ESPN Calls Dungy Best NFC South Coach Ever

June 15, 2010 at 01:27pm by Scott   •  6 Comments »

Thanks to Jeremy Trueblood‘s fair catch yesterday, there’s no OTA today and probably not a hell of a lot going on, so we have to dig into what the real writers are doing with their time to see if we can get some material. And unfortunately, Pat Yasinskas came up with the only thing worth reading at the moment. He took on the challenging task of doing the same shit we all do when we’re with our buddies and ranked things, in his case, the top six (six?) NFC South coaches of all time. But since the NFC South is only in its ninth year of existence, he considered the entire coaching histories of the four NFC South teams. His conclusion: Tony Dungy is the best coach ever in the NFC South.

Yeah, Dungy never won a Super Bowl until he got to Indianapolis (and that factored into my thought process). Dungy did set the table for Gruden, but he did so much more than that. He came into a franchise that hadn’t had a winning season in a generation, was beyond dysfunctional and was on the verge of moving to Cleveland, Sacramento, Orlando or anywhere that would give the Bucs a new stadium.

It’s hard to argue, especially in a division with such young teams. The Falcons are the oldest team and they started in 1966, so no one really has a long and storied history of coaching legends to pull from. But for how low the Bucs were when he took over and what he developed in Tampa over six short years, you have to go with Dungy. I also agree with Yasinskas that Sean Payton should be #2. After that it gets dicey.

3. John Fox, Carolina Panthers. Yep, I did it. I picked Fox over a guy who won a Super Bowl (Gruden).

Well, then, you suck. Fox has been just as up and down in his tenure as Gruden was, going to the playoffs one year and missing them the next. Gruden’s low (4-12) was lower than Fox’s low (7-9 three times), but Gruden’s high was the highest it can get. Fox is a good coach, but outside of Dungy who established a culture in Tampa, how can you put a Super Bowl loser over a Super Bowl winner?

4. Jim Mora, New Orleans Saints. I’m doing it again. I’m looking at the big picture. Remember what I said about Dungy and Payton about how they changed the climate of their franchises? Well, Mora did the same thing in New Orleans in the 1980s.

He’s above Gruden, too? I actually like this pick better than Fox’s.

5. Jon Gruden, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. All right, Gruden won a Super Bowl and you can never take that away from him. He put Tampa Bay over the top after Dungy couldn’t. He won a Super Bowl with Brad Johnson as his quarterback and no true superstars on offense.

You sure you don’t want to put Bobby Petrino or George Seifert in here, Pat?

And why do people talk about Brad Johnson like he’s some crippled kid who got lucky enough to land on a winning football team? Johnson was a very good quarterback up until the end of his career. After the Bucs cut him, he went back to Minnesota and went 7-2 with a six game winning streak in his first season back there. He has a career passer rating of 82.6, not shabby when you consider Kurt Warner‘s career rating of 93.2. I understand people saying “they even won with Trent Dilfer” about the Ravens because Dilfer had periods with the Bucs when he truly sucked ass. Johnson never had that, at least not until he was 38 or 39.

6. Dan Reeves, Atlanta Falcons. There was a part of me that wanted to put Reeves ahead of Gruden for this simple fact: He reached a Super Bowl with Chris Chandler as his quarterback.

And there’s a part of me that wants to see Pat dropped into an industrial meat grinder and turned into several dozen pounds of meat loaf mix. I didn’t realize the Gruden hate was so deep for him. And, really, Dan fucking Reeves on this list? He had a losing record with the Falcons. If we’re going to consider coaches with losing records, you’ve got to put John McKay on this list. McKay started out with less than nothing in the expansion season, total shit thanks to the rules for expansion teams. In four years he was playing for the NFC Championship with a defense that teams were legitimately scared of. And he went to the playoffs two more times even as the talent level he was working with was getting depleted rapidly. Reeves only went to the playoffs one other time in his tenure with Atlanta besides the Super Bowl year.

I’d also like to add an honorable mention for Norm Van Brocklin, who only went 37-49-3 for Atlanta in seven seasons, but the guy was just a bad ass. Injury was no excuse to not play, he could go through an entire pack of cigarettes on the sidelines in one game, and his swearing put Jon Gruden to shame. He was old school all the way, lived hard and died young. Fox may have a better win-loss record, but I know who I’d want on my side in a street fight.

