Ah the old ‘Grudens record isn’t that good’ retort.
His record in Tampa doesn’t entirely tell the whole story.
We gave up a shit load of draft pics to the Raiders in the trade for him, 2 x 1st round picks, 2x 2nd round draft picks and the Bucs owners gradually bought ManU over the 2 years after we won the SB. Their focus was entirely on soccer and they barely spent the minimum NFL required cap to just keep the Bucs ticking along. Gruden wasn’t allowed to buy anyone of note either other than washed up cheap vets. We also had salary cap issues because we had Sapp, Lynch, Barber,Brooks and others on ridiculous back ended deals on the books. They had to offload a heap of good players for cap issues. We actually had Bill Parcels pretty much wrapped up to be the coach in 2002 until his staff went through the Bucs books and told him to back out of the deal asap because they even saw the issues coming over the horizon for the team. That’s why we threw everything at Gruden to come ‘home’ in 02 because they were desperate for a coach after Parcels pulled out last minute.
In 2008 we were 9-3 leading into december from memory?Looking at a week 1 bye and homefield advantage. Their D was a massive reason for this and Monte Kiffin (D-cord) credited for the fabled Tampa-2 defence decides to pull his own plug to join his son at Tennesse (Lane). The bucs D folded like a cheap tent on the news and mailed it in for the last 4 weeks and completley missed the play offs due to 4 straight losses. Totally unfair on Gruden what Kiffin and the players did and he ultimaltey got fired for it.
I’d have Gruden back in a heartbeat in Tampa. Give. Proper resources and a decent scenario, he will kill it. Unfortunatley he never got this at my beloved Bucs.
I understand why the Glazers didn’t do it (get Gruden this time) the cash for Gruden and his staff plus paying out his ESPN contract, throw in Dirk Koetters contract and it all adds up. What they should have done was made the play for him after they fired Lovie Smith 2 years ago. We’ve been sacking coaches early for 10 years straight. Someone posted on twitter they’ve wasted upwards of $50mil paying out Gruden, Raheem Morris, Schiano, Smith. There comes a time I guess when sanity has to prevail and they stay loyal somewhat.
If there’s not a significant improvement in the bucs records next year, Dirk Koetter will be gone and they’ll be back to square one. His schemes worked this year, we moved the ball really well but Winston couldn’t hit open long range targets early in the year and Koetters clock and redzone management was f**king atrocious all year. Throw in the worst sacking D in the league and it was a miracle they were in it up to their eyeballs for all bar 3-4 games.
Gruden will go well in Oakland, very jealous of you raiders fans, good luck to you guys for it.
Im gonna go cry into my SB 37 DVD........
