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FAB 4. Kiffin Made It To The Bucs Ring Of Honor
The year 2020 marks my 25th season covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for you, the loyal PewterReport.com reader. As I begin this milestone season, I’m going to spend the next 25 weeks telling some never-before-told Bucs stories and recalling some of my most memorable moments in my professional journey.
I am so happy that legendary Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin will be the 14th inductee into the Bucs Ring of Honor this year. The Glazers absolutely made the right call to gift Kiffin this distinction at his 80th birthday party at Raymond James Stadium last Friday night.
While I am not consulted about the Glazers’ choices for the Ring of Honor, I was the first to suggest that Kiffin needs to be in inducted dating back to 2014, and have written about that multiple times on PewterReport.com, the most recent being in a Point-Counterpoint column last year.
Scott and Ellie Reynolds with Bucs legendary DC Monte Kiffin
As I have written before, Kiffin is the most-winningest coach in Tampa Bay history by virtue of being the Bucs’ defensive coordinator during both the Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden eras. Kiffin had a hand in hiring some of the most amazing assistant coaches in the history of the franchise too.
Some of the assistant coaches under his watch were Herman Edwards, Lovie Smith, Rod Marinelli, Mike Tomlin, Gus Bradley and Raheem Morris – all of whom went on to become NFL head coaches. Kiffin also hired Joe Barry and Todd Wash, who went on to become NFL defensive coordinators, and Jimmy Lake, who just became the head coach at the University of Washington. Kiffin also put Tampa Bay on the national football scene by calling his Cover 2 defense the Tampa 2. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Tampa 2 was one of the most popular and copied defenses around the league.
He also put defensive tackle Warren Sapp and linebacker Derrick Brooks in position to rack up some crazy stats and eventually become Hall of Famers. The same could be said for Hall of Fame candidates like strong safety John Lynch and cornerback Ronde Barber – two more Bucs legends. I had a great relationship with Kiffin during his run in Tampa Bay from 1996 to 2008 – except for one year. That was during the 2001 season after Edwards and Smith left the Bucs and Tomlin and Barry arrived as their replacements.
I wrote something in Buccaneer Magazine that absolutely angered Kiffin and I felt his wrath one Friday afternoon in October during Tampa Bay’s 2-3 start that year. In a section of the magazine called Buccaneer Buzz, I wrote that Tampa Bay was really missing Edwards and Smith on game days when it came to making some in-game adjustments on the sidelines. Kiffin took that very personally and wanted to know who gave me that information.
Rod Marinelli and Monte Kiffin – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR
As I was driving home from One Buc Place on Friday just after noon, Zac Bolno, who was one of the public relations assistants at the time, called me and said that Coach Kiffin wanted to talk to me about something I had written in that week’s edition. I said I would be happy to meet with him on Monday to which Bolno replied, “Um, no Scott. I think Coach Kiffin really wants to see you right now.”
So I grew a little concerned, turned around my car and drove back to One Buc Place to confront Kiffin. This was at the tiny old One Buc Place, which would later be affectionately called “The Woodshed.” Kiffin’s office was about the size of a standard bedroom. so when I walked in we were already in close quarters. Kiffin signaled to Bolno that he would take it from here and shooed him away.
Kiffin had the article in question sitting on his desk with that paragraph outlined in yellow highlighter. He asked me to read it out loud, which I did and then he demand I tell him where I got my information.
“I want to know who told you this and you’re going to tell me!” Kiffin yelled, weaving in a few profanities into a tongue-lashing tapestry a few inches away from my face.
“Monte, you know I can’t tell you that,” I said. “I’m not going to reveal my source. If you had told me something in confidence you wouldn’t want me revealing that you told me would you?”
“I wouldn’t talk to you off the record nor am I ever going to talk to you again if you don’t tell me who told you that!” Kiffin bellowed.
Although I was 29 at the time and had been on the Bucs beat for about six years, I was still intimidated and kind of shook up over Kiffin’s hysterical rage.
Mike Tomlin, Monte Kiffin and John Lynch – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR
Kiffin grabbed the magazine waved it above his head and said: “I’m going to tell all of my players in my meeting room to never speak to you again if you don’t tell me who that source was!”
“I’m sorry, Monte,” I said. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”
Kiffin cursed me out again and said, “I’m through with you! Get out!”
The Bucs beat the Vikings, 41-14, a few days later and finished the season 9-7 as Tomlin and Barry grew into their respective roles. Kiffin didn’t speak to me the entire season and acted like I wasn’t even there when we were in close proximity of each other. We didn’t speak again until the 2002 training camp in Orlando when he called me over to see him after an afternoon practice.
Kiffin said he respected what I did and how I covered the team, and how much I loved football because he would see me standing out in the blazing sun and sweltering heat getting as close to the action as I could while the other Bucs beat writers at the time were over in the corner of the field in the shade of the media tent. Kiffin said he took what I had written too personally and that the team had a rough 2-3 start at the time and he was feeling some of the pressure of that.
He wanted to let bygones be bygones, and Kiffin and I enjoyed a great relationship throughout the rest of his tenure in Tampa Bay. Despite his shunning me, I never wrote a disparaging word about Kiffin in retaliation to his office tirade. And Kiffin never told his defensive players to not speak to me anymore.
Monte Kiffin and Scott Reynolds – Photo by: Ashley Reynolds/PR
Kiffin took some heat for how things ended when he notified the team that he was going to be leaving the Bucs at the end of the 2008 season to go to the University of Tennessee to coach with his son, Lane. I’m sure Kiffin wished he handled his departure better, as the Bucs lost four straight games after a 9-3 start to finish 9-7. That forgettable December ultimately cost Gruden his job after Tampa Bay failed to make the playoffs.
It’s a rare sight to see an assistant coach getting into a team’s ring of honor, but Kiffin won 111 regular season games with the Buccaneers – 54 more than Gruden, who is Tampa Bay’s all-time winningest head coach – and he deserves that distinction. Kiffin’s top-ranked 2002 Bucs defense was one for the ages and scored three defensive touchdowns, picking off NFL MVP Rich Gannon five times in Tampa Bay’s 48-21 win over Oakland in Super Bowl XXXVII.
Kiffin helped give Tampa Bay a championship, some great players and coaches and plenty of wonderful Sunday memories, and he also gave me one heck of a story – the time I got chewed out by Monte Kiffin.
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