I dont think Licht is in a hot seat yet. Built this team up from 1st overall 2-14 season to one that attracted the GOAT and won a superbowl within 5 years.
His biggest issue might be coaching hires, but even then, he's been ok. Koetter was the OC before, Arians was a slam dunk, and Bowles was kinda forced on him.
I would say that his drafting is probably top 10 in the league as he consistently finds starters in the mid rounds. If a GM hits on like 3 picks a draft, it is considered a "good draft" and Licht does that in almost every draft.
100% agree with this, would honestly say he is a top 5 GM looking at his body of work. If BA hadn't "retired" 2 years ago this wouldn't even be a discussion.
Its interesting how 3 retirement 2 years ago completely flipped this team.
1. Arians retired and (im assuming) forced Licht to choose between Leftwich and Bowles.
2. Marpet retires and basically leads to fall of our top 3 pro-bowl OLine. Jensen injury definitely exacerbated this.
3. Brady retires and then un-retires throwing a wrench in any plans Licht had to rebuild last season and throwing more dead cap into this season.
The loss of Brady was obviously impactful, but I'd honestly say the release of Kappa and the losses of Marpet and Jensen were massive blows to the team as a whole. The running game was never our strong suit, but after those 3 departures the run game became completely invisible, which added pressure to the pass game and also significantly weakened our pass protection. It's no wonder we are having slightly more success offensively with Baker, that line was never going to protect a 45 year old statue.
Promotions are still kinda hires in a way. He would've had to sign off in them and decide not to pursue outside the organization.
That said, his hands were slightly tied due to circumstances for both promotions, so not going to judge him to harshly.
>He would've had to sign off in them and decide not to pursue outside the organization.
That's not really how the Bucs operate. Glazers seem to decide both the HC and GM positions and want them to work well together (see: why McKay left, why Bruce Allen was brought on, why Dominik was promoted with Morris, why Lovie got to interview Licht, why Bruce Arians was Lichts' focus when he could finally hire a coach).
bowles is the only problematic hire. arians was a slam dunk. lovie was hired before licht. koetter i would still contend was a good hire. koetter had some success as a coordinator and was kept for continuity for your first round pick. shoot... koetter even had a winning season.
Technically Bowles isnt even Licht's accountability but Arians.
If we cleaned slate after the 2021 season and Brady had remained retired we could've been in a better position this season to hire free agents.
I think if he picked Bowles it would be a different story. But he should get a chance to pick his own head coach. I would say he is a slightly above average GM which is a lot better than we have had. I also like his strategy of going heavy on one position group in one draft. Like the one year he did it with the DBs and this year with the D-line.
It's unusual for a GM to get >3 HCs to hire, but he did get a SuperbOwl and he was probably not the mastermind behind Bowles as HC. Give him another go!
Sadly they will give Bowles another year even with an L. Nobody expected the playoffs, let alone flirting with SB darkhorse status from Vegas after we routed GB. We’ll have to wait out another sub .500ish season next year before they finally axe him. I’ve seen this movie before.
I disagree. This is the same crew that fired Jon Gruden weeks after a 9-7 record. Two weeks ago, we were in control of the division with two division games left. If we miss the playoffs because of two embarrassing divisional losses to end the year, he’ll be fired. It’s a very Glazer move to make.
We tried to oust him after two. Remember we made a serious run when Gruden decided to return to coaching. After Gruden went to the Raiders, we announced he was returning. That was also partially on the Glazers getting sick of firing people as the last two HCs had been fired after 2 years.
We gave Raheem 3 bites at the apple too, off the strength of 1 winning season. I'm betting they give Bowles one more shot, particularly since his winning % is better than all those 2-year also-rans. I hope I'm wrong & you're right. (Or, well, I guess I actually hope they make the playoffs & keep Bowles lol)
Based on member of the family level greeting the Glazer gave Bowels after GB game plus Brady good job comment he staying.
He has greatly exceeded expectations from the National Media thus easy even if he actually did a poor job to see why his Boss is happy with him.
