I realize the whole "Black coach" and "ex-Buc" and "Will he choke?" headlines are getting old. But somehow I don't think posting a photo of Dungy and his family leaving his son's funeral is the angle to take. He's a man of great faith and he's overcome a lot, fine. But come on.... let the man celebrate this game without you proving that every silver lining has a cloud shoved in it.

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With the Senior Bowl just around the corner, the Bucs have finished hiring coaches to go into the game with a full staff. They did this during the past few days by hiring Larry Coyer to be the Defensive Line coach and Assistant Head Coach, pretty much filling the same role as Marinelli two years ago. Then they followed that up with hiring Bob Casullo as their Tight Ends coach.

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Pewter Report has the full scoop on why Middleton was let out of his contract to go to Alabama. It appears to be related to treatment for his wife. Go read it. So it appears that letting Middleton go was a family issue and not a performance issue, which I wasn't convinced of, but mentioned as a possibility considering the fact that the Bucs don't let coaches generally get out of their contracts.

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The Bucs lose another offensive coach, Ron Middleton, who is bolting to be with Saban and the Tide. He was a solid TE's coach, but I have a feeling that the Bucs encouraged him to seek other opportunities as, if I remember correctly, he was still under contract with the Bucs.

In any case, the changes continue. To be honest, I think that the only coach that is safe on the offense is the running backs coach, Art Valero, as he can also coach the Tight Ends. Middleton was a solid coach, but I think Gruden may have wanted to see better development of Smith.

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Pewter Report and Buccaneers.com are both reporting the promotion of Casey "Gus" Bradley to the position of Linebackers Coach from his Defensive Quality Control Coach position. Pewter Report has a lengthier story on Bradley's former positions. He's been a coach at every level of the defense in college, and was an LB coach before, so this should be a good move.

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Well, with the last game gone, and my attention on the Gators a__ whuppin' on the Buckeyes now fading, I thought I'd start the off-season blogging now that the changes are starting to happen. Now, I'm not going to blog about every FA pick-up right now, as they are mostly names of little notoriety, and unlikely to make any impact. What I am going to talk about is the coaching situation.

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