Why did Sam Wyche fare so poorly in Tampa?

[sheajets]

He was a respected head coach in Cincinnati with that coveted Paul Brown/Bill Walsh pedigree. Before that he was a QB's coach with the 49ers working with Montana. Had some ups and downs with Cinci but did get to a Super Bowl (and nearly won it).

I didn't pay too much attention to the Bucs back then. Everyone just pretty much knew they would win between 2-6 games and that was that. There seemed to be slight improvement by the end of year 4 (1995) the defense was respectable and they were 7-9. Still he went 23-41 with them and they just never seemed to get anywhere. Was it the ownership in too much disarray?

[Brian wolf]

Unlike the Bengals, Wyche couldnt build an offensive line in TB. He didnt have any playmakers as well and Testeverde was terrible, lucky to have his career revived by the Browns, who would become the Ravens. I feel Marchibroda turned around his career.

Ownership was always frugal, though certain players got paid. To be honest, I never felt Wyche or his players could handle the excessive Florida heat, something Shula handled quickly while building the Dolphins. The defense didnt have playmakers either with alot of busts from bad drafts. Unfortunately, by the time Wyche finally got some playmakers with Sapp, Nickerson, Brooks and Lynch, his time was done and Dungy would mold this unit into a great defense ...

[Cali_Eagle]

It's because he came from Cincinnati, not Cleveland. (NE Ohio native here.)

[Throwin_Samoan]

My sense is that it was because the Bucs were, pretty much from top to bottom, dysfunctional and a mess. He didn't have a number one pick in 1992 because they traded it to the Colts for Chris Chandler before Wyche got there (though, to be fair, the 1992 draft was not one for the ages).

Someone thought Eric Curry was worthy of the sixth pick overall in 1993, when they could have had Willie Roaf or Jerome Bettis or Michael Strahan. (Again, to be fair, they did get John Lynch in the third.)

The top pick in 1994 was Trent Dilfer in the Bucs' Neverending Search For The Guy. And even though they got two Hall of Famers in the 1995 draft, they benefitted Dungy and Gruden, as Wyche was already on thin ice and when they went 2-7 after a 5-2 start, well, that was that.

Sam was also slightly nuts by that point, as people who covered the team around that time will tell you. So, a combination of things. But outside of that Super Bowl year in Cincinnati, he was 49-62 with the Bengals and it's not like anyone clamored to have him run their team after 1995.

[Brian wolf]

Great call Throwin_Samoan ... Wyche could get unhinged and that record in Cincy is why I feel Esiason is talented but overrated. That Bengals team should have been in the postseason more.

It seemed like the decisions to get rid of Steve Young and screw up the Bo Jackson sweepstakes set the team back. Testeverde could have helped the situation but seemed skittish during those years, trying not to get hit, while throwing perfect spirals to both teams during games.

[conace21]

Unlike the Bengals, Wyche couldnt build an offensive line in TB. He didnt have any playmakers as well and Testeverde was terrible, lucky to have his career revived by the Browns, who would become the Ravens. I feel Marchibroda turned around his career.

Wyche only had Testaverde for his first season coaching the Bucaneers, and I think he had an average year. Craig Erickson took over and performed at about the same level in 1993. Erickson improved in 1994, especially with cutting down on the interceptions.

And then Trent Dilfer took over full time in 1995. 4 TD passes, 18 INT's. And Dilfer had 8 games against the NFC Central defenses, the same defenses that Erik Kramer, Warren Moon, Brett Favre, and Scott Mitchell were facing, and setting team passing records in the great 1995 passing explosion.

[Brian wolf]

Yeah, Erickson might have been Wyche's main project but without players making plays, his development was hindered and his career never got going. Not till Brad Johnson and Gruden before the offense could finally put it together, though the running game was good under Dungy.

[Throwin_Samoan]

It seemed like the decisions to get rid of Steve Young and screw up the Bo Jackson sweepstakes set the team back.

The Young decision was in the top five worst decisions in team history (and a byproduct of the worst one). This all goes back to what was, for the first 20 years of the team, was a recurring theme: an inability to accurately evaluate players. (Scouting is obviously an inexact science, as evidenced by the number of can't-miss guys who missed league-wide, but the Bucs were uniquely bad at it.)

Part of that goes back to McKay's hubris. He had Ron Wolf, who, hello, would go into the Hall of Fame later, and whether he was threatened by Wolf or Wolf was frustrated by Culverhouse's meddling is still an open question. But Wolf actually got some useful players out of a bad expansion draft, and helped built the team that won the NFC Central in 1979 and made the playoffs three times in four years before the bottom fell out. They were on a good trajectory.

Young would have been a nice to have (given he was just THERE in the draft of USFL players) as a backup and eventual successor to Williams (had they kept Williams). They certainly had a lot of post-Williams guys who didn't have the talent or show the flashes that Young did. But they got enamored with Vinny, thought he couldn't miss, and couldn't see that Young was operating with a terrible offense. Young would have been better, but whether the team would have been substantially better had they just kept him, we'll never know. I'll take the under.

As for Jackson, hoo, boy. They didn't violate any NCAA rules in flying him to that workout, but they did violate an (arcane) SEC rule, which rendered Bo ineligible in baseball. The thing is, THEY CHECKED and didn't ask the right questions. And Bo may or may not have eschewed football (for the moment) had they not, basically, cost him his baseball eligibility, but that sealed the deal. He felt betrayed and, with another option, told the Bucs to take a hike. Had he played in Tampa in 1986, they might not have had the first pick overall in 1987 (they wouldn't have had to have done much better in 1986) and it's tempting to think of a backfield with Steve Young and Bo Jackson in it.

[Bryan]

But they got enamored with Vinny, thought he couldn't miss,

I agree this was the sentiment at the time, that Vinny was a 'can't miss' prospect, but in retrospect that is kind of crazy. Testaverde's performance in the Fiesta Bowl was frightening. He basically cost his team the national title. Yet everyone simply brushed that off because Testaverde 'looked like' a #1 pick.

The Eric Curry thing was funny to me, because Bama had won the national title and had two good DEs in Curry and John Copeland, and the thought was that one guy was the stud and the other guy just benefitted from that. But in the end, both Curry and Copeland were total washouts.

In terms of Wyche faring poorly, he had terrible offensive skill position players. He really needed a James Brooks-type RB to make his offense work, and he was stuck with plodders like Reggie Cobb and Errict Rhett. The WRs were always terrible. I remember they gave a ton of money to Alvin Harper, and everyone thought that was a mistake, and everyone was right.

[Brian wolf]

Instead of going to the Jets, could Boomer Esiason had revived his career with Wyche in Tampa? He would have needed playmakers though. I doubt he could have motivated the players beyond their ability but they might have won a few more games each season ... Its not that Boomer was bad in NY, its just alot more pressure to succeed and that team didnt have playmakers either ...