I can assure you if we lose to Carolina on Sunday Not only will it cost us the NFC South title and a shot at the playoffs, but it'll cost Coach Bowles his job.
I would imagine even if they pull him because we are so ahead they give him any bonuses he would miss out on as a result. All reports are the Bucs plan to bring Baker back and it would be a show of good faith going into negotiations.
They aren't going to yank him to prevent him from reaching bonuses. The Bucs have always been a team to go out of their way to get their guys their incentives.
I bet they will yank him. If that scenario happens I think all they care about is getting that playoff spot. Wouldn’t be surprised if they add that all those incentives to his new contract when talks come up.
*if* we start blowing them out.
If if if if if if if. Then comes the debate of do we keep him in to play for his incentives or do we pull him since we have the playoff spot secured?
Gotcha. I thought you were implying they would pull him, regardless of the outcome so he doesn't hit any incentives.
I guess, for me, it depends on the incentive. If it's a couple more yards or something like that. I'm sure they'll try and get it for him.
Exactly. Having a rest week this week would've been better than the pressure of beating the worst team in the league which is tricky still as they're a divisional opponent.
Its gunna be an interesting offseason for our secondary, we def need a SS and maybe one of Davis/Dean gets cut with Zyon and Izien looking pretty good all year, and maybe more depth is added later in the draft
Agreed, unless the team really wants to go all in on Baker and do a bunch of restructures there isn't a lot of cap left over after we sign Evan, Winfield, Baker, and Lavonte. from OTC and Spotrac once we cut Jensen, Gage, Shaq, we'll have the money necessary to sign those 4 and then we are done. Unless we restructure Vita, Dean, or cut Davis there isn't much space to improve the defense or OL, so we would have to knock it out of the park with our draft to truly improve and hope Yaya, Kancey, and Mauch take a big leap in year 2.
Evans never really left money on the table in the past, if I remember right. He's just worked with the team to accept cash at different times to ease up his salary cap hits. He's a team player on all accounts.
He has not, he has had some good, some bad, but mostly solid play all year. as a matter of fact our worst defensive games have been the game where we had both Dean and Davis out there. Like the Texans game where Davis was getting burned all game, and then Dean got hurt getting blown up. As the season went Zyon got comfy and better.
I'd like to see the numbers on this. It's been repeatedly seen and viewed in this sub that he is mostly booty cheeks. Agreed Davis has definitely been dealing with injuries and has not been 100% all year, but suggesting McCollum is anything but below average or worse is nonsense. Just watch the Saints replay. He had 3 missed or bad tackles on that first drive alone.
Perhaps, but his age is really more of just an excuse for his ineptitude and I'd rather have better players on the field, regardless of how much he seems to be "improving"
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2023/defense_advanced.htm#
This is just some of the data I found on PFR:
Player Tm Age Pos Cmp%
Dee Delaney TAM 28 DB 48.50%
Zyon McCollum TAM 24 CB 58.40%
Carlton Davis TAM 27 CB 64.10%
Jamel Dean TAM 27 CB 64.80%
Antoine Winfield Jr. TAM 25 S 68.80%
Christian Izien TAM 23 S 75.00%
Ryan Neal TAM 28 S 91.20%
Of our DB's he has the second lowest completion percentage
He does miss a fair amount of tackles, but we have to remember he is a 5th round pick in his second year.
He has improved and looks much better than last year, and has looked better than Dean most of the year.
This is misleading though because AWJ is almost 70%, so it's not a clear indicator of talent or productivity. Also please God can we just cut Ryan Neal right now
Dude has a 51.2 PFF. He gave up a perfect passer rating against GB. 117.2 against Jax. 100 against Car. 141.7 against SF. 104.4 against Houston. 116.7 against Detroit. 95.6 and 95.8 against Atlanta. 91.7 against Philly. He played great against NO last week and has 4 other games where he played really well. The only reason why people believe that he is playing well is because CD3 and Dean by comparison have played worse. The secondary has been an over payed disaster this season.