So anyway, there’s Pat’s list. Basically, Dungy is the best, Payton is second, and Gruden can suck Pat’s balls because the only reason he’s on there is the Super Bowl victory he accidentally stumbled into. And Van Brocklin is cooler than all of them combined. In fact, I’m changing the banner pic. Dungy gets his mug on enough shit.

So Much For That Alex Brown Thing

April 08, 2010 at 08:44am by Scott   •  4 Comments »

Apparently there is something magical about living several feet below sea level and drinking brown water because Alex Brown didn’t even wait to hear what Tampa had to say before signing his contract with New Orleans.

Free-agent defensive end Alex Brown agreed to two-year deal Wednesday with New Orleans Saints worth roughly $6 million, according to league sources.

I guess that was a little too rich for the Bucs’ blood anyway. Now, if he was able to drop clutch passes at critical moments, then you would have seen a bidding war.

REAR ENTRIES: Super Bowl Edition

February 08, 2010 at 10:45am by Scott   •  4 Comments »

CURSE LIFTED: The trend had been that if your team lost to the Buccaneers, you weren’t going to win the Super Bowl. It was statistically insignificant, but it gave sportscasters something to say when the Bucs beat some powerhouse team, not that that had been an issue lately. But it became one when the Bucs beat the Saints in week 16 of this year after Garrett Hartley (who, right this very minute, is plowing a girl he doesn’t love) missed a gimme 37-yard field goal at the end of regulation. So now without this or the cold weather curse or the kickoff return thing, what are brain dead analysts going to talk about when they cover Bucs games? Won’t someone please think of the analysts?!?

DUNGY SHOULD STICK TO VISITING PRISONS: Though I was rooting for the Colts, I didn’t want to predict their victory because I knew the Saints had a good team and wasn’t sure how the Colts’ defensive line would hold up if the Saints went on a couple long drives. And I’m a guy who shoots his mouth off and any opportunity. Tony Dungy, on the other hand, is well-known for being reserved and politically correct (except toward the queers) and he went on the record a couple days ago with relative bombast.

“I think they’re going to be so far ahead that people are going to say, ‘Oh, ho-hum, he played a good game, they won by two scores, the Colts won their second championship,’ ” Dungy said of Manning on Thursday. “He’s going to have those rings Sunday night. I don’t think it’s going to be close.”

He didn’t count on Peyton‘s receivers dropping critical passes, Peyton making a poor decision on his interception, and Sean Payton having GIANT BUFFALO BALLS when it came to playcalling and taking chances. I applaud Dungy having the fortitude to make a call instead of just saying it would be a good game, but “I don’t think it’s going to be close” is bulletin board material for the Saints. As a Colts fan, he should have kept his yap shut.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: I don’t have a link for this. I was just thinking back to the 2006 season when Drew Brees was allowed to walk away from the Chargers because they didn’t think his shoulder would heal and they had drafted Philip Rivers anyway. Jon Gruden, who gushed over Brees that year at every opportunity, very likely would have given one of his children for the Glazers to make Brees an offer to come to Tampa, but it never happened. Instead, the Saints got Brees and the Bucs played that year with Chris Simms, Bruce Gradkowski and Tim Rattay.

/sad slide-whistle sound

Hedging Bets Against A Boring Super Bowl

February 04, 2010 at 02:59pm by Scott   •  1 Comment »

It’s nice to have a horse in the race for the Super Bowl this year. I don’t particularly care about the Colts or the Saints one way or the other, but my Volunteer connection with Peyton Manning makes this one an easy rooting interest for me. But if you’re like I was last year and give precisely zero shits as to who wins and loses, you wind up thinking like a sportscaster who’s just hoping for a good game. And that’s for pussies. So you can either drink beer until the game becomes more appealing (which is how you got married), or you can place a bet and root for your money.

It’s pretty easy to look up the Super Bowl odds and place your bet on who’s going to win or lose, the point spread, the over/under, etc. And that’s all well and good, but if the game turns into a runaway, you’ve stopped caring by the middle of the third quarter. That’s why you make the ridiculous bets that have nothing to do with football. Did you know you can bet on what color the winning coach’s Gatorade bath will be? (the line on blue and red is +1,000) Or how long the National Anthem will take to sing? (the over/under is 1m 41s) Or how many windmills Pete Townshend will do during the halftime set? (the over/under is 5.5 windmills — the .5 is there because he’s old and his arthritis will kick in before he can complete the sixth one) Imagine being interested in a Super Bowl halftime show that doesn’t involve the Lingerie Football League.

