Can it be just 14 months ago that we were reveling in the Jon Gruden mystique and retracting our harshest Glazer critiques?
Sure, a disappointing season ensued, but stuff like that happens in the National Football League. That’s why NFL also stands for “Not For Long.” Injuries and parity scenarios are co-conspirators.
But the John Lynch debacle exhumed all the old Glazer rancor. We weren’t so much reminded that professional football is a calculated, unsentimental business, but that the Glazer operation is truly classless. They and their main minion, General Manager Bruce Allen, are to public relations what Elmer Fudd is to elocution.
And it hardly helps that the Bucs’ Gruden-inspired, free-agent plunge is looking increasingly like a rent-a-player philosophy that ignores the future — as well as rap sheets.
Then there’s the timing of the announcement of the Bucs’ new training facility and headquarters on the site of the old Tampa Bay Center mall just east of the RayJay. It will be state-of-the-art, encompass 145,000 square feet and cost $30 million.
Make that $18 million to the Bucs. The Community Investment Tax will pick up the rest.
Moreover, the invitee list to the well-hyped unveiling of the design omitted any government officials. Not even the Tampa Sports Authority, whose responsibility — and burden –it is to oversee taxpayer money for the Taj Glazer.