the future.

Banks goes on to write that he believes the investments the Bucs have made on the defensive line should pay off and that will help turn the defense around quicker than most.

Banks has a point. But first thing first: Fix Freeman.

As Team Glazer and rockstar general manager Mark Dominik search the globe for a head coach and parade candidates through One Buc Palace, surely they will develop a key set of interview questions.

There are plenty to ask (Have you ever dropped an F-bomb to the media? Or been beaten by your uncles?), but Joe has to think one priority is getting a damn good answer on how this new head coach will develop the Bucs’ defensive front seven.

The Bucs invested two first-round picks and two second-rounders in the defensive line over the past two years. Like the picks or not, they can’t afford to miss on the D-line. Plus, the Bucs surely must grab at least one impact linebacker in free agency and likely draft one with one of their higher picks in 2012. So there’s no doubt the Bucs will have a load — financially and draftwise — invested in that front seven. There’s no way it can be an afterthought in any way.

In Joe’s mind, any head coaching candidate is going to have to show up at One Buc with something very concrete on developing the Bucs’ defense, including names of assistant coaches so they can be scrutinized.

Presumably, head coaching candidates show up prepared. But Joe hears offensive names like Mike Sherman and Mike Mularkey, and the first thing Joe wants to know is how they plan to stop having the Bucs gashed and gutted consistently by opposing running backs.

If, as Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik has been known to say, the Bucs are all about “No. 5,” then it would stand to reason the Bucs want to hire an offensive-minded head coach to replace jettisoned Raheem Morris.

So, per Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, Dixie Chicks offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey is on the Bucs’ short list of candidates to replace Morris.

Mularkey is an interesting study. He was a former get-back coach for Sam Wyche with the Bucs, eventually rising to the status of tight ends coach.

With Pittsburgh roughly 10 years ago, he rose from wide receivers coach to offensive coordinator and somehow transformed Tommy Maddox of all people into a playoff quarterback.

In Mularkey’s last season in Pittsburgh, he somehow wrung 3,414 yards of passing out of Maddox’s right arm. Mularkey was also key in developing receivers Hines Ward and Antwaan Randle El.

With the Dixie Chicks, Matt Ryan largely credits Mularkey with his development.

If the Bucs are looking for an imaginative, entertaining offensive coordinator who has a knack for making young players productive, if not Pro Bowl players, the Bucs could do worse than Mularkey, despite the mixed bag of results he had in a two-year stint as Bills head coach.

The eighth-best kick retuner in the NFL in 2010 (with 10 or more attempts), “Run, Micheal, Run” Spurlock, was the invisible kick returner for the Bucs in 2011.

That was a season-long mystery to Joe. Spurlock didn’t get any kick return action in the first few preseason games and seemingly was never given a chance to keep his job.

Sammie Stroughter got the gig and was injured on his first kick return of the season, an impressive 78-yarder against Detroit. Preston Parker split returns the rest of the season with Stroughter. Parker finished ranked 35th in the NFL in yards per return (10 or more attempts). Stroughter was 14th.

Spurlock, a young veteran that repeatedly earned praise for his professionalism by Raheem Morris, rode the bench.

Parker also was one of the worst punt returners in the NFL this season, leading the league in fumbles on punt returns with six, especially glaring since the Bucs’ heinous defense hardly forced a lot of punts. Parker ranked 23rd in yards per return among those with 10 or more opportunities. Parker only had three punt returns of 20 yards or more and never “broke” one.

To be fair, Spurlock was an ineffective punt returner for the Bucs in 2010. While he only had one fumble, he didn’t break one either and only had two returns of 20 yards or more. Spurlock was tied for 35th in 2010 in yards per return among guys with 10 or more opportunities.

If fans are to go along with Raheem Morris and his staff’s assessment that Spurlock is nothing more than a backup returner now, then the Bucs could use serious upgrades at both those returner positions next year.

Joe suspects any new head coach will want fresh blood at the position. As effective as Parker was a receiver this season, Joe would suspect he’ll have trouble landing on the Bucs roster in 2012, assuming a new coach wants to upgrade the receiving corps and the return game.

There has already been some news seeping out of One Buc Palace about what the Bucs think of one of the candidates to become the franchise’s ninth head coach.

When Raheem Morris was told, in so many words, to go to the Outback Bowl and not come back Monday, quite a few Bucs fans jumped up and down as if they were on trampolines in the excitement of former Titans coach Jeff Fisher potentially coming to Tampa Bay.

Hold up, says eye-RAH! Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune. Kaufman has his ear to the ground at One Buc Palace and believes the powers that be who work there are collectively shrugging their shoulders over Fisher, so he told “The Fabulous Sports Babe” yesterday, heard on WHBO-AM 1040.

