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Five Good Things About the Lovie Smith hiring

1) Straight up, this hire has good karma to it. One of the underlying problems with the Bucs since the 2008 collapse has been this sense of bad luck, poor decision-making, and lousy timing. Mostly in terms of hiring two coaches in a row that were questionable moves even when they happened: Raheem Morris, promoted too quickly to a HC job when he didn't even have coordinator experience; and Greg Schiano, who had college head coaching experience but not a dominantly winning one.

Lovie Smith has ties to one of the better coaching performances the Bucs ever had, serving as an assistant coach to Tony Dungy. He followed that up with a decent job as Defensive Coordinator for the Rams and then a solid but not overwhelming job as Head Coach of the Bears, guiding them to a few playoff years and also a Super Bowl visit (albeit a loss to Dungy's Colts). Compared to the last two hires, Smith has NFL level experience out the wazoo.

2) Lovie Smith's reputation within the league is apparently popular enough that this would make the Bucs an intriguing team to join for any mid-to-high quality free agents hitting the 2014 market. ESPECIALLY defensive players who could fit in at needs for DE, CB, and S.

3) The Glazers are apparently getting the first guy on the list that they want. The past few coaching selections have been... well, haphazard, even the time they got Jon Gruden (that protracted job search nearly snagged Marvin Lewis but got nixed by the Glazers who then traded away three year's worth of top draft picks to get Gruden).

4) The Bucs didn't trade away anything to get him (that trade for Gruden weakened team development throughout the mid-2000s, so I've been wary of dealing away Firsts ever since)

5) We are getting a head coach with a reputation as a defensive-minded HC, but also someone who is coming in with the realization he's got to build up and improve the offense as much as configuring the solid defense he's inheriting from the 2013 lineup. A lot of this echoes Tony Dungy's career arc: where Dungy built up a defensive juggernaut with the Bucs but couldn't get the offense going, leading to his firing, and when Dungy got to Indy he made sure the offense was taken care of. Smith is inheriting a similar situation with just one caveat: he doesn't have Peyton Manning lined up, he's got Mike Glennon...

So, what do you think, sirs?

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