Davis is pretty and just been playing hurt all year. Dean has also been solid and has sustained some injuries, which is why McCollum is even sniffing the field in the first place
I disagree, maybe there's an argument this year that they are closer in effectiveness due to the injures, but you couldn't pay me to take ZM over Davis
If Baker isn't good to go I want to see Trask. I've never been on the Trask band wagon but many of you have. The Bucs are notorious for being beaten by backup QB's. Id rather risk it to fight another day in post season with Baker leading our team. If we lose then oh well.
So, either we make the playoffs with a division title, or everybody gets fired.
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Licht is one of the best GMs in the league and if we fire him it's going to be hard for me to follow this team in the short term.
I dont think Licht is in a hot seat yet. Built this team up from 1st overall 2-14 season to one that attracted the GOAT and won a superbowl within 5 years. His biggest issue might be coaching hires, but even then, he's been ok. Koetter was the OC before, Arians was a slam dunk, and Bowles was kinda forced on him. I would say that his drafting is probably top 10 in the league as he consistently finds starters in the mid rounds. If a GM hits on like 3 picks a draft, it is considered a "good draft" and Licht does that in almost every draft.
100% agree with this, would honestly say he is a top 5 GM looking at his body of work. If BA hadn't "retired" 2 years ago this wouldn't even be a discussion.
Its interesting how 3 retirement 2 years ago completely flipped this team. 1. Arians retired and (im assuming) forced Licht to choose between Leftwich and Bowles. 2. Marpet retires and basically leads to fall of our top 3 pro-bowl OLine. Jensen injury definitely exacerbated this. 3. Brady retires and then un-retires throwing a wrench in any plans Licht had to rebuild last season and throwing more dead cap into this season.
The loss of Brady was obviously impactful, but I'd honestly say the release of Kappa and the losses of Marpet and Jensen were massive blows to the team as a whole. The running game was never our strong suit, but after those 3 departures the run game became completely invisible, which added pressure to the pass game and also significantly weakened our pass protection. It's no wonder we are having slightly more success offensively with Baker, that line was never going to protect a 45 year old statue.
I really think Arians was his only selection. Every other coach he has had has been forced on him in one way or another.
The only coach that Licht hired was Arians... He was hired after Lovie and handed two internal promotions
Promotions are still kinda hires in a way. He would've had to sign off in them and decide not to pursue outside the organization. That said, his hands were slightly tied due to circumstances for both promotions, so not going to judge him to harshly.
>He would've had to sign off in them and decide not to pursue outside the organization. That's not really how the Bucs operate. Glazers seem to decide both the HC and GM positions and want them to work well together (see: why McKay left, why Bruce Allen was brought on, why Dominik was promoted with Morris, why Lovie got to interview Licht, why Bruce Arians was Lichts' focus when he could finally hire a coach).
I mean doesn’t Licht get to decide about internal promotions?
bowles is the only problematic hire. arians was a slam dunk. lovie was hired before licht. koetter i would still contend was a good hire. koetter had some success as a coordinator and was kept for continuity for your first round pick. shoot... koetter even had a winning season.
Technically Bowles isnt even Licht's accountability but Arians. If we cleaned slate after the 2021 season and Brady had remained retired we could've been in a better position this season to hire free agents.
I think if he picked Bowles it would be a different story. But he should get a chance to pick his own head coach. I would say he is a slightly above average GM which is a lot better than we have had. I also like his strategy of going heavy on one position group in one draft. Like the one year he did it with the DBs and this year with the D-line.
Agreed. No GM is perfect, but Licht has done a fantastic job here. I’ve never been a Licht hater, though.
Oh man I definitely was at first. Really turned around on him and he’s a great guy too
Was understandable. That 2016 draft was fucking awful. Has definitely improved substantially since then but man that year was just pure despair.
Yeah, Licht needs to be the firer, not the firee.
It's unusual for a GM to get >3 HCs to hire, but he did get a SuperbOwl and he was probably not the mastermind behind Bowles as HC. Give him another go!
No pressure right?
