Bucs' Morris still growing as head coach

To the head coach, the winning head coach, Coach l'Orange, Sunday night wasn't all that different than the seven Sunday nights that preceded it. OK, one thing was different.

"There just wasn't a knot in my stomach," Raheem Morris said.

Also, the visitors to his house didn't look miserable. And there were dozens of text messages congratulating the rookie for his first NFL win, like one from Derrick Brooks. Warren Sapp phoned. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin checked in. Morris began texting people at 4 in the morning Monday.

"Some of them were good friends from home, some were good friends from college," Morris said. "Mom and Dad were here, so they were next to me."

The first one always matters - this one even a little more.

Yes, the Bucs are 1-7. Who knows, maybe they'll will work themselves into a win-crazy fever - and finish 4-12. But this team, this franchise - this coach - desperately needed a win, one win.

Losing threatened to become a crushing weight.

"It was getting to the point where you can't help but start to talk about that 0-and-something," Bucs linebacker Barrett Ruud said. "Winning Sunday wasn't so much excitement. It was more like, 'Finally.'"

Finally, there will be no more 0-16 talk. You have to start somewhere. Think Raheem Morris didn't need this? Monday morning came and, on the wings of a new young quarterback, it was a new story.

"You started to see the team become a team ..." Morris said.

Later, he said, "Today nobody is talking about pressure, about who's getting the ball, about who's a bust, who's got to go."

Morris smiled.

"You learn from adversity, you learn how to deal with it, learn how to be a man about it."

He thought about those seven losses.

"Losing doesn't build character, it reveals character."

He flashed another winning grin.

"But everything else about losing sucks."

If the man deserves criticism for the crazed start to his head coaching tenure (he's on his second offensive coordinator and third quarterback - even his third kicker) then he deserves some credit for hanging in there. His young team grew a little Sunday. Maybe, just maybe, its coach has grown, too.

"I learn something new every day," Morris said. "I write something down differently every day, what I do, how I do it, how I plan. I'm having fun with it. It's a great job. This job is built for men who are ready to deal with pressure and I think I'm ready to do that. I've done it all my life. That's who I am."

There is a learning curve, and maybe Morris is beginning to climb it. Maybe it's made up of little things - like dispensing with the rap music during stretching during practices, or instituting a game day dress code after a few of his players missed curfew. Little things that maybe make this young team pay more attention - and make Coach Rah more of a Coach Morris.

"Make them come to the game and look the right way," Morris said. "Make them look like winners. Maybe (Sunday) the dress code changed everything."

OK, maybe it's grasping at straws. Dress codes? Look, you can wear wedding dresses, but the key is winning.

That said, there's a mountain of work left for the head coach. He's still all over the road. And there is still a perception that he has his favorites in the locker room, which doesn't sit well with everyone inside it.

But Sunday was large. Now, 0-16 is off the table. Who knows what would have happened to this team, to Morris, if the losing went on, even one week more.

The best thing that could have happened just happened. The Bucs won and the Bucs quarterback, hand-picked by Morris, looked like a leader. So did Morris on fourth-and-go for it. So 0-16 is gone.

So is that knot in the stomach, at least on Monday.

You have to start somewhere. Maybe this head coach just did.