When Tony Dungy was named the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, there were a few people who were upset because it wasn’t Jimmy Johnson or Steve Spurrier, nor was it Bill Parcells. But the internet was a different creature back then, and there was no furor over the hiring of Dungy instead of those other ‘proven’ winners. Not that there should have been- Dungy was a proven assistant coach for 15 years, he was overlooked several years before the Glazers gave him his chance.
Raheem Morris was a baby compared to Dungy, and to be fair, if you didn’t know about Raheem Morris as well as some of us who followed the Bucs assistant coaches, you cant be blamed for thinking that Bill Cowher or Mike Shanahan would have been a better choice.
But that is over, and that time has passed. The criteria has now changed; Raheem Morris is no longer a coach lacking in experience. Raheem Morris has coached an NFL team for almost two and a half years, and he took that team with all the veterans removed, the youngest team in the league for two years in a row, and took them to a winning record in only their second year, a 10-6 season that would have been a playoff season in any other year.
My message to the haters is simple; your message was heard, but it doesn’t make sense anymore, your point is a point no longer. The time has passed for your concern, and its time for ALL Bucs fans to come back together to support this team as one. It’s time for us to forgive and forget.
Because in 1997 when Bucs fans flooded Tampa Stadium for a Sunday Night of Football on TNT, the first sell out of a non Chicago or Green Bay game in about 20 years, it was a night Tony Dungy said he would never forget. He always looked up at the corners of the stadium to see if it was going to be a sellout. For that game, there were no empty seats in the corners. The Parcells/Spurrier/Johnson backers were nowhere to be found by then. Why? Because after the Bucs started to look like winners towards the tail end of Dungy’s rookie season, you didn’t have two sides; just one, A Bucs fan.
It’s time for all of us in Buc Nation to come back together and heal; Jon Gruden is returning to Tampa, and I promise you (if we can hear the game) he will laude the job Raheem Morris has done with the club. He will drool over Josh Freeman, while we remember Jeff Garcia and Brian Griese together. But the point is, we need to do it together, because we run the risk of splintering as a community, and that wont do anyone any good.
While one game does not a season make, you can see from the Bucs games this year that things are starting to look up here in Buc-land. Were in first place in the division now, with a game up on Atlanta. Has anything New Orleans has done with their defense really scare you into thinking Josh Freeman has no chance to beat them.
So no more bickering, no more bitterness, these Bucs are on the cusp of playoff football, its time for the hating to end, and the healing to begin.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