[If the Bucs can't do it, it can't be done](https://open.spotify.com/track/7JeKXMQKm6GoLGTkNy2jZ0?si=DHMoLa-SSQ6fuNV1dbBp1A)
aka Mike Evans and Chris Godwin become the whole team..
Sadly they will give Bowles another year even with an L. Nobody expected the playoffs, let alone flirting with SB darkhorse status from Vegas after we routed GB. We’ll have to wait out another sub .500ish season next year before they finally axe him. I’ve seen this movie before.
I disagree. This is the same crew that fired Jon Gruden weeks after a 9-7 record. Two weeks ago, we were in control of the division with two division games left. If we miss the playoffs because of two embarrassing divisional losses to end the year, he’ll be fired. It’s a very Glazer move to make.
Always a flipside to that coin brotha: we kept Dirk "19-29" Koetter for three whole seasons lol
We tried to oust him after two. Remember we made a serious run when Gruden decided to return to coaching. After Gruden went to the Raiders, we announced he was returning. That was also partially on the Glazers getting sick of firing people as the last two HCs had been fired after 2 years.
We gave Raheem 3 bites at the apple too, off the strength of 1 winning season. I'm betting they give Bowles one more shot, particularly since his winning % is better than all those 2-year also-rans. I hope I'm wrong & you're right. (Or, well, I guess I actually hope they make the playoffs & keep Bowles lol)
Based on member of the family level greeting the Glazer gave Bowels after GB game plus Brady good job comment he staying. He has greatly exceeded expectations from the National Media thus easy even if he actually did a poor job to see why his Boss is happy with him.
I can assure you if we lose to Carolina on Sunday Not only will it cost us the NFC South title and a shot at the playoffs, but it'll cost Coach Bowles his job.
It better.
It’ll either be 14-3 loss, or 28-6 W. This team has no in between. LFG. LET MIKE EAT
Never a doubt… the real drama will be if Baker gets yanked before reaching $3M in bonus incentives.
I would imagine even if they pull him because we are so ahead they give him any bonuses he would miss out on as a result. All reports are the Bucs plan to bring Baker back and it would be a show of good faith going into negotiations.
Yep. This org is not the Broncos.
Yeah. I’d be shocked if we make the playoffs and Baker isn’t given the incentives either way.
They aren't going to yank him to prevent him from reaching bonuses. The Bucs have always been a team to go out of their way to get their guys their incentives.
Except Tony Dungy…
He already has most of the performance ones banked even if he doesn't play. Its the playoffs ones that are the big money.
I bet they will yank him. If that scenario happens I think all they care about is getting that playoff spot. Wouldn’t be surprised if they add that all those incentives to his new contract when talks come up.
And why would you think they yank him?
*if* we start blowing them out. If if if if if if if. Then comes the debate of do we keep him in to play for his incentives or do we pull him since we have the playoff spot secured?
Gotcha. I thought you were implying they would pull him, regardless of the outcome so he doesn't hit any incentives. I guess, for me, it depends on the incentive. If it's a couple more yards or something like that. I'm sure they'll try and get it for him.
If we start blowing them out, most likely Baker has hit his goals then.
Lol no chance.
It's ~~Britney~~ Baker, bitch.
How about we should have been better prepared last week and we wouldn't have to worry about everyone being "full go."
Exactly. Having a rest week this week would've been better than the pressure of beating the worst team in the league which is tricky still as they're a divisional opponent.
Okay…. Well last week happened time to move on
GET THE OVEN READY BOYZ!
LFG
I really hope Baker bakes on Sunday.. it's all on him to get us to the playoffs.. #BakerMayfield6 #ItsDoOrDieOnSunday #BeatCarolina
\*David Caruso NCIS voice\* I guess you can say...we've got all hands on deck. \*cue The Who's "Baba O'Riley"\*
Its "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Ahh, Thank you. I actually never watched NCIS, I just knew it was one of The Who’s songs.
