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Originally posted by Zopperoni
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Major breaking news out of Tampa: Jon Gruden and GM Bruce Allen have both been fired:
Buccaneers fire Super Bowl-winning head coach Gruden
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired coach Jon Gruden on Friday, as was first reported by NFL Network's Adam Schefter.
General manager Bruce Allen was also dismissed. After the team collapsed following a 9-3 start and failed to make the playoffs, the organization decided to go in a different direction.
"We will be forever grateful to Jon for bringing us the Super Bowl title, and we thank Bruce for his contributions to our franchise," said Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer. "However, after careful consideration, we feel that this decision is in the best interest of our organization moving forward."
The Buccaneers were tied for first place in the NFC South heading into December, but finished with losses to Carolina and Atlanta on the road and San Diego and Oakland at home, where they had been 6-0. One more win would have landed a NFC wild-card berth.
The 9-7 record this season left Tampa out of the playoffs for the fourth time in six years.
Gruden went 60-57 in seven seasons as head coach of the Buccaneers, including the playoffs. He was the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl when he led Tampa Bay to a 48-21 win over the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, his first season with the team.
Gruden was Tampa Bay's coach for seven years before being dismissed. Allen was general manager for the last five seasons.
Gruden's firing means that there will be 10 new head coaches next season, the most since the 2005-06 season.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired coach Jon Gruden on Friday, as was first reported by NFL Network's Adam Schefter.
General manager Bruce Allen was also dismissed. After the team collapsed following a 9-3 start and failed to make the playoffs, the organization decided to go in a different direction.
"We will be forever grateful to Jon for bringing us the Super Bowl title, and we thank Bruce for his contributions to our franchise," said Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer. "However, after careful consideration, we feel that this decision is in the best interest of our organization moving forward."
The Buccaneers were tied for first place in the NFC South heading into December, but finished with losses to Carolina and Atlanta on the road and San Diego and Oakland at home, where they had been 6-0. One more win would have landed a NFC wild-card berth.
The 9-7 record this season left Tampa out of the playoffs for the fourth time in six years.
Gruden went 60-57 in seven seasons as head coach of the Buccaneers, including the playoffs. He was the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl when he led Tampa Bay to a 48-21 win over the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, his first season with the team.
Gruden was Tampa Bay's coach for seven years before being dismissed. Allen was general manager for the last five seasons.
Gruden's firing means that there will be 10 new head coaches next season, the most since the 2005-06 season.
PITTSBURGH -- In a stunning development that no one in the NFL expected, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired Super Bowl-winning coach Jon Gruden late Friday afternoon. And in what could be even more of shock, the Bucs plan to replace Gruden with Raheem Morris, who has never been anything more than a position coach in any of his six seasons in the league, SI.com learned Friday night.
Morris, whose ascension up the NFL ladder rivals another former secondary coach -- Pittburgh's Mike Tomlin, who has the Steelers one win away from the Super Bowl -- will probably be named the Bucs' new head coach Saturday, a source said.
Morris, 32, who last month replaced Monte Kiffin as the Bucs' defensive coordinator, just finished his sixth season as a Tampa Bay assistant and second as defensive backs coach. He initially joined Gruden's staff as a defensive quality-control assistant in 2002, was a defensive assistant in 2003 and assistant defensive backs coach for the next two seasons before spending one year as defensive coordinator at Kansas State.
As for Gruden, six seasons without a playoff win was his undoing. The Glazer family fired Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen -- who came to Tampa and delivered a Super Bowl title in their first season together -- for several reasons. But not winning a game in the postseason since the Bucs beat Oakland in Super Bowl XXVII in Gruden's rookie season was the biggest factor.
"It's not just that," Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer told SI.com. "But, ultimately, we're judged on wins and losses in this business. There are a lot of factors involved ... it's been under consideraion since the end of the season. We just felt that's where the franchise was headed. We wanted to make a change."
The end of the season was particularly bitter for the Glazer family as well as Gruden. The Bucs seemed a playoff shoe-in after 12 games with a 9-3 record but lost their final four games, with their defense falling apart embarrassingly to finish 9-7 and out of the playoffs.
It didn't help Gruden that, in the words of one NFL source Friday night, "He was Hillary Clinton there." In other words, he'd always have a solid core of support, but there would always be a large, polarized part of the public (and ownership, perhaps) who wouldn't be in his corner. And he'd never work to win over the media or the fans who didn't buy his workaholic, everyman schtick.
Gruden's impenetrable veneer surely didn't help him with the Glazer family, either. He and Allen, one league rival said Friday night, ran the team like the Nixon White House, communicating poorly with the public and running the teams with an our-way-or-the-highway approach, even when the results of the team didn't merit regal treatment from the public or the media.
