TAMPA - Jon Gruden believes the Bucs need to reload, not rebuild. Now he is just waiting for the organization to hire a general manager who will help him decide how to do it.
Tampa Bay (7-9), after its first losing season since 1996, became the 11th team to miss the playoffs the season after winning the Super Bowl and the seventh to do so with a losing record.
"Well, it doesn't sit good. To be honest with you, it's humiliating," Gruden said. "It's hard to put into words the sickness that I feel for myself, our team and our fans. At the same time, we need to reload a little bit. I'm going to be realistic, in spite of who says what and who does what. We have to be realistic on what we need to do here and we need to be aggressive as heck in terms of getting it done. That's the approach we'll take. We're going to have sore feelings and sour stomachs here for a while. Everybody in the league finishes the year with sore feelings unless you win the Super Bowl. It's just the business we live in."
The first order of business will be to replace Rich McKay, who left with two weeks remaining in the season to become president/general manager of the Atlanta Falcons.
Tim Ruskell, Tampa Bay's director of player personnel, is a candidate for the position, according to Gruden. The coach may also want the team to consider Raiders pro personnel director Mike Lombardi, who worked with Gruden in Philadelphia and Oakland. And former Seahawks and Saints general manager Randy Mueller, who also is a candidate for that position with the Dolphins, is bound to be on the Bucs' short list. Ruskell also could be interviewed for the Dolphins job.
Gruden said the new general manager does not have to be someone with whom he is familiar.
"No, but philosophy is a big thing," Gruden said. "I heard a lot about philosophy around here, about how I don't like young players and I don't like to build through drafts. I heard a lot of hogwash, to be honest with you. We need to find (a general manager) who, philosophically, comes in here and has the same vision we do as a staff. ... We are not going to discriminate between sizes, ages or positions. We are going to get the best players we can get and we are going to coach them as hard as we can.
"We will try to handle (the hiring process) privately and try to go about this with as little attention as we can get. We are going to be under the radar, I think."
Gruden expects to meet with vice president Joel Glazer soon and is hopeful a GM can be in place next week so the Bucs can re-sign free agents, prepare for the draft and resolve some of the club's salary-cap issues.
"The team is going to change, yes," Gruden said. "The team has changed in the last year-and-a-half. In modern day football there is going to be change."
Receiver Keyshawn Johnson, deactivated for the final six games, will be released. And Warren Sapp likely has played his last game for the Bucs, though Gruden expressed an interest in re-signing the seven-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle.
"Once again, we'll get a general manager," Gruden said. "I know the Glazer family is working toward that and when that becomes finalized, we will be able to zoom in on the exact plan in terms of how we can get Warren Sapp re-signed. But to stand up here and make statements, make predictions that really can't be backed up without our general manager would be hard. I will say this: We have every intention of doing all we can to keep him as a Buccaneer."
But change won't be limited to players. Most of the offensive staff do not have contracts beyond the 2003 season. Coaches will report to work this morning before vacationing until Jan.12.
Special teams coach Richard Bisaccia, whose units finished at or near the bottom of the league in many categories, is almost certain to be in the cross hairs.
"We can't finish near the end or at the end in all of the statistical categories in terms of special teams," Gruden said. "We need to get better there. We need to get bigger, faster, stronger and we need to get more dynamic playmaking. And that's a primary goal of ours."
One candidate to join Gruden's staff would be Raiders coach Bill Callahan, who is expected to be fired within the next few days. Callahan, who succeeded Gruden in Oakland, reportedly cleaned out his office Friday before the team left for its final game in San Diego.
"I've not talked to Bill. I have just talked to him once during the season," Gruden said. "I don't even know what's going to happen there. You talk about a team that was ravaged by injuries. Great coach, okay, but I won't speculate on any changes on our staff. I will say this, he's a hell of a football coach and whatever happens to him will be for the better."
One avenue that will be more readily available to the Bucs is the draft. The world champions pick 15th overall.
"We have lost a lot of good players in the last couple of years. We need to have a good solid draft and bring in some quality young people. We might have to make some serious moves in free agency, as well," Gruden said.
"We do have some salary-cap issues. That's why it's important to get a general manager in here that has a tremendous vision in terms of how to handle the salary cap, that allows us to be as aggressive as any team in the world in tracking players here because this is one hell of a place to play."
Injuries, penalties, turnovers, special-teams blunders and defensive collapses conspired to force the Super Bowl champions to relinquish their crown.
"There will be some positions that without a question we need to make serious improvements in if we want to again return to the Super Bowl and win it," Gruden said.
There also were distractions, such as Johnson and the coach's public feud with McKay. But Gruden accepted the blame for the team breaking its string of four consecutive playoff appearances and vowed to make the Bucs contenders again.
"If you are a head coach in this league, you are going to be criticized, you are going to be scrutinized, you might as well enjoy it," Gruden said. "You do the best you can to please everyone, you do the best you can to win and that's the philosophy I live by. We'll get what we deserve in the end. And ultimately, a 7-9 record, in many ways, was self-inflicted. We had some injuries. We had some plays in critical stages of games that we did not make. And ultimately, that resulted in a 7-9 season.
"But this fist will stay rolled up and it will keep pounding and it will keep working. That's the best I can do and that's what I'm going to do."