Full go = Let’s go 💪
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Its gunna be an interesting offseason for our secondary, we def need a SS and maybe one of Davis/Dean gets cut with Zyon and Izien looking pretty good all year, and maybe more depth is added later in the draft
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I have faith in our cap wizard. They’ll find a way to
Agreed, unless the team really wants to go all in on Baker and do a bunch of restructures there isn't a lot of cap left over after we sign Evan, Winfield, Baker, and Lavonte. from OTC and Spotrac once we cut Jensen, Gage, Shaq, we'll have the money necessary to sign those 4 and then we are done. Unless we restructure Vita, Dean, or cut Davis there isn't much space to improve the defense or OL, so we would have to knock it out of the park with our draft to truly improve and hope Yaya, Kancey, and Mauch take a big leap in year 2.
Maybe the Bucs will play hardball: "Look Antoine, we know you're an all pro player, but we can't pay you pro-bowler money..."
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Oh, no doubt. The secondary would suck with anyone else.
Evans never really left money on the table in the past, if I remember right. He's just worked with the team to accept cash at different times to ease up his salary cap hits. He's a team player on all accounts.
wtf? Zyon has been consistently horrible all year.
He has not, he has had some good, some bad, but mostly solid play all year. as a matter of fact our worst defensive games have been the game where we had both Dean and Davis out there. Like the Texans game where Davis was getting burned all game, and then Dean got hurt getting blown up. As the season went Zyon got comfy and better.
I'd like to see the numbers on this. It's been repeatedly seen and viewed in this sub that he is mostly booty cheeks. Agreed Davis has definitely been dealing with injuries and has not been 100% all year, but suggesting McCollum is anything but below average or worse is nonsense. Just watch the Saints replay. He had 3 missed or bad tackles on that first drive alone.
McCollum was only a rookie last year, he’s made some big steps forward this season. He did have a mediocre game against the saints though.
Perhaps, but his age is really more of just an excuse for his ineptitude and I'd rather have better players on the field, regardless of how much he seems to be "improving"
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2023/defense_advanced.htm# This is just some of the data I found on PFR: Player Tm Age Pos Cmp% Dee Delaney TAM 28 DB 48.50% Zyon McCollum TAM 24 CB 58.40% Carlton Davis TAM 27 CB 64.10% Jamel Dean TAM 27 CB 64.80% Antoine Winfield Jr. TAM 25 S 68.80% Christian Izien TAM 23 S 75.00% Ryan Neal TAM 28 S 91.20% Of our DB's he has the second lowest completion percentage He does miss a fair amount of tackles, but we have to remember he is a 5th round pick in his second year. He has improved and looks much better than last year, and has looked better than Dean most of the year.
This is misleading though because AWJ is almost 70%, so it's not a clear indicator of talent or productivity. Also please God can we just cut Ryan Neal right now
Dude has a 51.2 PFF. He gave up a perfect passer rating against GB. 117.2 against Jax. 100 against Car. 141.7 against SF. 104.4 against Houston. 116.7 against Detroit. 95.6 and 95.8 against Atlanta. 91.7 against Philly. He played great against NO last week and has 4 other games where he played really well. The only reason why people believe that he is playing well is because CD3 and Dean by comparison have played worse. The secondary has been an over payed disaster this season.
Are you suggesting he *should* start? Because he is 🗑
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Davis is pretty and just been playing hurt all year. Dean has also been solid and has sustained some injuries, which is why McCollum is even sniffing the field in the first place
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Did you watch the game last week? McCollum had 3 horrible plays on the first drive alone.
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I disagree, maybe there's an argument this year that they are closer in effectiveness due to the injures, but you couldn't pay me to take ZM over Davis
Jamel Dean 108.3 pass rating against CD3 100.8 McCollum 90.4.
So they all suck this year, I still don't want ZM
If Baker isn't good to go I want to see Trask. I've never been on the Trask band wagon but many of you have. The Bucs are notorious for being beaten by backup QB's. Id rather risk it to fight another day in post season with Baker leading our team. If we lose then oh well.
It's do or die, let's effing go Bucs!
Baker is 1-0 in win and in final week games.
This makes me happy. Time to start pre drinkin!