Winning will earn Buccaneers coach respect

[michael89156]

 Winning will earn Buccaneers coach respect






ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE
Two months ago, no one would have considered Schiano a candidate for NFL coach of the year.




By ROY CUMMINGS | The Tampa Tribune
Published: November 24, 2012



TAMPA --

Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano drew the ire of his brethren in the NFL coaching fraternity two weeks into the season when he attacked a game-ending, kneel-down play in a 41-34 loss to the Giants.

Now, Schiano's new frat brothers have cause to be upset with the rookie out of Rutgers for an entirely different reason — he's beating them.

Schiano, who also raised some eyebrows when he called for a defensive shift on a Saints field goal try, has led the Bucs to four straight wins and five in their past six games.

If Schiano keeps the streak alive today with a win against the Falcons, he'll become the first Tampa Bay coach since Jon Gruden in 2002 and fourth in franchise history to win five straight games.

John McKay and Tony Dungy are the others who compiled five-game win streaks within a season, which means Schiano has quickly placed himself at the doorstep of a rather exclusive club.

More importantly, he has the Bucs at the doorstep of a rather exclusive club. At 6-4, Tampa Bay is tied with Seattle and Minnesota for the NFC's final wild-card berth.

Two months ago, no one would have considered Schiano a candidate for NFL coach of the year. Now, though, just like his team in its battle for the playoffs, he could be among the leaders in that race.

Though a handful of coaches have engineered more successful seasons so far, none has orchestrated a more unlikely rise than Schiano, who is on the brink of achieving some of his primary objectives.

When Schiano came to the Bucs in January, he vowed to change the culture at One Buc Place and win back for good the relevance and respect the Bucs fumbled away during the previous decade.

The culture change, brought about largely by his decision to rid the team of problematic players such as Tanard Jackson and Aqib Talib, is complete. And with stars emerging on both sides of the ball, the Bucs are nearing relevance again.

All that's missing is the respect.

If the Bucs beat the Falcons, Schiano's new frat brothers might not like him any more, but they'll be left with little choice but to respect him and his football team.



Good hands people

All indications are that QB Josh Freeman has regained the big-play, game-winning form of 2010 that eluded him in 2011. Much of the credit for Freeman's improvement, though, has to go to his receivers.

Not only have Vincent Jackson, Mike Williams and Dallas Clark made plays, they also have made sure just about everything Freeman puts in range of them gets caught. According to the numbers crunchers at ProFootballFocus, only nine quarterbacks have suffered fewer dropped passes than the 16 suffered so far by Freeman, who ranks 22nd in the league in that category.

With those 16 drops coming among 319 pass attempts, Bucs receivers have mishandled only five percent of what PFF describes as Freeman's catchable passes, which is the fourth-lowest percentage in the league.



Buccaneers Monday

Several NFL teams, especially this time of year, take Mondays off if they win on Sundays. Not the Bucs. The closest thing the Bucs have had to the full day off other teams call "Victory Monday" is just a lighter Monday workday.

"We call it Buccaneers Monday," Mike Williams said. "We have to show up and lift weights and run in the pool, but then we can go."

 

[Knucknbuc]

Gotta say I was extremely skeptical when we hired schiano. But now I honestly can't help but to respect what he's done to this football team. Last year the last 10 games was possibly the worst football team I have ever seen play. A real monstrosity  to the game. Literally I had never seen a team collectively quit all at the same time. But the transformation from now to this year has been so impresive it's kinda hard not to come around to loving this hire. He changed that team to a team that competes every time out on the field and lays everything on the line. Even when we were 1-3 this team was still in every game and you can see that they still hustled their ass off. That has to be respected. This team might not go undefeated to finish the season but honestly I won't say I would be surprised if they did by how hard this team plays.  I'm more then happy to eat crow on the schiano hire and glad that we did. This team id deafinantly  moving in the right direction.

[The Anti-Java]

I don't know about coach of the year talk, but I guess if they won out,  it would be possible.

Kubiak has done a good job.  Harbough if they keep it up.

[nitey]

Gotta say I was extremely skeptical when we hired schiano. But now I honestly can't help but to respect what he's done to this football team. Last year the last 10 games was possibly the worst football team I have ever seen play. A real monstrosity  to the game. Literally I had never seen a team collectively quit all at the same time. But the transformation from now to this year has been so impresive it's kinda hard not to come around to loving this hire. He changed that team to a team that competes every time out on the field and lays everything on the line. Even when we were 1-3 this team was still in every game and you can see that they still hustled their ass off. That has to be respected. This team might not go undefeated to finish the season but honestly I won't say I would be surprised if they did by how hard this team plays.  I'm more then happy to eat crow on the schiano hire and glad that we did. This team id deafinantly  moving in the right direction.

Same here, although I honestly did NOT want Chip Kelly and wasn't at all disappointed that we couldn't hire him. However, most of my skepticism was because I just didn't know anything about this college coach from a small college like Rutgers. Once the choice was made and I started reading about what Coach had done and especially how he was still fulfilling his promise to Eric LeGrande, I was sold on him as a person.

Anyone that loved Tony Dungy as a coach should end up loving Schiano.  I honestly hope that he coaches here for a very long time.

[Morgan]

NFL Network giving Martin and Schiano respect this a.m.