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Brooks Is Cut, And A Cold Business Just Got Chillier

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By JOE HENDERSON

jhenderson@tampatrib.com

Published: February 26, 2009

TAMPA - There is outrage in the town today, and everyone understands why.

Some people will never get over that the Buccaneers released Derrick Brooks, and still others will be determined to see conspiracies. They'll say the Glazers were being cheap, or that they are trying to sell the team by stripping it down.

Those people will see just about everything except a hard truth. This isn't 2002, the Bucs aren't Super Bowl contenders, and it is time to find out if some of the young, faceless players on their roster can play in an actual National Football League game. Maybe it's past time.

The roster needs an overhaul, and it would have been foolish to delay it because they were afraid the phone lines would light up with righteous anger. There is never a good way to release one of the best players who ever put on a uniform - any uniform - but the deed is done. Now what?

It's hard to get excited about the notion of Adam Hayward, Quincy Black or Geno Hayes - assuming he recovers from a late-season knee injury - trying to replace a legend. We also have absolutely no idea what those players will do when given a real chance to play.

We do know this was a pretty dreary football team by the end of last season. The defense fell apart down the stretch and has to be rebuilt. It couldn't be rebuilt around a 35-year-old with bad hamstrings, who comes out on passing downs - even if that man is an icon.

It's a cold business. A little colder than normal this morning.

Moves Had To Be Made

Cutting the player can never be confused with cutting the man.

Derrick Brooks and Warrick Dunn are all-world humans. Ike Hilliard had a quiet grace in the locker room.

But we also saw Brooks hobbled at the end of last season, and it was painful to watch sometimes. We saw Dunn unable to be the primary running back after Earnest Graham got hurt.

We saw Hilliard unable to get any separation on pass routes. Joey Galloway was basically a phantom last year anyway. Releasing linebacker Cato June in this purge was surprising, because he probably had the most left in the tank.

"As you know, I'm not a big fan of the 'rebuilding' word, but in a way we did today. It's the direction we want to head," General Manager Mark Dominik said. "It wasn't so much what Derrick Brooks and Cato June couldn't do, but it's the direction we want to head with the guys on the roster and those who are going to join us as we create the roster in the next few months."

If Dominik and new coach Raheem Morris were more than a little vague at a news briefing Wednesday, it's understandable. What could they really say?

Take emotion out of it for a second.

You don't release players who still have what Jon Gruden used to call "the juice." You especially don't release a player as treasured as Brooks unless someone - or a lot of someones - didn't like what they saw on tape.

The new regime won't come out and say that the just-departed players don't have the stuff any more. So they say what Dominik and Morris did, that it's time to let younger guys on the field.

They could lose a lot of games while this sorts out, but if they hadn't made these moves there would have been plenty of losses anyway.

Too Many Questions

This offseason has been about purging at One Buc. There is a new coach, a new GM, a new quarterback will emerge, and we see what happened Wednesday.

What matters most is what happens next.

The Bucs won't be able to spend all the money they have available for free agents, but they better spend a good chunk of it. Linebackers just got added to the shopping list, if they weren't there already. They need, in my opinion, an impact running back. The receivers, save for Antonio Bryant, are a train wreck that needs to be strongly addressed.

That's a lot of questions, perhaps too many to be addressed in one offseason. At least after several years of stopgap solutions, the Bucs are finally facing reality.

That may not make it any easier to watch them play in the fall, but they had a choice. Rebuild now, or rebuild later. Either way, it had to be done.

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