Raheem Morris hired as Tampa Bay Bucs head coach

In announcing the firing of Head Coach Jon Gruden and General Manager Bruce Allen on Friday, Tampa Bay Bucs co-chairman Joel Glazer declined to address any possible successors but gave the following assurance:

"In our mind, there's a plan of where we want to go. We've thought it through very carefully. It will become apparent as we move along."

What he meant to say was "don’t run into the new coach and GM on the way out the door". On Saturday, Glazer introduced Raheem Morris as the Bucs’ new head coach and Mark Dominik as the team’s new General Manager. The 32 year old Morris becomes the youngest active NFL head coach and brings no previous head coaching experience to the table. Nevertheless, the Bucs new head coach dismissed suggestions that hiring such an unproven commodity was a "risk":

"The Glazers took a great risk trading away draft picks to hire Jon Gruden. Risk is involved in everything. We went out and won a Super Bowl that year, and I'm very proud of it. The Glazers are not afraid of risk, obviously. And, neither am I."

Morris received a text message from Gruden immediately before his hiring was publically announced:

"He told me to take this thing and run with it. That's what I planned on doing. That's what I want to do."

Joel Glazer suggested that Morris’ youth was an asset rather than a liability:

"He's a leader, commands the respect of the team ... and his peers. Raheem can relate to today's NFL player. The game has changed a lot. It's always changing. ... If you don't adapt to those changes, you can't compete."

Glazer continued to emphasize the youth of his new hires:

"Both of these men have Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their DNA. ... They're youthful and energetic, and both rode a clear and steady path from the bottom to the top."

Running back Earnest Graham had praise for his new field general:

"He's one of the more young and dynamic coaches in the league. He's a guy that everyone in the locker room has looked up to for a long time for the way he knows this game, and for the way he approaches this game."

New GM Dominick is only 37 years old, but has been with the Bucs in some capacity since 1995. Morris suggested that the two men already have a solid working relationship that will facilitate the rapport necessary between a coach and GM:

"We've been doing this for a long time. We just didn't know it," Morris said. "We're going to make the decisions together. We, we, we. That's how we do it."