Derrick Brooks Sounds Bitter

February 05, 2010 at 10:11am by Scott   •  7 Comments »

The Times posted this story on Wednesday and I didn’t pick it up because I’ve been pretty busy, but thanks to the fact that One Buc is full of tumbleweed and Christmas decorations right now, the news cycle is about three weeks long and I knew I had plenty of time.

Derrick Brooks took the time to speak to Stephen Holder in Miami this week and ask him about all the things that are bothering him, which is pretty much everything.

“I was asked what’s the difference now where the Bucs are (compared to) when you go back 12 years when I was young,” Brooks said. “I said this: The difference is the commitment, in terms of, where is the franchise going?”

I’m not sure if Brooks is trying to indict Raheem Morris here, but that’s what he’s doing. The head coach provides the direction for the team, and if they’re lacking it, it’s on him. Twelve years ago, Tony Dungy had a very clear vision for how he wanted to build the team. Or at least for how he wanted to build a defense. Morris doesn’t have that now, but the players he gets in the draft and free agency will at least give us a small clue as to the direction he’s going.

“All the coaches are obviously on one-year deals and the economics of the game of the game (a potential 2011 lockout) forced that hand. But as a franchise, they don’t have a core group of guys who are beyond three or four years.”

How long does it take to establish oneself as a leader? Three or four years should be plenty.

The guy that was told to be the leader of the defense (linebacker Barrett Ruud), no one showed him any long-term commitment (Ruud’s contract expires this month). How can he really embrace that role? It was hard for Barrett to do that.

That’s a load of shit. Jeremiah Trotter came into Tampa for one year, but everyone said he immediately brought a sense of leadership and responsibility to the locker room. He rallied the defense and pushed the linebackers to become better. And all on a one year contract. Teams do that all the time. Business is business, but don’t let it affect what’s happening on the field. If Ruud is letting his contract status determine how good a leader he’s going to be, guess what… he’s not a leader anyway.

“I fielded a lot of phone calls from guys on the team this year because they missed that presence. You can’t force that. … Leaders kind of evolve from situations that are not manufactured. I did the best I could just being me, being positive to help the guys through.”

In other words: “You shouldn’t have cut me.”

“When Jim Bates was hired, I was the first one in his office to greet him to find out what defense we were running. I told him, ‘Give me the information so I can process it because the guys are going to look to me.’ I was showing my support. But I knew once we (veterans) were removed from the situation, just from what I knew of the system at the time, I knew they were going to struggle because they didn’t have the players to play that system — period.”

Does Brooks remember that it was only he and Cato June that were cut from the defensive side? And if he’s saying Bates’s system failed because the two of them were cut, he’s nuts. The two of them were born to be linebackers in the Tampa 2. Brooks may have been able to provide leadership and help with the mental part of the transition, but he wouldn’t have contributed anything athletically. Bates’s system failed for a number of reasons, the major one being that all the players were a bad fit.

Brooks’s dismissal from the Bucs was handled about as poorly as you could handle it. It should have somehow been done more gracefully and with more dignity and with the respect that a player of his distinction deserves. But it had to be done. The fact that no team picked him up, even for a late playoff run, should validate that the front office staff made the right call there. Brooks sounds bitter and is unwilling to lay at least part of the blame for the awful 2009 season at the feet of Morris or the players because he’s still mad at the Glazers and Mark Dominik, who he sees as responsible for ending his career. But no one ended it for him. It just ended because his body got old. It happens. And now it’s time for him to take his place among the great Bucs of the past who act as figureheads and ambassadors for the team. I hope he can do that soon without going through some bitter old man phase first.