“My information — and you are not going to like it — my information is this organization right here is not overwhelmed with Jeff Fisher. That’s my information.”

Kaufman had loads of other information about the Bucs’ putrid season, the coaching search (Mike Sherman is leading candidate thus far) and jettisoned coach Raheem Morris (“He did know he was going to be fired.”)

Never shying away from an opinion, former Bucs guard Ian Beckles (1990-1996) made it crystal clear who he wants to patrol the sidelines next year for the Bucs.

Speaking on WDAE-AM 620 this morning, Beckles was empahatic that he would snatch former Bucs defensive line coach and current Bears defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli as the Bucs’ next head coach.

Beckles said he’s never met a former player of Marinelli’s that didn’t respect him and laud his motivational and teaching abilities. Beckles said Marinelli would bring the right kind of discipline to the young Bucs.

Marinelli, 62, might be a great head coach one day, but he won only one of his last 24 games as Detroit Lions head coach, including the dubious 0-16 season in 2008.

As great as Marinelli might be in the job, if Joe were running the Bucs, Joe wouldn’t have the testicular fortitude to look past that record.

“The Professor,” John Clayton of BSPN is reporting the Bucs have reached out to former Texas A&M and Green Bay Packers coach Mike Sherman in the team’s search for a new head coach.

Sherman was 57-39 in six seasons with the Packers and won three NFL North titles. He was 25-25 in four seasons at Texas A&M and took two teams to bowl games.

It’s possible the Bucs would lean toward a former NFL head coach with offensive experience to help quarterback Josh Freeman, who is considered one of the top young quarterbacks in the league.

Just a hunch, but if Sherman is the Bucs coach, we can expect not to see Warren Sapp around these parts until Sherman’s coaching days with the Bucs ends.

Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Jerry Gray.

Ah, the magic (and speed of Twitter). Within a handful of minutes, beat writers for both the Bucs and the Titans were in conflict about the Bucs’ first interview to fill the open head coaching position with the team.

Per Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, via Twitter, the Bucs plan to interview Titans defensive coordinator Jerry Gray Wednesday.

@NFLSTROUD: Bucs plan to interview Titans defensive coordinator Jerry Gray. Will make Bucs compliant with the Rooney Rule

Hold up, writes Jim Wyatt of The Tennessean. He is the paper’s beat writer for the Titans and Wyatt claims there’s a little technicality to take care of first before Gray interviews with the Bucs.

@jwyattsports: Tampa Bay plans to interview #Titans DC Jerry Gray for their h.c job, reports St. Petersburg Times. TB hasn’t asked for permission yet tho

So which is it? Have the Bucs asked for permission or is the interview locked in?

Time will tell, Joe’s sure of it.

Shaun King is angry and he’s not taking it any more.

King, one of only three quarterbacks to lead the Bucs to an NFC title game, has long been a staunch defender of jettisoned Bucs coach Raheem Morris.

And while King stated today in his monologue on the “too Jewish” King David Show he co-hosts with Toby David, heard on WQYK-AM 1010, that he understands losing 10 games in a row to end a season will see any coached fired, King lashed out at Bucs rock star general manager Mark Dominik and Team Glazer, claiming the suits at One Buc Palace “sabotaged” Morris.

“This is the most complete lowpoint in the history of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization,” King said. “Raheem Morris was sabotaged in the very beginning by Mark Dominik and the Glazer family.

“As a head coach, all you ask for is to control your own destiny. Unfortunately, he had no control.”

King went on to say that Dominik has complete authoritarian control of the team, from player acquisition to the hiring of assistant coaches. King also claimed Morris did not want to be both head coach and defensive coordinator but that Morris was all but forced to wear both hats because it was a cost-saving move.

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In this BSPN video, former WFTS-TV sportscaster and current Soviet Mouse outfit indentured servant Sage Steele suggested that Raheem Morris being jettisoned by Team Glazer was a “PR move to satisfy bloodthirsty Bucs fans who loathed Morris. But NFL analyst Adam Schefter quickly shot that down and discussed the state of the Bucs.

Based on NFL history, Joe will take Carolina offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski in a heartbeat over Jeff Fisher to replace Raheem Morris.

Joe has been pondering this for some time, since it appeared possible roughly six weeks ago that embattled Bucs coach Raheem Morris could be jettisoned.

Joe wondered what type of coach the Bucs should get. Initially Joe was against a coach that would change the defense to a 34 defense as the Bucs are stocked with 43-front defensive players.

But as horrid as the Bucs are defensively, what mental midget would argue the Bucs defense shouldn’t be retooled?

