Bucs, Lovie make right call in correcting McCown mistake 
Josh McCown was brought in by the Bucs to be Josh McCown was brought in by the Bucs to be "a bridge" to the future but went nowhere, critics say. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILEBy Martin Fennelly | Tribune Staff Published: February 12, 2015 TAMPA — So much for the bridge to the future.At least Lovie Smith can admit a mistake. Maybe he’s not as stubborn as we thought.Josh McCown was a mistake. Wednesday, his contract was “terminated” — the word was in the Bucs’ news release — after his 2014 season was every bit as lost as the 2-14 Bucs were in Lovie’s first season in charge. It takes a lot of Lost to draft No. 1.I don’t think Wednesday increases the chances of the Bucs taking a quarterback, either Jameis Winston or Marcus Mariota. I think those chances are already locked in, or should be, or have to be, even if the Bucs aren’t 100 percent sure about Mariota on the field or Winston off it. They have to get a quarterback. They have to take a swing.Wednesday doesn’t mean Mike Glennon is here to stay. Glennon is no groomsman. Besides, Lovie doesn’t want him. I mean, why wasn’t Glennon in at the end of that lousy season? That’s how much Lovie believes in him.You dump them both. The Bucs might get something for Glennon, a third- or fourth-round draft pick, and that might be enough for Lovie and GM Jason Licht. Mike Glennon might really have been one of the 32 best quarterbacks in the NFL last season, but if his head coach isn’t a believer, what’s the point?What I think Wednesday means — or should mean — is that it increases the chances the Bucs are going to go grab another veteran quarterback, one not named McCown, to work with and eventually behind Jameis or Marcus.You don’t want Jay Cutler or anyone else who’d make a mess of this transition. Cutler is a starter, an expensive one, an annoying one. Even Sam Bradford would be a problem as a caretaker. I can’t say McCown would have been great at it, no matter what he said after the season — and because he was awful in 2014. Glennon would want no part of keeping the starter’s seat warm.Yes, maybe there’s a fantasy deal to be made with the Eagles, for Nick Foles, for draft picks, to give Chip Kelly the deed to his guy Marcus. It still doesn’t seem real.This does: McCown and Glennon, both gone. You draft away and start over.I’d look for a veteran with experience at running new offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter’s kind of offense. I’d look for someone who’d be no problem, keep his mouth shut, help the new kid QB along and eventually settle into life as a millionaire clipboard holder. That’s not for Glennon.All we’re talking about is someone better than McCown in 2014, which shouldn’t be too hard, also someone who is under no illusions. It’s about No. 1, sooner rather than later.Josh McCown was a mistake. So were left tackle Anthony Collins and defensive end Michael Johnson, as it turned out, and those three were Lovie and Licht’s biggest offseason free-agent hires. What a disaster.If being a good guy made touchdowns, McCown would be a Pro Bowler. But that doesn’t make touchdowns, or stop mistakes, and McCown made too few of the former and too many of the latter. He did come back from an injury, then shed a few tears after his first loss back, probably his most noteworthy moment as a Buc.But he was a mistake.Keeping Glennon is a mistake, too, even if Koetter likes him, because what are you going to get out of a guy who announced his own benching on a radio show? Glennon would happily leave.Not drafting a quarterback would be the biggest mistake of all.The Bucs can bob, they can weave, but they can’t sit this one out. Forget a bridge to the future. You need a future, whether you’re absolutely certain about it or not. You go for it.McCown and Glennon aren’t part of that.
