By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

There is a lot of pressure that goes along with being the head coach of a professional sports team.

It’s not nearly as intense as the President of the United States type pressure, but it’s certainly more than reading the name of winner of the Miss USA competition. (I still love you on Family Feud, Steve).

With the increase of social media, as well as the incoming money from advertisers, the 3-5 years coaches were normally given to implement their system has dwindled. Nowadays it seems as if coaches are lucky to get any more than two years.

After letting Lovie Smith go following this past season, Tampa better hope that Dirk Koetter lasts more than that.

I was surprised when Smith was fired because you could see the potential in a lot of the Bucs younger players and Winston was starting to adjust to the faster game. Plus, you don’t bring in a coach like Lovie, with his coaching experience and reputation, for only two years.

It all started to come together when there were rumblings that Koetter was on the short list for a few coaching vacancies and the Tampa leadership didn’t want to lose him.

Koetter was making a huge impact on Winston and if he left there was a feeling that Jameis might lose a significant amount of the progression he had made if that were to happen. So, bye bye Lovie.

There are two things that rub me the wrong way about how all this went down. One, it’s a bad look when you’re so afraid that you’ll lose your offensive coordinator who has been there all of one year that you fire your head coach and promote the coordinator.

It makes sense if you’re looking to fire that head coach anyway, but that was not what was going on in Tampa, no matter what they say.

If Koetter doesn’t work out and they have to hire another coach during this rebuilding period what the hell kind of incentive is that to hire the best coordinators you can. I’d want someone who is just good enough to not screw me over and take whatever comes my way.

The best way I can describe the second reason is to use the Carolina Panthers as an example. When Ron Rivera first took over as head coach Rob Chudzinski was the offensive coordinator, and a damn good one too. After the first two years most Panthers fans would have loved to have seen the organization make the same move Tampa did- fire Rivera and promote “Chud” to head coach.

Instead, Carolina kept Rivera and let Chudzinski go to Cleveland where he lasted one year as head coach before being fired. Rivera, on the other hand, has been the NFL Coach of the Year twice in the past three years and is looking for a return trip to the Super Bowl.

At the time Rivera didn’t have nearly the caché that Smith had and assumed he was going to be fired after that second season anyway. Even though as Panthers fan I’m glad they didn’t make that move, it would have made more sense than what Tampa did.

Look, I’m not saying Lovie Smith was the greatest coach to ever walk the sidelines and from everything I seen and read Koetter sounds like a really good guy and a smart coach.

All I know is that when you do what Tampa did you better look to whatever deity it is that you pray to and hope it all works out. If not, well good luck on your next hire.