Although, now that I think about it, I just said that I’m looking for reasons to watch an old man who is a registered sex offender instead of almost naked hot chicks mixing it up on a football field. I wonder if I can place a bet on whether I’ll ever leave my mother’s basement.

“Biggest Egg In Saints Regular Season History”

December 29, 2009 at 09:39am by Scott   •  7 Comments »

I know you’ve been wondering what ever happened to Bobby Hebert after he retired from professional football. From the picture above with Drew Brees, no one would blame you if you guessed “Off-Strip Vegas Magician” or “Tim Robbins Paparazzi Decoy”, but you’d be wrong. He has a radio show in New Orleans now and offers his opinions on everything Saints-related. And when he blogged about Sunday’s loss to the Bucs, he made a pretty bold statement:

To me, it’s the biggest egg in the history of the Saints regular season. I mean, the #1 offense, going against the #25 defense, there’s no way in hell you should lose. The Saints did.

The Saints have been around since 1967. They didn’t have a winning season until 1987 and didn’t win a playoff game until 2000. But the Bucs shutting them out of the second half of Sunday’s game was their worst regular season performance EVER? Wow. And keep in mind that Hebert isn’t just a former Saint. He was born in Cut Off, Louisiana (I swear that’s really the name of the town) and went to college at Northwestern State in Louisiana. If anyone is going to know Saints history and be able to speak authoritatively on how bad they shit themselves Sunday, it’s him.

Random Notes About The Saints Game

December 27, 2009 at 10:06pm by Scott   •  2 Comments »

For the second week in a row, the Bucs have shown the ability to adjust their strategy in the second half and come out of halftime dominant. After giving up 17 points in the first three New Orleans possessions, the Bucs’ defense didn’t let them score again for the rest of the game. Before Raheem Morris took over the defense, the third quarter was death for the Bucs. Whatever happens with Morris after the season is over, I would be fine with him remaining as the defensive coordinator. In fact, I’d prefer it.

Maurice Stovall started over Michael Clayton. Stovall had two catches for 47 yards, Clayton had one for ten. Even Brian Clark had one for 15. I’m not sure why anyone would ever start Clayton again.

Say what you want about Greg Olson, but he stuck with the running game like we all wanted him to and it paid off. Even when they got down 17-0, no one panicked, which speaks volumes about Olson’s coaching ability. The Bucs ran the ball 34 times and threw it 31, and even if you chalk up the sack and QB runs as pass attempts, it’s still good balance.

Josh Freeman also showed again that he can calm the fuck down and just make reads and throw the ball. His accuracy has always been a question, but when he has time, he can make the throws. The offensive line also rediscovered blocking in the second half and gave him the time he needed. Freeman wasn’t spectacular, but with a solid running game and good blocking, he did what needed to be done, which is more than most rookies can deliver.

You’d be hard-pressed to say that any rookie quarterback had a good year this year. In terms of passer rating, Mark Sanchez, Matt Stafford and Freeman are all clustered together at the bottom of the league. They were all junior, first-round quarterbacks and none of their performances should be a surprise to anyone.

For the first time this season, the Bucs had a 100 yard rusher. Cadillac Williams had 129 yards on 24 carries for 5.4 YPC. After Williams retires, he should establish the “Golden Knee Award” or something that recognizes the player who comes back from a devastating injury with as much heart as he has.

If it’s Sunday, Jeremy Trueblood must have been called for a false start. He made up for it with the block he threw on Williams’s touchdown. That guy got leveled.

Micheal Spurlock was signed five days ago. Today he ran a punt back for a touchdown that tied the game. I don’t know how this guy keeps losing his job, but maybe based on his history with the Bucs, he should just be reserved a roster spot for a few years like when a celebrity has their own table at a restaurant.

Geno Hayes should never allow himself to be in a system that isn’t the Tampa 2. If Raheem Morris brings in a non-Tampa 2 linebackers coach or coordinator, Hayes should just kill them before they get a chance to interview. Just walk up to them, apologize, and shoot them in the face. Hayes’s production since Morris took over has been unbelievable. Today: 10 tackles (led team), 2 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 1 QB hit and 1 forced fumble. And he was benched for the first quarter!

