*Alldaway turns on light switch, little critters scatter to the dark corners of the room once more for the next two weeks*Lovie and Licht deserve credit for cleaning up the cap situation of the team to be balanced for both sides of the ball. They missed on young, free agents in their prime in their first year, but they did not overpay for mediocre unproven talent or banged up talent that other teams did not want. For example, signing of Wright or trading a first round draft pick and hand over $16 million to an old CB with a gimpy knee (Revis). Or even handing top dollar money to an OG (Nicks) with lingering injuries. The MRSA was the final nail in the coffin but it wasn’t the only one.LiLo realizing the mistakes they made in their first off season, and looking at how their predecessors were jettisoned because of their unorthodox spending sprees (Schiano and Dominik), went back to the drawing board:1. LiLo ditched the failed FA’s they brought in, and went back to what Licht was brought in to do. Find FA’s at bargain deals that could help this team. This is a proven formula as Bruce Allen showed with his signing of Bolden, Hovan, Hilliard, Bryant, etc. McKay did a similar thing with bargain free agents of Pittman, Dilger, McCardell, etc. Licht is not doing anything different with McDonald, Jennings, Conte, Wright, Carter, Myers, Murphy, etc. It is a proven formula because even for rebuilding/young teams you still need some veteran guidance (eg Kevin Carter with Raheem’s supremely young Bucs or Lomas Brown with Gruden’s more veteran laden Bucs).2. Licht was brought in to restructure the Bucs organization with the departures of Dominick and Hickey. New scouts have been brought in and the emphasis on finding players that fit the Bucs respective offensive and defensive system has commenced since then and has been ongoing. The pro player personnel side as well as the collegiate overview of scouting has been transformed in a short window of time.3. Tedford’s unexpected leave of the team was a bigger impediment to the team than most want to admit. It set back the newly put in place scouting department, installing systems for players to learn and also for growth in continuity of playing in a system. This is no surprise why the defense is ahead, and why the defense also boasts more veteran players familiar with Lovie’s defense. However, there are players familiar with Koetter’s offense and it is paying off (Hawley).4. Bucs have re-signed their core home grown players (McCoy and David), which has been and will always be, a top priority of the Glazer family. To build a sense of continuity, familiarity. In addition, to also build home-grown pride for the Bucs fans to root and cheer for these players in the present and the future.5. The 2015 Bucs are one of the youngest teams in all of football currently. The 2015 Bucs are also starting the most rookies in all of football, and all at integral positions of this team. The QB of the offense (Winston), the “QB” of the defense (Alexander). The blindside protector for the QB (Smith). The run blocking guard on the strong side of formations (Marpet). Not to mention the large roles that 2nd, 3rd and 4th year Bucs players are being asked to do which other teams have 6th, 7th and 8th year veterans doing the same roles.6. Bucs will have about $22 million available next off season freed up from the dead money alone. Johnson and Collins are obvious dead money hits from LiLo’s mistake from last season. But Goldshon, Barron, and Nicks all left a parting gifts for the Bucs organization to clean up in 2015 too. How Mark Dominik escapes criticism from this I do not understand. I will not mention which dynamic duo thought it was a good idea to draft a box safety in the top ten, sign a box safety in free agency and then sign an injury riddled OG. Forgot to mention surrendering a first round pick and $16 million for a CB that was exclusively used in zone coverage in 2013. I will let your imagination fill in the blanks. 7. Doug Martin is the only noteworthy Bucs free agent the Bucs must mull over to re-sign this coming off season. The rest of the list of UFA is as follows: Melton, Rainey, Moore, McDaniel, Conte, Johnson, English, Jennings, Jenkins, Barth, Lemon, and Tandy. The remainder not mentioned are RFA or ERFA for 2016.8. Heading into the bye week with a 2-3 record is something Bucs fans should be proud of. No one was predicting this team to be anywhere close to that heading into the bye. Most were projecting this team max 4-5 wins after a 16 game season. I projected this team as a 6-10 in the off season based on talent on the squad and circumstances (eg young team, starting a rookie QB). Right now, the young, upstart Bucs are ahead of schedule. We will see if they can keep momentum going.9. This team will become a lot younger real quick by next off season. Mankins doesn’t have much of a future with this team just as an obvious example, but he fills the veteran knowledge niche needed to guide young OL for the time being. VJAX is playing out probably his last contract with the Bucs and Evans will eventually slide in and take over his role.10. On a final note, the much maligned Bucs defense (surprisingly from Bucs fans exclusively) is currently ranked highly in multiple categories. I still don’t understand why Bucs fans don’t understand how the Bucs defense works and why they don’t see how their play has been better than average from the rest of the NFL. The most exciting thing is the Bucs may have the trio they need on defense at RDE, UT, and WILL. They still need to find a rangy FS to compliment Kwon Alexander up the middle. And some young blood on the outside CB spot to eventually start opposite of Banks. The Bucs defense is obviously a work in progress and they are well ahead of schedule despite not as many resources have been devoted to that side of the ball thus far. Overall, I want to see this transformation of this team play out without the knee jerk belly aching some are clamoring for. I want to see LiLo rebuild this team into having a solid base again. When you draft a QB #1 overall, and release free agents you signed a year ago, that is a clear concession this is a rebuilding team and are starting over from the root of the foundation. Maybe LiLo fall short in the long term, but right now based on what I am seeing I agree with their approach 100%. Draft & develop, re-sign homegrown