With the Buccaneers season now, regrettably, over, the Buccaneers have to turn their attentions to matters of the off-season and look towards 2011 (or possibly 2012). The first order of business for this organization? It needs to be re-signing head coach Raheem Morris.
Morris currently has an option for the 2011 season, but that’s hardly the kind of iron-clad agreement I’d like to see between the Bucs and a promising young coach like Raheem Morris. If the Glazers hadn’t noticed, other teams are beginning to look around to fill coaching vacancies. Yes, Morris is still contractually involved with the Bucs, but given the fact he hasn’t been given an extension and the Glazers are currently hanging a good portion of his staff out to dry so they won’t be stuck with their contracts in a lockout, it might be good to have Morris really locked up.
After all, it was Morris who hand-picked the Bucs wunderkind Josh Freeman two years ago (and stuck to his guns despite heavy opposition), it was Morris who guaranteed 10 wins with the youngest team in football and actually delivered it and it was Morris who took an ancient Bucs team from laughing stock to playoff contender in two years. Morris is a man of conviction, and he sticks to his gut even when everyone in the country thinks he’s dead wrong. And after two years, he’s rarely ever wrong. The man needs an extension now.
He needs an extension before someone can come meddle. Before he can have time to wonder whether he would be better served to head back to the college ranks in the event of a lockout. The Bucs need to lock up Raheem Morris immediately.
Fortunately, the Bucs intend to start talks very soon, within the next two weeks. But that kind of lackadaisical approach is not what wins in the NFL. This should have been done three weeks ago, not in two weeks when teams start to get knocked out of the playoffs and the coaching searches really heat up. GM Mark Dominik will sit down with the Glazers and coach Morris in a couple of weeks to discuss the extension.
"“Coach and I will sit down and go through the whole season, what it felt like, and we’ll take care of the business,” general manager Mark Dominik said Monday “But we’ll handle it like a family would. We’ll handle it internally to take care of it.“It’s like everything else, I’m not a big rush into everything guy. I like to let it breathe a little bit. Today is going to sting, I can guarantee you it’s stinging for coach Morris right now and it’s stinging. It’s going to take a few days to walk away from 10-6 and see the best part of 10-6 instead of the frustrating part of 10-6. That’s the same way I want to do that with our staff as we go through free agency. I want a couple days of that buffer, or an entire week. It might take a little bit of time to do everything in the best interest of the entire organization.“I’ll spend some time with ownership, absolutely. I’ll sit down with them and talk to them about the direction of the club and just the direction of the entire building and what all went on in 2010 and then turn the page to 2011.”"
Let me just cut through the BS for you real quick. Mark Dominik is still not under contract for 2011. The Glazers, like with Raheem, have an option for 2011 and would like to talk extension but have made no real head-way in that direction.
If this was being run family-style, as Dominik is touting in the party-line, then there wouldn’t be Bucs assistant coaches going home to their families after cleaning out their offices and wondering whether they’ll still be gainfully employed next year. This isn’t a family-minded approach, it’s a business-minded one. The Glazers are very bottom-line oriented. Mark wasn’t so flowery on the topic of his own extension. When asked about his own contract Dominik was a bit more tight-lipped.
"“I’ll keep that between me and ownership,” Dominik said. “I wouldn’t want to comment on it.”"
Typically in any NFL operation, the owner finds someone to run the football operations (or oftentimes they just do it themselves), they then hire a GM who then hires a coach. If the Bucs haven’t even gotten around to extending Dominik, what motivation would he have to get the Morris deal done? If anything, in the event the NFL has a lockout and the Glazers do the cheap thing (which they will) and let the entire coaching staff go without contracts to save money, Mark Dominik and Raheem Morris might not even want those extensions. I’m not saying it’s likely, but it’s possible given their proven chemistry, that if a lockout happens Dominik and Morris could head to a completely different organization entirely. They’d be welcome.
That’s why the Glazers need to cut the crap, stop milling around and extend Mark Dominik and Raheem Morris immediately. Both of these guys should have been under contract for the long haul around week ten, if this was a well-run organization. But in light of the fact that the Bucs just had a huge resurgence, one they can clearly build on, and this ownership group hasn’t addressed the contract of the guys responsible, the coach and the GM, and are leaving practically the entire coaching staff out to dry, well the writing’s pretty much on the wall about how well the ownership handles the Bucs.