In seven years, Gruden had a 60-57 record. A good record, including a Super Bowl victory. But was it worth two first-round picks and two second-round picks, the price the Bucs had to pay Oakland owner Al Davis for Gruden, particularly when the franchise hovered around .500 for the six seasons after the Super Bowl title?
For Mike Shanahan, two straight Super Bowl wins bought him a decade of coaching the Broncos with another AFC or league title. For Gruden, one Super Bowl bought six years without another January success. What must have annoyed the ownership nearly as much was Gruden's inability to develop a quarterback of the future. He lurched from one short-term veteran (Brad Johnson) to another (Brian Griese) to another (Jeff Garcia) and then back to Griese and to Garcia without ever developing any long-term plan for the most important position in the game. Young projects Chris Simms and Bruce Gradkowski never got over the hump and were sent packing by Gruden.
For a coach who arrived in Tampa as a quarterback guru, Gruden leaves a coach with slim pickings at the position. The Bucs, as has been the case almost every year since the Super Bowl win, enter the offseason in the market for a quarterback.
Twelve of the NFL's 32 teams haven't won a playoff game in the last six years. The Bucs were one of those. League insiders thought the intensely private Glazers would give the Gruden-Allen team another year, but it didn't happen. And in the end, it's hard to blame them
Morris, whose ascension up the NFL ladder rivals another former secondary coach -- Pittburgh's Mike Tomlin, who has the Steelers one win away from the Super Bowl -- will probably be named the Bucs' new head coach Saturday, a source said.
Morris, 32, who last month replaced Monte Kiffin as the Bucs' defensive coordinator, just finished his sixth season as a Tampa Bay assistant and second as defensive backs coach. He initially joined Gruden's staff as a defensive quality-control assistant in 2002, was a defensive assistant in 2003 and assistant defensive backs coach for the next two seasons before spending one year as defensive coordinator at Kansas State.
As for Gruden, six seasons without a playoff win was his undoing. The Glazer family fired Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen -- who came to Tampa and delivered a Super Bowl title in their first season together -- for several reasons. But not winning a game in the postseason since the Bucs beat Oakland in Super Bowl XXVII in Gruden's rookie season was the biggest factor.
"It's not just that," Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer told SI.com. "But, ultimately, we're judged on wins and losses in this business. There are a lot of factors involved ... it's been under consideraion since the end of the season. We just felt that's where the franchise was headed. We wanted to make a change."
The end of the season was particularly bitter for the Glazer family as well as Gruden. The Bucs seemed a playoff shoe-in after 12 games with a 9-3 record but lost their final four games, with their defense falling apart embarrassingly to finish 9-7 and out of the playoffs.
It didn't help Gruden that, in the words of one NFL source Friday night, "He was Hillary Clinton there." In other words, he'd always have a solid core of support, but there would always be a large, polarized part of the public (and ownership, perhaps) who wouldn't be in his corner. And he'd never work to win over the media or the fans who didn't buy his workaholic, everyman schtick.
Gruden's impenetrable veneer surely didn't help him with the Glazer family, either. He and Allen, one league rival said Friday night, ran the team like the Nixon White House, communicating poorly with the public and running the teams with an our-way-or-the-highway approach, even when the results of the team didn't merit regal treatment from the public or the media.
In seven years, Gruden had a 60-57 record. A good record, including a Super Bowl victory. But was it worth two first-round picks and two second-round picks, the price the Bucs had to pay Oakland owner Al Davis for Gruden, particularly when the franchise hovered around .500 for the six seasons after the Super Bowl title?
For Mike Shanahan, two straight Super Bowl wins bought him a decade of coaching the Broncos with another AFC or league title. For Gruden, one Super Bowl bought six years without another January success. What must have annoyed the ownership nearly as much was Gruden's inability to develop a quarterback of the future. He lurched from one short-term veteran (Brad Johnson) to another (Brian Griese) to another (Jeff Garcia) and then back to Griese and to Garcia without ever developing any long-term plan for the most important position in the game. Young projects Chris Simms and Bruce Gradkowski never got over the hump and were sent packing by Gruden.
For a coach who arrived in Tampa as a quarterback guru, Gruden leaves a coach with slim pickings at the position. The Bucs, as has been the case almost every year since the Super Bowl win, enter the offseason in the market for a quarterback.
Twelve of the NFL's 32 teams haven't won a playoff game in the last six years. The Bucs were one of those. League insiders thought the intensely private Glazers would give the Gruden-Allen team another year, but it didn't happen. And in the end, it's hard to blame them
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