Gruden......"Thank you to the Outback Bowl for letting me back into the stadium"

[Chief Joseph]

You can't really say that certain categories are the only paths to success.

No, not the only paths. But the most likely path? Absolutely. ESPN highlights have little relationship to the nuts and bolts of winning football. Remember Denver's running back factory? They were taking winos off the street and running them for a thousand yards. Do you think that might have had more to do with their O-line than the running backs? How about the Bucs Superbowl run, do you remember that? Our O-line allowed zero sacks during the playoff run, and suddenly Brad Johnson was a Superbowl winning QB.

Run the ball, stop the run. It's not the only path to success, but it's damned hard to win without these abilities. And they start at the line. Always.

[Chief Joseph]

Chuck ALWAYS used the injury excuse... Raheem has never used it.

When Gruden said "We're not going to use injuries as an excuse," you said if he wasn't using it as an excuse he wouldn't have brought it up. Morris can say the exact same thing and you claim it shows he's not using injuries as an excuse. Again, you are a hypocrite, nothing more.

[MiltonMack21]

Seems as though every PC for Gruden started off with injuries. I am going to do some research tomorrow about the number of injuries those teams suffered compared to the number of significant injuries suffered by this group. Coming to mind I can only think of really a few. P.S. Charlie Garner doesn't count.

[nubcake]

So what would you suggest to "turn us into" a long-term contender then? What steps aren't being taken to set us in that direction?

The same thing I've always said, it starts with run defense and a solid running game. The running game has shown a lot of improvement, thanks in large part to Blount, but this O-line isn't exactly one we can point at and say it makes us a perennial contender. And we are in the bottom third of the league in run defense. We're tied for thirtieth in sacks, and we're the easiest team in the league to run the ball up the middle against. We may have spent our top two picks on DTs, but the truth is our DL is hemorrhaging.

I'll definitely agree with you there. DL and OL have to be our top priorities next year. What I'm not sure I understand is why you seem to be so pessimistic towards the current regime when the problem with the DL(and to a lesser extent the OL too) largely falls on the previous one. I don't want to be anti-Gruden on everything, but let's be honest here...we were left with absolutely nothing there. It was essentially something completely ignored outside of a couple free agent signings, and aside from not drafting a franchise QB I think this was the second largest contributing factor to our 2008 collapse and Gruden's eventual firing. The defensive line was just abysmal, full of aging players, many of whom weren't very good in the first place.

I'm relatively satisfied with Morris and Dominik's response to this issue thus far. Drafting McCoy was most likely our best option(since we don't know what trading up for Suh would have cost). The Price pick was debatable, but at least he showed potential in his very short time playing and we certainly can't say they ignored the line. Roy Miller has been solid at times as well, though I don't think he's a long term answer.

My main complaint would be that they haven't done anything with the offensive line to upgrade our ability to run the ball, but at the same time we had huge holes at QB, WR(x2), TE, the entire defensive line, LB, CB, S...virtually the entire team, really. We weren't left with much to work with at all. So on that note, I can't complain too much(though I will if we don't address it in next year's draft/free agency). And they did go out and get Blount, which as you said has been a significant upgrade.

So while I'll agree with you, I'm not sure the team has really had adequate time under the new regime to really be blamed for those holes. Not only were there holes in virtually every other position on the roster, they've also drafted 3 DL in the first 3 rounds of the past 2 drafts and pursued Haynesworth strongly. They've certainly made a very strong effort to upgrade the run defense, hopefully one that will pan out. I think if we can get a great DE that will help infinitely, not only in stopping the run on the line itself but also enabling our blitzes to actually be effective for once. It's a lot to fix within just two years, but I do believe that the attention to the weaknesses is quite clear.

[GameTime]

Run the ball, stop the run. It's not the only path to success, but it's damned hard to win without these abilities. And they start at the line. Always.

so do you believe that dominik and morris are not moving towards this?  where do you believe they have faltered in this path?  do you believe that the current OL and DL needs to be blown up?

[DanTurksGhost]

FYI, Coach Gruden was very vocal behind the scenes about how his plans were constantly thwarted by injuries.

[Feel Real Good]

FYI, Coach Gruden was very vocal behind the scenes about how his plans were constantly thwarted by injuries.

Sometimes injuries are a legit excuse. Losing Kelly in 2003 and Rice in 2006 was catastrophic. But losing lesser players (Simms, C. Williams, etc.) aren't legit excuses.

[Chief Joseph]

FYI, Coach Gruden was very vocal behind the scenes about how his plans were constantly thwarted by injuries.

Can you say that Morris isn't?

[DanTurksGhost]

Can you say that Morris isn't?

So far, he isn't to the best of my personal knowledge. He's very much a guy who believes in the next man up theory, and that any of the players on the roster should be able to play like a starter. That's as of now... don't know about 5 years from now.

[jerseybucsfan]

You need to rush the passer and be able to pass the ball too, Illuminator. Teams that can't run only run into problems when something inhibits that (like weather). But the run-stop the run belief is mythology. The point is to score AND control the clock. With the WCO, you can do it with the pass just as well as the run.

[CBWx2]

You need to rush the passer and be able to pass the ball too, Illuminator. Teams that can't run only run into problems when something inhibits that (like weather). But the run-stop the run belief is mythology. The point is to score AND control the clock. With the WCO, you can do it with the pass just as well as the run.

New England is ranked ranked 27th in defense and 15th against the run, yet they are 13-2. So ^this^ appears to be true.

[nubcake]

You need to rush the passer and be able to pass the ball too, Illuminator. Teams that can't run only run into problems when something inhibits that (like weather). But the run-stop the run belief is mythology. The point is to score AND control the clock. With the WCO, you can do it with the pass just as well as the run.

This is true to some extent, but the reason he focuses on running the ball is because it's a very long season, and while you may be able to win by passing and stopping the pass for a while, eventually your inability to win physical battles in the trenches will come back to bite you(unless you're the Patriots, who have Tom Brady so they can do whatever they want).

So I'd agree with him that running and stopping the run are vitally important. I'm just not sure why he at least seems to think we haven't taken large steps towards improving our performance in both categories.

[jerseybucsfan]

Running games have changed too. Teams no longer go with big 30-carry backs. It wears out quality backs too quickly. So running back by committee approaches are the norm. In terms of passing, you need receiver by committee approaches too. This is why the Bucs are headed for big years. Freeman has a large stable of quality receivers at his disposal.