Poll: What has been Grudens biggest mistake in Tampa?

1. Letting Lynch and Sapp go.
2. Not spending enough attention on defense.
3. Putting Gradkowski in as a rookie.
4. Making Simms the starter.
5. Drafting (or is that the scouts)
6. Signing bad free agents.
7. other ( what do you think he has done the worst in tampa.)

I want honest opinions on this. No Gruden lovers or hater opinions on this thread. Full thought out replies. go at it.

I think his biggest mistake was the Gradkowski move....Lynch was released because of an injury and had to even sign a waiver for the Broncos to take him. Sapp was asking for a bunch of money and his career was coming to a close

My guess is you always give the vet a try first

[Simms2Clayton05]

1. Letting Lynch and Sapp go.
2. Not spending enough attention on defense.
3. Putting Gradkowski in as a rookie.
4. Making Simms the starter.
5. Drafting (or is that the scouts)
6. Signing bad free agents.
7. other ( what do you think he has done the worst in tampa.)

I want honest opinions on this. No Gruden lovers or hater opinions on this thread. Full thought out replies. go at it.

[Simms2Clayton05]

I honestly think that if he didnt throw Gradkowski in right away. The team might have been able to win some more games with Rattay in there just because he is a vet. maybe not. However if he wins maybe 3 more wins last year. Does the media and fans go crazy on Gruden? I think by putting Gradkowski in he got the bad record in doing it putting him on the hot seat this year.

The media and fans didn't just start going crazy when Gradkowski came in. Gruden's biggest mistake in Tampa was coming after Coach Dungy.

[Simms2Clayton05]

Im talking about after the season the fans and the media went crazy on him. I should of wrote that.

[1sparkybuc]

Easy. His biggest mistake was talking Rich McKay into staying on as GM. Nothing else comes close.

A distant second was not trading McCardell for Larry Johnson, though that might not have been his decision.

[Feel Real Good]

Drafting. Most of the vets that were let go only had 1-2 good years left. Grads was limited to less than a season. The only thing we missed out on with Simms was more Griese and we all know that wouldn't have been much different. The bad free agents only lasted a year or so. But missing out on guys like Steven Jackson will affect the next decade.

[keeponbucn]

1. Letting Lynch and Sapp go. wasn't Gruden's decision
2. Not spending enough attention on defense - after spending all the money on defense, the Glazers brought an offensive minded coach in. They had to tip the scales and bring some talent to the offense. This is the first year where the team has had the money to do it
3. Putting Gradkowski in as a rookie Simms said that Grads won the 2nd job in camp hands down, his mistake was not putting in Rattay earlier
4. Making Simms the starter [making Simms the starter? Simms came in after SoB got hurt, played decent and he went with him. Simms is awful so yeah, bad move but who would he have put in?[/b]
5. Drafting (or is that the scouts) this is probably the pick
6. Signing bad free agents every team signs bad FA's. Are we still talking about Deese and Garner here?
7. other ( what do you think he has done the worst in tampa.) letting Thomas Jones go into FA

[bizkitlimped]

im gonna have to go with numbers one and two. the reason being is that we have never really had an outstanding offense, effective at times, but not stellar. normally if both units, offense and defense, could put up some points for us the defense usually kept us ahead in the games that we won. so to me i think his biggest mistake was letting this defense go to try and build his offense

[skip]

I am surprised at all the McKay haters on this board. All McKay did was help turn a franchise from the laughing stock of all professional sports into a winner. The job he did along with Dungy was most impressive.

[OpTiOnMaStA]

5. Poor drafting

Although not all of this can be blamed directly on Gruden, it is my theory and the theory of a great many other people who follow the NFL that your team should be built through the draft. There were problems when he got here with draft classes partially due to what we gave up to get him. Also, there is some debate about which picks he would have made vs. what picks Rich McKay made, but all of that aside I have not been all too impressed with some of our draft picks.

1. Michael Clayton sucks. He looked impressive for one season, but I still wanted Steven Jackson. Even Clayton's great season didn't make me forget about Steven Jackson. We could have drafted a beast and we just flat out whiffed.

2. DeWayne White never worked out.

3. Julian Jenkins over Mark Anderson. This one really stings because of the overemphasis this team puts on players who are play multiple positions along the line. They really need to change that focus. We draft players who are the jack of all trades and master of none. Unacceptable pick.

4. Barrett Ruud hasn't gotten playing time yet. Part of this could be due to Quarles, the other part could be fixed this year. What I will say, however, is that I have not been particularly impressed with Ruud. I would have preferred we took somebody else in that slot and now he has rode the pine for a while which is a real sticking point.

5. Our second day picks have been atrocious. I thought this would end with at least Zemaitis playing well for us, but unfortunately it looks like we whiffed on him. That happens, however, our 2nd day draft classes have been terrible.

6. Colmer was a huge risk and we never saw a single reward for that.

[Simms2Clayton05]

I am surprised at all the McKay haters on this board. All McKay did was help turn a franchise from the laughing stock of all professional sports into a winner. The job he did along with Dungy was most impressive.

This isnt about McKay Skip this is about what Gruden has done here. Mckay is not here anymore. You could argue both ways that he helped us win a super bowl but these last 3-4 years the team has struggled and Gruden is on the hot seat because of that and the mistakes he made. What mistakes has he made is what this thread is about. make another thread about Mckay if you want to wine about him not being here anymore.

[bradentonian]

The biggest mistake IMO was making the decision after 2003 to try to reload instead of blowing up the team and starting young, like other cap-strapped teams have done in the past.

[Cheers]

Winning a Super Bowl
Winning 2 division titles
Winning the NFC Championship game

Putting his players in good position match ups to win IF the execute.

Although his biggest mistake is allowing as much press access as he does. I think he should end that pronto.

McKay is a Hole.

[leeroybuc93]

I'd say it was putting too much faith in aging vets like Garner, Deese, and Steussie.