In a surprising move, the Tampa Bay Bucs fired Lovie Smith on Wednesday night after two seasons as head coach. Smith had been with the Buccaneers for two seasons, guiding the team to a 6-10 record with top draft pick and rookie quarterback Jameis Winston.
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After just two seasons, Smith’s run with the Bucs has now come to an end.
“After careful consideration, we informed Lovie that we have chose to make a change”, Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer said.
“This decision was hard on a variety of levels”, Glazer’s statement said.
Licht said that they’d “like to be fairly quick with this” but that they “wouldn’t sacrifice thoroughness” and he refused to set a deadline for a head coaching hire.
During his nine seasons with the Bears from 2004-2012, Smith won two divisions and made one Super Bowl appearance largely on the strength of his defense.
Having initially believed to be returning next season, Smith was not among the names on the hot seat as “Black Monday” approached earlier in the week.
Check back for the latest on this developing story.
But prior to Smith’s dismissal, several other teams with head-coaching vacancies (most notably Miami) had expressed interest in Koetter. This situation reminds me a lot of the Oakland Raiders after they broke a 7-year losing record streak with Tom Cable as head coach.
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The reason the Bucs future looked bright is because they found their franchise quarterback in Jameis Winston, and the decision to dismiss Smith had everything to do with the fact that Koetter is more important than him for Winston’s development going forward. “It does take time, but I think while you’re building a good football team you can compete”. ESPN, via an unidentified source, reports the Bucs called Smith to tell him about his fate rather than talk to him in person. He took over for a 4-12 team and they went backwards. Licht also downplayed that, noting that a general manager always has a collaborative relationship with his head coach and they’d be willing to adjust for certain head coaching candidates.