Joe’s a history guy. History shows us patterns. And to ignore history and to ignore patterns is a perfect way to sink further in the quicksand.

Let’s take a look at very recent NFL history, this year to be precise.

Of the 12 NFL playoff coaches who will lead their charges in the coming days in a quest for the Vince Lombardi Trophy, nine had zero NFL head coaching experience prior to their current jobs. The three playoff coaches with previous NFL head coaching experience are Bill Belicheat, Tom Coughlin and John Fox.

In the last three Super Bowls, none of the five coaches (Pittsburgh was in the Super Bowl twice in the past three seasons) had NFL head coaching experience prior to their current gigs.

See a pattern there? Joe does.

Then, let’s take a look at how Super Bowl coaches fared when they moved to other teams after a brief layoff. It’s not pretty, believe it or not.

Below is a graphic compiled by Jason Lisk of TheBigLead.com of every coach that led a team to a Super Bowl, took at least one year off, and then took a job with another team. The coaches’ success usually did not arrive with them at their new job.

So history says the odds of Bill Cowher or Jeff Fisher leading the Bucs back to a Super Bowl are not good, not good at all.

Given the success of coordinators/position coaches turning head coaches and the limited success of successful head coaches coaxed out of retirement, Joe will easily take the former.

Sure, a coordinator/position coach may not make fans storm Ticketmaster to buy season tickets, but is the goal to build a Super Bowl contender or a quick fix to sell tickets?

After all, the Bucs already had a Super Bowl-winning coach who wasn’t selling out the football stadium on Dale Mabry Highway.

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Welcome to the wildest most unpredictable Buccaneers offseason in ages. The Bucs haven’t had an all-new coaching staff on the way since 1996!

It truly was the end of a long era yesterday, even though Raheem Morris was only in power three years. The ties to the Dungy-Gruden days only just hit the streets.

Plus, there’s no predicting what the Bucs will do in the draft sitting in the coveted No. 5 hole and not needing a quarterback. Even if they keep the pick, do the Bucs go offense or defense? They’ll also surely have to fill some holes in free agency, at least giving their new head coach some latitude to bring in a few of “his guys.”

Rockstar general manager has said before that he’s a defense-leaning guy, but he’s also said the Bucs have to build around Josh Freeman. What’s next is a definite mystery.

Former Bucs beat writer Don Banks, now with Sports Illustrated, took an interesting look at the Bucs’ next moves in a story penned yesterday. Here’s a snippet:

In Tampa Bay, the Bucs find themselves in a very tough division, with playoff perennials New Orleans and Atlanta leading the NFC South, in addition to vastly improved Carolina. It’s no easy task to go up against the likes of Drew Brees, Matt Ryan and Cam Newton six times a season, but things change rapidly in the NFL, as Tampa Bay’s plummet from 10-6 in 2010 to 4-12 in 2011 clearly illustrates.

The Bucs have invested heavily in the defensive line at the top of recent drafts, and they need to get some significant return on those selections, with tackles Gerald McCoy and Brian Price staying healthy, and ends Adrian Clayborn and Da’Quan Bowers developing into solid pass rushers. On offense, the addition of another playmaking receiver for Freeman to target is a must, but with their No. 5 overall pick next April the Bucs might be in position to nab Oklahoma State junior Justin Blackmon, the consensus top available pass-catcher. Look at how much difference last year’s top receiver made this season in Cincinnati, with No. 4 pick A.J. Green giving the Bengals the vertical threat they craved and making rookie quarterback Andy Dalton better than anyone expected.

Joe wonders whether Team Glazer and Dominik will covet an offensive– or defensive-minded head coach. Sure, Team Glazer said the team has a completely open mind, but there’s always a leaning.

Perhaps in a division with this much firepower the Bucs are better off with a defensive guy and leaning their plan toward that side of the ball? The argument can go many directions — just like the Bucs this offseason.

There were a lot of reasons why the end of the Raheem Morris era came yesterday just over 12 hours after one of the most horrific losses in Bucs’ chequered history, coughing up 42 points in the first 22 minutes of the season-ending game to the Dixie Chicks.

For longtime Sports Illustrated columnist Peter King, Team Glazer terminating Morris was a no-brainer, he wrote in his weekly must-read Monday Morning Quarterback yesterday.

Points allowed, Tampa, last eight games: 37, 35, 23, 38, 41, 31, 48, 45. A disgrace is what it is. How does a head coach with a defensive background allow that to happen?

Try to pin the blame elsewhere, try to make excuses, but the bottom line was, no matter what level of talent anyone thinks Morris had, that talent never improved, in fact it got worse by the week. “The progress of the team,” as Bucs co-chairman Joel Glazer said yesterday. That falls squarely on the coaching staff, not a suit in the front office.

