Buccaneers to Begin Candidate Elimination Thursday

TAMPA — This week on ‘Keeping Up with the Glazers’: The brothers twiddle their thumbs about hiring a new coach, make a surprise offer and drama ensues. (Cue: tables kicking over, screaming, chasing). Their candidate dashes from their crazy manor and the hunt for a new head coach continues. But now they are sharpening the axe again and are about to fire the candidates in contention for the job no one wants.

That’s pretty much the chaotic, stomach-turning picture being beamed out of Tampa as the Buccaneers are now the only NFL tam without a head coach.

As Patrik Nohe wrote earlier today, in the span of time that the Buccaneers fired Raheem Morris to today: the Oakland Raiders have fired a GM, a Head Coach and replaced both.

Meanwhile Raheem Morris has removed the noose from his neck and is laughing at his former employers in Tampa from Washington.

However the Buccaneers have put all candidates on notice and will be eliminating candidates starting tomorrow. Mike Sherman was interviewed for a second time Wednesday and he is on the list of finalists for the job. Rick Stroud is reporting that Rob Chudzinski may be on that finalist list but Carolina Panthers head coach Ron Rivera has gone on record saying he has no knowledge of the Buccaneers meeting with the Chudzinski to tell him he’s a finalist.

“Believe me, I’d love to know just so we can go forward,” Rivera said. “We’ve got a lot of things we have to do and we’ve kind of put (them) off during this whole period.”

So not only are the Bucs hurting themselves, but they are spreading the disease to other teams and holding up their process of moving into the offseason.

But even though the Bucs are crossing candidates off the list, that statement holds absolutely no value whatsoever. We’ve been hearing

Sherman, Schottenheimer, Chuzinski and Childress for the past two weeks and Sunday Chip Kelly was offered the job.

Somebody get the dart board. Right now that’s the most accurate way to stay on the wave link of the Glazers.

Sherman’s name is being kicked around a lot and people are stopping short of reporting he’s going to be hired. But they are stopping short for good measure: the Glazer’s are acting so wildly unpredictably that no one want to fall into the trap that was set this weekend where we follow a set of names and a random grab bag hire is offered the job.

Of course I mean all due respect to Chip Kelly, but that’s basically the situation.

So Tampa will eliminate candidates Thursday but that could mean they cross off one name or the random names they haven’t reported interviewing. Patrik Nohe or myself are about three degrees of separation away from being offered the job at this point. Don’t be on your phone too long folks because tomorrow you might get a call from the Glazers offering you the job.

That’s unfortunatly the sad state of affairs in Tampa at the moment. No one is warm on Sherman but no one is satisfied with what is happening. This coaching search could not have been botched any worse then it has been in Tampa. The Glazers have violently aborted the common sense process of finding the best guy for the job by not wanting to fall into hiring a bad coach. But like a Shakesperean tragedy the ironic end of the story is that that very thing has happened.

We thought things couldn’t get any worse in Tampa when the season finished but somehow it has.