Daily Loaf

Woe is the Buccaneers fan. Let me preface this by saying I love the Bucs. They’re my NFL team and always will be. I’m not looking to switch allegiances and I never will.

But the 2009 Buccaneers are in trouble. While other NFL teams are already executing their game plans with near playoff-like precision, the Bucs are still miles away from establishing any sort of identity. Heading into the regular season, Tampa Bay’s coaching staff is no closer to answering crucial questions than it was four preseason games ago.

They start quarterback Byron Leftwich, who’s already been cut from several NFL rosters. Byron’s own family wouldn’t start him on their fantasy team. Citing directional differences, the Bucs fired their offensive coordinator, Jeff Jagodzinksi, days before the start of the season. They have no clear-cut, number one running back. They have no go-to wide receiver. In the off-season, they lost one of the greatest defensive minds in football. They’ve had off-the-field personnel issues. And their schedule is brutal. They play the NFC East this year, one of the toughest divisions in football, meaning before they even play a team in their own division, they will face Washington, Dallas, Philadelphia and the New York Giants, all Super Bowl contenders.

In the preseason, Tampa Bay went 1-3. Read the rest of this entry »

I was in a deep slumber last week when my phone rang. It was about 10 a.m. and I was resting comfortably on my couch, trying to pretend the Orlando Magic meltdown the night before never happened.

The Commish was on the other end of the phone. He had landed tickets to a special Buccaneers function and invited me to attend. New head coach Raheem Morris would be speaking and the event would certainly be worth writing about. Little did I know there would also be cheerleaders there.

Chalk Talk with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is an annual luncheon held by the team which gives fans a chance to meet players and personnel. It’s kind of like the team’s State of the Union address. This year’s function was held at the Hyatt Downtown.

With all the off-season moves and acquisitions, a buzz surrounds these Buccaneers, as evidenced by the turnout. There were several hundred media members, fans, businesspeople and elected officials in attendance. Oh, and did I mention there were cheerleaders? Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a compelling animation of the U.S. Airways Hudson River crash. Stay tuned for the end, where the passengers are revealed to be the cast of The Sims.

• Michael Steele apologizes to Rush, making Limbaugh the defacto leader of the Republican Party.
• R.I.P. The Dow Jones Industrial Average.
• Is this a Depression? What the hell is a “Depression,” anyway?
• How dangerous and out of control was the Bush Administration?
• Where in the world is Hillary Clinton?
• “Scientists make HIV strain that can infect monkeys.” What did the monkeys ever do to us?
• New iMacs today?
• The Bucs learn a thing or two about Karma.

In yet another sign of the Tampa Bay Bucs’ drastic facelift, the team released perhaps the most stalwart player in franchise history, LB Derrick Brooks, a sure-fire future Hall of Famer. Joining him on the cuts list were another popular Buc, RB Warrick Dunn, who returned to the team last year after several with the Falcons; WR Joey Galloway; WR Ike Hilliard; and LB Cato June.

All except June were past-their-prime players with substantial salaries. June, who turns 30 later this year, signed in 2007 as a free agent from the Indianapolis Colts, but never made the impact expected.  June was considered the heir apparent to Brooks, so it’s a bit odd that he was released as well. But overall, the cuts are indicative of a Tampa Bay youth movement, or to use a taboo word: rebuilding.

The Brooks release is easily the most controversial. He’s been an absolutely great player for the team, an 11-time Pro Bowler, and a pillar of the community. He even restructured his contract a couple of times to provide the franchise with salary cap space to sign free agents.

Salary cap is not currently a problem with the  Bucs. The team is a reported $42 million under the cap, most in the NFL.

What do all these moves augur? The optimist might think that the Bucs are gearing up for a run at free agents like monster DT Albert Haynsworth. Those with less sunny outlooks might see it as the new administration following ownership’s mandate to run the team on the cheap. The Glazer family owns the Manchester United soccer team, which is widely regarded to have the highest payroll in all of professional sports.

I don’t have a strong read on it either way — but I do know that if with the Bucs parting ways with Brooks and the rest, they had better be counter those moves by loosening the purse strings or else risk alienating their fanbase more than it already is.

—Eric Snider

A press conference has been scheduled for 3 p.m.

From the official site:

Bucs Call 3:00 PM Press Conference

Feb 25, 2009 -

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have called a press conference at team headquarters beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday afternoon.

The team will make both Head Coach Raheem Morris and General Manager Mark Dominik available to speak and answer questions at the press conference.

The press conference will be carried live on Buccaneers.com and a recorded version will be posted shortly after its conclusion.

And we thought the Glazers weren’t paying attention.

In a terse statement on their website, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced just before 6 p.m today that they had fired head coach Jon Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen .

Here’s the team’s statement:

“We will be forever grateful to Jon for bringing us the Super Bowl title, and we thank Bruce for his contributions to our franchise, however after careful consideration, we feel that this decision is in the best interest of our organization moving forward.”

Maybe the move doesn’t qualify as a shocker, but it’s definitely a surprise.

This is not the way head coach firings generally go down in the NFL. The rumor mill usually churns and the community has a sense of what’s in the offing. Locally, the sports media was definitely not abuzz with the idea that Gruden was on his way out. Further, most coaches are dismissed within a few days after the end of a season. Gruden’s ouster comes 19 days after the Bucs final game, a home loss to the Oakland Raiders that eliminated them from the playoffs.

My hunch is that the Glazer family came to the decision after considerable thought and deliberation. The owners have always been a group that seemed detached from the Tampa Bay community, but you get the sense that they were hearing the Gruden/Allen-bashing that was taking place on sports radio and in other forums.

There were a lot of empty seats in Raymond James Stadium this season, even though the Bucs sprinted to a record of 9-3 (only to lost their last four games in a historic collapse). The fans have been in a generally dour mood since the season’s end, and maybe top team brass realized it and took action.

So the topic of the moment — other than speculation about who will replace the coach and GM — is: Should Gruden and Allen have gotten the axe?

If I were in the owners’ chair, I would not have pulled the plug now. The late-season cave-in obscures the notion that the Bucs 9-7 record was about what fans should’ve expected, given the team’s level of talent. The Bucs put a roster together for the 2008 season that left an estimated $35-million of space under the NFL salary cap. If Allen was relucant to spend it, then he should certainly have been dismissed.

But there’s been a lot of speculation that the Glazers, leveraged to the teeth with their ownership of the British soccer franchise Manchester United, were running the Bucs on the cheap. If that is indeed the case, then the fault lies with ownership. Allen, hamstrung by tight purse-strings, could only do so much, and I honestly think Gruden did a decent job this year with the players he had.

That said, the Gruden act had gotten pretty stale after seven seasons at the Bucs’ helm. Some new blood will be welcomed.

In the end, it appears that Jon Gruden finally ran out of the good will he had earned by bringing the long-suffering Tampa Bay Bucs a Super Bowl championship.