talent, bring in bargain free agents, and have continuity in offensive/defensive systems. This team has needed a solid base from a coaching staff, and scouting perspective for a long time. People pointing to the quick success stories like Quinn in Atlanta, for example, (Sorry Scott Reynolds I had to go there) are drinking too much of the kool-aid on the other side of the grass. First, that Falcons team has a fully mature and experienced veteran QB in Matt Ryan coupled with a finally healthy OL unlike last year. That defense is very overrated, but they have been opportunistic, but not that much better than other top 15 defenses in the league though. What Quinn is doing is not anything different than Fox with Denver or Gruden with the Bucs year 1. A team that is fully fleshed out and needs a little push is not the same as a team that needs to be built from the ground up. The 2014 Bucs are not the team Dungy left behind by any measure. But what Gruden, Morris, Dominik, and Schiano left behind for Lovie and Licht to clean up. With over a decade of inconsistent drafting and letting home grow players seek paydays elsewhere this is the result. Most NFL teams are still starting players on their respective rosters from the time Gruden was the head coach of the Bucs in 2008! You can’t have such misses in the draft over such a period of time, and not expect an experienced void at the top of the team. That is why having a player like Vincent Jackson has been truly a blessing, but it is rare when you hire free agents for top dollar to do such a task. The misses in the draft from the McKay era heavily influenced how the Bucs approached the draft under Gruden/Allen as they had (special teams emphasis). But Gruden/Allen over compensated looking for special team aces which led to even more failed draft choices as the pool of young starters on their team started to dwindle. It wasn’t until Dominik came into the fold that team started to draft players again that showed NFL potential to play and start in this league again. He had mixed results, but at least he started to reverse the trend. Gruden’s lack of emphasis on drafting D-linemen (other than G. Adams) and Dominik’s lack of emphasis on drafting O-linemen has put the team in precarious situation. Moving on, outside observers are quick to point to me that Evans is only in his second season and many of the important pieces on offense are very young and have yet to hit their potential ceiling thus far. Mankins and VJAX are going to be out of the picture soon enough with younger players stepping into their shoes. Even the younger veterans like McCoy and David have still less collective experience than many NFL defenders still playing in the NFL. The much maligned Banks is actually slowly but surely becoming a credible NFL defender. But like all cornerbacks, it takes time (eg Barber, Kelly, etc). So, the key is patience and not looking at the grass that appears to be greener on the other side with some “quick fix”. The quick fix failed Gruden/Allen year 1, it failed Schiano/Dominik year 1, and surprise!.... it also failed Lovie/Licht year 1. Have some respect for the Bucs organization for what they are trying to accomplish, because there is no such thing as a “quick fix”. The organization has had to be restructured fairly frequently just as much as the coaching staff has been the last ten years. So, it is unrealistic and unfair to expect Licht, the new front office, new scouts, and Lovie and his coaching staff to put everything together in less than three years. Rebuilding takes three years to be fully realized and the Bucs have just started year 1.Gruden and Allen started their rebuilding in 2005 (year 1) and actually saw a reversal of fortunes for the team. That is a big reason why the 2006 season was not held against a proven coach like Gruden. Gruden followed 2007 with a comeback season but the 2008 season showed that Gruden and Allen were starting to deviate from the rebuilding structure put forth to them by 2008. Draft picks were not panning out and the Gruden/Allen tandem wanted to go back to the 2004 approach of doing business. That type of approach is not the Buccaneer way the Glazer family has outlined. The Glazers want quality players to be drafted and retained by the team and not go head hunting every off season for hired mercs and guns at top dollar prices. It doesn’t make sense from a long term salary cap perspective and it doesn’t build the Buccaneer brand.Glazers #1 priority is to provide a product on the field that is about stability, familiarity and pride. If you want to say they are trying to copy the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steeler model, then yes that is exactly what they are aiming for. They chose Morris and Schiano because they wanted either coach to grow into the job and breed familiarity and pride for the Bucs brand over a long period of time. Ownership views the Bucs as a brand and to build that you need familiar faces not a revolving door with an empty chair at OBP. The Glazer family has a long term vision of the team, because the Glazer family is about long term business ventures. They liked the idea of Morris molding a young team of upstarts and for a while it was actually working. The problem with Morris was he simply lacked the maturity. Schiano had a reputation of building a program from the ground up. The problem was he didn’t have a vision that was compatible with the reality of the NFL. The Glazers have clearly made efforts to bring in head coaches they feel they can build such a brand with. They are not interested in a coaching carousel but these extreme circumstances have forced their hand twice.Some fans and in the media are clamoring for the Bucs to be like the other big city teams with a carousel of coaching changes, but the Tampa Bay Bucs are not like that and do not have the same draw for the big name coaches some people have mentioned. The Bucs do not have the same fan base that the Cowboys or the Raiders have as an example or a big metropolitan city to draw from (eg Giants/Jets). Even the uniform changes the Bucs have undergone has made it questionable if they have grown the brand. But what is clear is that the Glazers want growth of the Bucs brand. And to do that you start with the root and let it sprout which will take time. Complaints about the little tree not providing shade are short-sighted and miss the point.