You’re not fooling me, Sabby Piscitelli. Just because you made several solid tackles today doesn’t mean you’re safe from being replaced by Eric Berry. Like that whiff on Robert Meachem… yeah, that’s what you do. We all know it. SO STOP TRYING TO MESS THIS UP FOR ME!

Tom Benson Fail

December 27, 2009 at 08:53pm by Scott   •  1 Comment »

It starts off with several seconds of nothing for some reason, but let it play out. It’s worth it.

Antonio Bryant Questions Playcalling

November 23, 2009 at 01:05pm by Scott   •  1 Comment »

Buried in this write-up by Joe Henderson about how this is the kind of game we should have expected from Josh Freeman is a quote from Antonio Bryant that says what we were all thinking when the game was going on. Why are they not picking on a depleted New Orleans secondary?

“To me, the whole feeling is just a different game plan. The two weeks I sat out, it was like bombs away and today it was very, very conservative. I don’t feel like we made the adjustments we could have made to go out there and make the plays down the field to beat them deep, especially with the situation given. They weren’t in first team completely. That was kind of weird to me, but it is what it is.”

Bryant is right. They had a safety in there playing cornerback for a while. That seemed like a perfect time to test their secondary out with some mid-range passes or even some bombs. It was aggravating watching the checkdowns and simple little passes that didn’t really move the chains. Bryant sheds a little light on that with his other quote.

“He’s developing. Right now, that’s what it seems like we’re out there doing. We’re developing Josh more than really trying to compete. That’s the situation that we’re in, but as a veteran I understand that.”

“We’re developing Josh more than really trying to compete.” And you know what? Good. It may suck for the veterans on the team who don’t give a shit about developing anyone and who want just try to win, but if this is truly the strategy, then Morris should be applauded. This is a lost season in terms of competing. Any strategy that gives Freeman more useful experience at the cost of a chance to win right now is fine. They should be thinking long-term.

It’s giving everyone too much credit to say that the Bucs could have won if they had just played to win. I don’t think they could have won under any circumstance yesterday. But if all this is being done for the greater good — and if we can SEE THE IMPROVEMENT as the season wears on — it will be worth it.

Jeremy Shockey Slams Morris

November 23, 2009 at 12:17pm by Scott   •  2 Comments »

He didn’t call Raheem Morris out by name, but after yesterday’s game, Jeremy Shockey let everyone know who he thought the better coach of the Buccaneers was.

“Let’s face it, these are not the Jon Gruden-coached Tampa Bay Buccaneers that we’re used to,” New Orleans tight end Jeremy Shockey said. “No offense to Tampa. They’re going to be good in time. But we know we can play better than we did.”

After a 38-7 pasting, Shockey is saying that it could have been worse if they had played better. And that Morris sucks as a head coach. I was going to go off on a rant here, but their play allowed Jeremy Shockey to be right about something, and that’s worse than anything I could say.

This Isn’t Getting Any Better

November 23, 2009 at 11:08am by Scott   •  5 Comments »

I’ve been frequenting various message boards and whorehouse waiting rooms where people are talking about the Buccaneers and have heard more people jumping off the bandwagon after yesterday’s loss than any other week this season. And that seems weird to me. If you were going to burn your season tickets and finally give away your Bruce Gradkowski jersey, you’d think it would have been a few weeks ago. Maybe after the Giants game or when Josh Freeman was named the starter. But if you were going to buy into Freeman starting and getting some experience, you had to know he was going to start fucking up soon, right? Just as soon as other teams got some NFL tape on him, they were going to be able to shut him down just like they shut almost every other rookie quarterback down. We all knew this, so let’s not act like it’s some big surprise that he threw a bunch of bad balls and made some bad decisions. If you were in after the Green Bay game, you should be in for the rest of the season. The biggest surprise to me was that he started off looking pretty good and then melted down. I expected him to start off poorly and then rally the Bucs to a respectable loss.

Freeman had a bad day, but I don’t blame him for two of his three interceptions. The first one looked like Antonio Bryant slipped as he was running the route. It wasn’t a particularly well-thrown ball, but if Bryant had been there, he could have stretched to get it or at least knocked it away from the Malcolm Jenkins. And the third interception was a hail mary desperation heave that made no difference anyway. I’d prefer he do that than throw a meaningless checkdown. But that second interception was totally on him. That ball was way too high for Michael Clayton and there were Saints everywhere. Freeman was throwing shit balls like that all day. I may not be blaming him for a couple of his interceptions, but he was also close to being picked several more times than he actually was. If it wasn’t for some of the Saints’ DBs stone hands, Freeman might have had five or six picks on the day.

