NFL – Need for Continuity a Growing Trend as Bucs Keep Morris

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers flirted with the idea of bringing in Bill Cowher, but today the Glazers informed head coach Raheem Morris that he’s holding on to the headphones for the 2010 NFL betting season. The move comes as somewhat of a surprise for the 3-12 SU Buccaneers, who also went a brutal 6-10 ATS with the worst betting record at home with 1-7 SU at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Aside from the changing of the guard movements in Buffalo and Washington, the fact that Morris is staying on board speaks volumes about the growing trend of continuity emerging as a priority for management.

Scapegoats in sports are easy to find. When a team’s doing poorly, the coach is usually the one that gets the axe. However, if you look at the past five years of NFL statistics, the most consistently successful teams are the ones who retain the coaching staff. What the Bucs are proving by keeping the inexperienced talents of Morris on board is that they’re rather suck it up and see what he can do in 2010 than jeopardize the development of Joshua Freeman.

Quarterbacks that enter the NFL are often unprepared for the speed of the game, the brutality of its physical nature and the complexities of an pro playbook. You can Google “worst quarterbacks drafted in the NFL” and get about fifty dozen different top-10s (hell, I probably wrote at least five of them…they’re fun to write and read). Yet one of the many reasons that good talent gets wasted at the quarterback position is when impatient owners cycle feverishly through coaches to try and get a winning formula.

The truth is that very few “winning formulas” can mature in one or two seasons. Rarely do you get a perfect marriage like the Bucs did when Gruden landed in Tampa in 2003 and coached a premier team to a Super Bowl victory over his former team. It rarely ever pans out that way.

Freeman wasn’t a game changer in any respects, but his first game on the job drew rave reviews as the Bucs pulled the kitchen sink, fridge, stove, deep freezer and grandchildren out of the kitchen and threw them at the Packers in Week 9. Stunning Green Bay with a 38-28 victory at home while Freeman completed 14-of-31 passes for 205 yards and 3 touchdowns was one of the lone signs of life that Freeman showed all season.

In fact, he was such a betting disaster for the Bucs gamblers and fans that they were vomiting with disappointments when he notched five multiple interception games in just nine starts this season. Yet Freeman wasn’t a disaster on Ryan Leaf levels. Every Bucs fan will tell you that the single touchdown pass he threw against New Orleans in Week 11 was good enough to give the kid a chance to show what he can really do in 2010.

He’s 6-foot-6 and 248 pounds, and just 21 years old. There’s room for improvement.

At the end of the Gruden era, in 2008, the Glazers literally cleared house. Players, coaches, managers, janitors and bus drivers were all sent packing as the team desperately attempted to rebuild itself from within. They moved Jermaine Phillips from safety to linebacker. Derrick Brooks was forced out along with many other stalwarts in Tampa, and Barrett Ruud was left to keep the defense organized. At the center of it all, Raheem Morris was promoted from a position coach to head coach over his defensive and offensive coordinators, whom he quickly fired and replaced.

The drastic personnel and coaching shifts in Tampa led to an immediate disruption in team chemistry, and it was blatant in their numbers. The Bucs finished the season 27th overall on defense with 25.0 points allowed and 365.6 yards surrendered per game. Offensively, they weren’t terrible, but they weren’t consistent and much of that is being burdened by their rookie under center.

Help can come swiftly in the draft. Safeties Eric Berry and Taylor Mays headline a very talented safety class, while defensive tackled Ndamukong Suh and Gerald McCoy are said to be “game changers”. The Bucs hold the third overall draft pick and could very well move up to the top spot if St. Louis shows hesitation from taking a quarterback or the best player in the draft with the top selection.

The NFC South is a wildly competitive division. The Saints clinched the top seed in the NFC, Atlanta had a winning season and Carolina finished 4-1 SU with the heir apparent, Matt Moore, at quarterback in place of the mistake prone Jake Delhomme. The only thing the Bucs can cling to is the fact that the last place team in the NFC South has gone on to win the division the following sports betting season 5 out of the past 6 years.

Tampa Bay has already undergone a tremendous amount of changes. Keeping an embattled coach like Raheem Morris at his post is a smarter move than blaming him for a 3-win season and sending him packing. The players like him, Josh Freeman likes him and Glazers loved him enough to hand him the reigns after firing Gruden. If Morris can somehow will this team in to playoff contention next season, then the fans will like him as well.

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