Will Gruden Coach the Bucs Again
Any faint hope of the playoffs has slipped away for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The penchant for cocky-devastation has become the team's consequent defining trait. The growth of franchise centerpiece Jameis Winston appears pressed confronting a familiar ceiling, in spite of – or considering of – head jitney Dirk Koetter, who was promoted largely to develop the quarterback. And now at that place's a disputed NFL Network report that Winston and Koetter aren't getting along.
And just as nosotros enter Jon Gruden week in Tampa, no less.
With Gruden heading into the Buccaneers ring of honor on December. eighteen, the talk almost his potential NFL render will hit new heights this week. Partly fueled by the fact that Gruden has made a lot of statements this year nigh getting dorsum into football. Simply too considering sources close to Gruden believe a sugariness-spot opportunity is developing in Tampa, where Gruden still owns a home and has a rail record with ownership.
Not to mention i significant reality: if he's e'er going to angle for an NFL encore, the Buccaneers essentially have everything he has been looking for.
Does that brand Gruden a lock to be in the Tampa chat if Koetter gets fired? No. But some of the NFL executives who still commiserate with Gruden believe the Buccaneers cheque off nigh every box he desires to seriously consider leaving goggle box.
"Y'all tin can only do and so many Corona commercials into your belatedly 50s," ane league executive said of Gruden. "… For virtually guys who don't stay in the coaching pipeline, that [NFL] door really starts to shut after in your 50s. He knows there'due south a shelf life there and he's starting to push it.
[Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach] "Beak Cowher, you know – Neb kind of rode it out. He was still interested in the NFL for a while. Only TV and some of his other interests took over. The thing is, I don't know if Jon has any other interests outside of being Jon Gruden and then football. At some point – I recall some bespeak presently – he has to choose between existence in the Jon Gruden business or being in the football game business concern. If he's going to be in the football business organization, he has things he wants to come back. If they aren't there, he won't."
The Buccaneers evidently have quite a few of those things. Strong defensive pieces. A mid-20s franchise quarterback whose pointer is even so pointed up. Ample bacon-cap infinite going frontwards. Solid young offensive pieces in identify effectually the quarterback. Gruden covets all of these. Along with one other thing that might be the sticking point: a big, fatty paycheck.
It's anyone's estimate whether the Glazer family unit, owners of the Bucs, would lay out a huge deal for Gruden, just that point appears to be unequivocal – he's going to need a summit-shelf NFL salary to leave ESPN for the grind. And of form, he's going to need an opening at caput omnibus.
The Buccaneers don't have that now, only information technology's not looking good for Koetter. Not with Winston'southward development seeming to be at a standstill despite the offensive pieces that were added around him this offseason. And not with the Buccaneers sitting at 4-9, with the squad'due south four wins coming against an exceedingly bad quartet: the Chicago Bears, New York Giants, New York Jets and Miami Dolphins.
That's the kind of affair that puts a damper on attendance and sours a fan base. Before long, the so-called media buzzards begin to circle, waiting for the inevitable. Perhaps that's a little of what took identify Sunday, when the NFL Network reported that Winston and Koetter accept had some bug in their relationship stemming from the offensive scheme.
"Me and Coach Koetter, we have a great human relationship, showtime and foremost," Winston said Dominicus, denying whatsoever rift. "We've got the aforementioned goal when nosotros become out at that place on that football field, and that's to win a football. So it doesn't matter what anybody else can possibly say."
That statement can be viewed 2 ways. Either Winston is being truthful and he and Koetter have no problems. Or he and Koetter have had problems and he's trying to go along information technology in-business firm for the sake of the team.
Neither of those two scenarios changes the truth, and that's this: Winston has only marginally progressed under Koetter. And the criminal offence as a whole doesn't speak well of a motorcoach whose forte is that side of the football game. Winston is nonetheless making some of the same mind-numbing mistakes. The running game is failing. And elements of the skill positions – while young – don't reverberate the consistency that the talent teases.
And in one case once more, the NFL is a bottom-line business, and the Buccaneers are 4-9 in a season they were expected to have a big pace forward and outset pressing for NFC supremacy. Instead, we're watching a left-for-expressionless New Orleans Saints team and a quarterback-garbled Minnesota Vikings club rise up into the void left by Tampa Bay. That irks this buying, which has displayed a remarkable penchant for moving chop-chop on middling head coaches.
Going backward in the mediocrity timeline, the axe came downward apace on Lovie Smith, Greg Schiano, Raheem Morris … and even Jon Gruden.
The deviation in that grouping for ownership? Gruden delivered a Super Bowl. And he did it by being a finisher. He took a roster that was loaded up during the Tony Dungy era and became the over-the-acme element that brought it all together. Maybe that would take happened with Dungy anyway, but the bespeak was the Glazer family gambled on Gruden existence the missing element and he repaid them with a Super Basin win.
This roster isn't anywhere near what Guden took over the first time around. I'thousand non fifty-fifty sure y'all could point to anyone on the roster and accept confidence at that place is Hall of Fame talent represented, whereas Gruden's peak roster was loaded with the likes of Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, John Lynch and an outstanding bandage of role players on both sides of the ball.
Tampa Bay doesn't have that kind of stocked depth chart at present. But it has two things Gruden never really possessed: a supremely talented quarterback who could eventually be one of the best iii or 4 in the NFL, and an absurd amount of cap space to add pieces starting in 2018. Non to mention a general manager in Jason Licht, who should at the very to the lowest degree be extremely flexible and open to suggestion at this phase of his less-than-perfect tenure.
This is the type of situation that should whet Gruden's appetite. And lest anyone question it, the same people whose ear he bends on football matters also say things aren't moving-picture show-perfect in Gruden's ESPN world, either. The booth on "Monday Night Football" has not been the aforementioned since Mike Tirico departed, leaving Gruden to exist paired with Sean McDonough. Those close to Gruden say the human relationship is workmanlike but not always a perfect fit – something that may also be driving Gruden to retrieve outside the Tv set world.
Await that to be a pregnant point of involvement when Gruden is entering Tampa Bay's ring of honor next week. For his office, Gruden has ambiguously downplayed his future, recently stating that he "can't control all the reports." But that'due south not exactly a true statement. If Gruden is done with the NFL and the NFL is done with him, he can control the narrative. Instead of throwing h2o on it, he has fueled it.
Seemingly waiting for his sweet spot. Which might be closer now than ever – measured in months and the miles from his front-door pace in Florida.
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Will Gruden Coach the Bucs Again
Source: https://sports.yahoo.com/bucs-may-takes-lure-espns-jon-gruden-coaching-033403748.html
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