Commentary | Tampa Bay Buccaneers' owners need to look into the mirror

TAMPA

They are firing the wrong people over at One Buc Place.

It's a reason the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have become the Cleveland Browns South.

Now you can argue the Glazer family, which owns the Bucs, was right in firing head coach Lovie Smith on Wednesday, or you could go the other way as many who have coached or played in the NFL are doing.

The Bucs have had three head coaches in the last five years, and the new head coach will be the fourth in the last six seasons.

Here is what should've happened: Bryan should've fired Edward, who should've fired Joel, who should've resigned. The Glazer brothers should've done that out of respect to their late father Malcolm, the person responsible for most of the success this bewildered franchise has realized.

This discombobulated band of brothers should step aside and get a real football mind in there to serve the president of football operations with full powers.

They have no patience, run their franchise in a reactionary manner, and worst of all, just don't know football.

The Glazers fired the two best coaches in franchise history in Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden and replaced them with Raheem Morris and Greg Schiano, two men that had no qualifications to be an NFL head coach.

There are some who are smiling that Lovie got the ax while drumming up statistics to back their argument.

We keep hearing Lovie was 8-24 in two years. Ron Rivera wasn't much better in his first three years at Carolina, and look at the Panthers now.

As long as the Glazers run this franchise, mayhem will rule.

The Lovie detractors are saying Bucs offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter is the answer.

They talk how Koetter is the reason Bucs quarterback Jameis Winston had a successful season, forgetting the rookie was pretty good before he ever signed an NFL contract.

It may turn out that the Miami Dolphins reported interest in Koetter led to Lovie's firing because it threw the Glazers into a panic mode, fearing they would lose him.

The speculation makes sense, otherwise the Glazers would've fired Lovie on Monday and not allowed him to have his season-ending press conference and do his Bucs radio show this week.

A lot was made of Winston becoming only the third rookie to throw for more than 4,000 yards, and Koetter was given most of the credit. Now, he could very well become an elite quarterback, but rule changes have caused passing numbers to skyrocket all over the league.

There were 12 quarterbacks who threw for 4,000 yards this past season, the most in NFL history. On the flip side, only seven players rushed for at least 1,000 yards, the fewest in any season since 1991. The Bucs' Doug Martin was second, and you might give that credit to Koetter, though Lovie emphasizes the run game.

For the sixth straight season the league set a record in passing rating (88.4 percent) and in completion passing percentage (63). Winston finished with a 58.3 percent completion mark and a quarterback rating of 84.2.

What Lovie did for Winston cannot be evaluated by statistics. He had no off-the-field problems and shed the bad-boy image he had at Florida State.

It would be best to exercise caution before proclaiming Koetter the fixer-upper. In losing four straight games to end the season, the Bucs' offense sputtered, and in his final year as offensive coordinator at Atlanta, Koetter's success with quarterback Matt Ryan took a tumble.

Now general manager Jason Licht is wearing the target on his back that used to belong to Lovie and the others who preceded him.

The Glazers tossed Licht in front of the media on Thursday in a damage-control maneuver. Though clearly uncomfortable, he did his best in promoting the Bucs head coaching job as attractive and telling everyone the Bucs ownership is committed to winning.

What he should've said is that they just don't know how to go about it.

Alan Dell, Herald sports writer, can be reached at 941-745-7056. Follow him on Twitter at @ADellSports.

This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Commentary | Tampa Bay Buccaneers' owners need to look into the mirror ."