His biggest problem was overthrows, which is the risk you run when you make Byron Leftwich your mentor. For every Antonio Bryant pinpoint back shoulder throw or Michael Clayton touchdown pass on the run, Freeman had three or four balls badly sail on him. Looking at the stats, I can’t believe Freeman completed 51% of his passes — it sure seemed like less than that. Accuracy was never Freeman’s strength, but he has to improve at least a few percentage points if he’s going to keep teams from blitzing the hell out of him or playing the run with nine in the box.

Hey, speaking of the running game, did you know that Earnest Graham had 31 yards on three carries yesterday? It’s true! He ripped off runs of 17 and 12 yards in the first half; that sounds like a perfect opportunity to make a halftime adjustment and get Graham the ball more instead of Cadillac Williams or Derrick Ward, neither of whom were doing a heck of a lot with it. But, no. Graham got the ball one time in the second half for two yards, and that was the end. Is this because of some weird obsession Raheem Morris has with his running back rotation? Is it because Graham is now the starting fullback and you can only run him in single-back sets? Because both those reasons are bullshit. By definition, halftime adjustments are intended to take you away from your set plan and play to the circumstances that unfolded in the first half. Who gives a shit about the rotation? Play the hot hand! And if you can only run Graham in single-back sets (despite the fact that Chris Pressley was activated and looked good when he was in there), then run more single-back sets! It would have taken so much pressure off of Freeman if they could have gotten the running game going, and Graham was having the most success. You know the one scoring drive they had? Eight runs (including Graham’s two long ones) and five passes. I dunno… seems like they had a decent formula going there.

Oh, and Cadillac totally whiffed on Scott Fujita for that sack-fumble in the third quarter. Fujita couldn’t have been more obvious that he was blitzing, so I don’t know how Cadillac misses that one.

I never thought I’d say this, but Jeremy Trueblood‘s false start was a bullshit penalty. I re-watched him on that play four times and never saw him flinch or rock.

Demar Dotson came in after Trueblood left with an injured knee, and didn’t look too good. I don’t know, is 6-9 too tall to play offensive line? Seems like if it’s truly a game of leverage that Dotson would be at a huge (no pun) disadvantage. You’ve heard the expression “low man wins”, right? How can he ever be the low man?

I don’t have much more to say about the offensive line. Three sacks, six quarterback hits, 89 non-QB rushing yards, Freeman having to constantly scramble. Not good.

The defensive line seemed worse to me, and I honestly don’t know who to blame. No sacks, very little pressure on Drew Brees, and 183 rushing yards from the Saints. Most of those yards were in the second half when New Orleans was trying to preserve a lead and grind down the clock and everybody knew it but no one could stop them. Their last scoring drive was two passes and 11 runs and they didn’t even care if they scored since it was already 31-7. But they did. That’s the front-seven’s fault collectively. I saw misses by Jimmy Wilkerson, Kyle Moore, Greg White, Barrett Ruud (holy hell, did you see him get dragged five yards in the first half?), Sabby Piscitelli, Corey Lynch and Geno Hayes throughout the game. There were probably more, but I have to admit that I stopped taking copious notes sometime in the second half. Ronde Barber and Tanard Jackson seemed to be the only defensive players who had reasonable consistent games, and even they made some boneheaded plays.

Let’s put it this way: When defensive backs are three of your top four tacklers against a team that only completed 19 passes as opposed to running the ball 36 times, things aren’t getting done up front.

Games like this are going to get Jim Bates fired fast. Players have to take some responsibility for missing tackles and not making plays, but coaching puts them in position, and it seems like the position they’re in is never right. Is this a learning thing where the players are still trying to get the hang of Bates’s scheme? Because it seems like they’re getting worse, not better. I would have expected improvement by now.

So, it’s two road games in a row now, at Atlanta and Carolina. Both teams are vulnerable, but neither are in nearly as much disarray as the Bucs. If you’re only going to be happy with victories, use your Sundays some other way. The Bucs may squeeze out another win, but it will probably have to come against a team that has already clinched their playoff position and is resting their starters and possibly their best backups. This season is about looking for improvements. Not yesterday, of course, but you know what I mean.