Team Glazer had tens of millions of dollars invested in said talent with zero return. It was almost like buying real estate at the height of the boom and walking away from a house that is terribly underwater with no hope of any return on your pricey investment.

Team Glazer cut the losses. Quickly.

The good people of WFLA-TV Channel 8 visited tailgaters/mental midgets at the Outback Bowl earlier today and found fans praising Team Glazer’s move to jettison Raheem Morris.

The video gets reaction on Raheem Morris’ demise from several Bucs fans that were tailgating outside the Outback Bowl when news broke. Full disclosure: Joe was in that crowd drinking Dos Equis when a cheer erupted from the party next to him. “What happened?” Joe asked. “The Bucs fired Raheem,” a grinning man said.

Joe can already smell the new divide among Bucs fans. Now that Raheem Morris is home sharpening his core beliefs, a new man will be tied to the Tampa city whipping post until the Bucs start winning again — that would be rockstar general manager Mark Dominik.

Frankly, there’s not a Bucs fan in the world that could convince Joe that Dominik is more than 15 percent responsible for the mess of the 2011 season. Joe’s written before that the historic failure of Raheem’s staff deserved the lion share of the blame — for a team that exemplified hungry over a season plus six games but then effectively quit in a big way.

But Dominik’s already getting skewered mightily, even a matter hours into a new era. Surprising to Joe was St. Pete Times columnist Gary Shelton’s long take today out of the Dominik-Glazer news conference at One Buc Palace. Here’s a snippet that troubled Joe.

That’s the thing about the Backwards Gang. Some of the ringleaders got away. Some of them stared into the cameras Monday and tried to explain why tomorrow is going to be different from today.

Sure it is. Tight-fisted owners are going to spend freely, and a short-sighted general manger is going to get smarter, and an immature bunch of players is going to grow up overnight.

Either that, or the Bucs will meet here in another three years to fire another coach.

Oh, during their news conference, Joel Glazer and Dominik suggested they shared the blame, too. Who is to disagree? The Bucs’ roster is filled with players who will have successful careers with whatever Arena Football League team they end up with. The Bucs lacked enough cash and enough commitment to free agency to give Morris a roster that would have made a better argument in his behalf.

First, Joel Glazer didn’t “suggest” he and Dominik shared blame, as Shelton wrote. Glazer flat out said they owned their share of blame. Why Shelton didn’t pick up on that (it was crystal clear), Joe has no clue.

Second, calling Dominik “short-sighted” is almost silly. Dominik, if anything, was “long-sighted,” if there was such a word meaning too focused on the future. The Bucs needed more veteran talent to hit their goals for 2011, but how could Dominik or anyone else have forecast an across-the-board, midseason failure of the coaching staff?

Lastly, if Shelton really believes Team Glazer is “tight-fisted,” then blaming Dominik surely has questionable merit. And it seems Shelton doesn’t realize that the new NFL labor agreement will compel Team Glazer and the rest of the owners to spend hard cash on salaries come 2013.

The reality is Raheem had all the talent he needed on his roster to keep his job. Maybe not win the division, but surely stay employed and have the Bucs poised for impact upgrades in 2012. A truly “yungry” looking team through this past season — even with ups and downs — would have gotten Raheem another year.

Raheem has only one man to blame, and Joe believes fans should recognize how much blame that guy deserves.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

The Bucs’ lasting contender plan always included signing free agents when necessary to reach the ultimate goal. The whole build-through-draft mantra got a little misconstrued by some folks, so Joel Glazer told media today at One Buc Palace.

Glazer referred to the notion that the Bucs are draft-only builders unwilling to spend as a “slight misconception.”

“You do have to supplement with other players, free agents,” Glazer explained. “We are going to spend whatever it takes to win.”

Glazer also reiterated what Joe’s heard Bryan Glazer say previously, that the Bucs under Team Glazer never have lost a desired player from the team because the team wouldn’t pay him, and poor drafting is what’s led to years of low payroll. Joel Glazer used the examples of Donald Penn and Davin Joseph as players that blossomed on the Bucs and were rewarded accordingly and said that trend would hopefully continue. (Funny, there was no Quincy Black reference/)

Of course, this essentially is years-old news made fresh today. However, Joe realizes many fans think Team Glazer is just rationalizing reasons for frugality when it comes to player payroll.

It will be fascinating to see how many impact free agents are brought in when the free agency bell rings in March. And, of course, the cash chatter basically becomes moot in 2013, when the new labor agreement will force every NFL team to spend nearly the same amount of hard cash on salaries.