The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have made it official now: Bill Sheridan is indeed their new defensive coordinator. According to Adam Caplan, he has signed a two-year agreement, which would make his room for error not all that great. And that's a good thing, because there's not a lot of reason to suspect he'll do well in Tampa.

As a linebackers coach he has had a decent but not spectacular career. The New York Giants defense was never renowned for its linebackers while Sheridan coached them, although he has certainly done a good job with the Miami Dolphins' linebackers the past two years. His one year as defensive coordinator for the New York Giants is very concerning, however. He took over that defense after Steve Spagnuolo left following the 2008 season.

In 2008, the New York Giants had the 8th ranked defense by Football Outsiders numbers. When Sheridan took over they plummeted to 21st, while they vaulted back up to third place as soon as he left. That's not exactly encouraging, and New York Giants fans certainly don't think he's very good at his job, to put it mildly.

There are two reasons to be a little more hopeful, though: Greg Schiano and Butch Davis are likely to have a big say on the defense. The second reason: the Bucs confirmed the hiring of Bryan Cox, who should at least bring a nasty attitude to that defense, if nothing else.

Stephen Holder posted an interesting thought on twitter today: he thinks Butch Davis' role positions him for a general manager job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Mark Dominik must be thrilled with that, although Dominik's recent contract extension makes a move like that somewhat unlikely.

Still, the constraints on Butch Davis' tasks related to his North Carolina contract as well as the way the Buccaneers have been presenting him do point to this fact. Mark Dominik's credibility took a hit with last year's four-win season, and the Glazers never committed to him as the final decision maker on personnel matters after the season. They danced around Dominik's job security, and both the Glazers and Dominik said that he would give up control if that's what it took to get the right coach.

And with Butch Davis' appointment as a special assistant to the head coach, it seems Dominik is losing some control. Davis will advise Schiano, but it seems he'll have some say on personnel matters too. When asked about it in his press conference, Davis noted that he would help Schiano on many issues "from personnel to combines, to the draft, all the different kinds of things." It's unclear who will make the final decisions, but it's clear that Davis will have some say.

The question is: how smart is it to hand a degree of personnel control to someone who has never worked in the front office, and whose last NFL experience came nearly a decade ago as a failed head coach? At this point Davis' responsibility seems relatively limited, but that could change quickly if the Glazers or Greg Schiano become disappointed in Mark Dominik.

When Raheem Morris became the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2009 he was inexperienced - his most recent experience came as a position coach. The Bucs tried to surround him with experience, hiring two former head coaches as coordinators. Those two head coaches were fired before the end of the year, and that once again left an inexperienced Morris alone at the head of a football team. Things didn't end well.

The Bucs are trying to do the same thing with Greg Schiano, but it feels different this time. Schiano has a decade of experience as a head coach (albeit at the college level) and presumably has a heavy hand in these hirings. More importantly perhaps, the Bucs have added experience to assist the coordinators, too. Butch Davis will be able to help the new defensive coordinator (by doing everything but coaching) as well as Schiano. Veteran offensive coach Jimmy Raye II will likely help Mike Sullivan install his offense. It seems very unlikely the season will end with two fired coordinators this time around.

Over the past few weeks the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have struggled to assemble a coaching staff. Some coaches have turned them down (like Dan Quinn of the University of Florida), but more often than not the Bucs have been denied the opportunity to interview assistant coaches. Teams can simply block any interviews with assistant coaches who are under contract for any position except head coach. Whether or not you would consider it a promotion isn't relevant: the NFL treats every non-head coaching position identically.

I've heard some speculation as to why this has happened: payback for the Bucs' denying other teams that opportunities for years on end, a result of the late hire of Greg Schiano, a lack of NFL connections among the current front office and coaching staff. More likely, though, this is just what teams do: they don't want to let their good coaches leave. Well, except for the New York Giants, that is.

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It seems the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have actually hired Butch Davis as their senior defensive assistant. The catch: the former coach won't actually coach. Instead, he'll have a consulting role according to the Tampa Bay Times. There's a very simple reason for that: if he were to coach, he'd lose about $1.8 million still owed him by the University of North Carolina.

So if he's not actually going to coach, what will Davis be doing? Advising Schiano, designing a defense and allowing others to implement that defense, or just sitting in an office all day drinking coffee, warning players to get out lest they inadvertently receive some coaching?

Given Davis' background as a defensive coordinator I'm sure he'll assist in the designing of the Bucs' defense, but he won't be the one coaching the players or running that defense on game day. This could easily turn into a scenario of too many cooks spoiling the broth. While Davis' advice will no doubt be valuable, ultimately the defensive coordinator has to be responsible for the defense. Will that happen with Davis under contract?

I looked at three reasons to like the hiring of Greg Schiano a couple of days ago, but there are also some reasons to dislike this hiring.

Can he bring in and work with good assistant coaches?

This is the number one question Greg Schiano has to answer now, and he hasn't done a good job so far. He wasn't helped by the timing of his hiring, which saw a lot of good assistant coaches already signed by other teams. Instead, the Bucs face a somewhat depleted coaching market - and they aren't exactly making a lot of progress right now.

That's the problem with hiring someone who has been a college coach for the past 14 years: he doesn't have an extensive NFL network to help him find the right assistant coaches. While I'm sure Schiano will eventually assemble a coaching staff that works for him, the quality of that coaching staff will be negatively impacted by the lack of choice the Bucs have.

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The Greg Schiano hire happened on Thursday, which is long enough ago to look at this with some objectivity. So, here are three things I like about the hiring of Greg Schiano as the Buccaneers' head coach.

He can turn around the culture in a building

The number one thing a new head coach has to do is create a culture within the team. What that culture is isn't as important as getting every player, coach, scout and employee to buy into it. To win games, the team must have direction and a certain culture - a way of doing things. And for that way to be successful everyone inside the building has to buy into that culture.

Greg Schiano did exactly that at Rutgers. He completely transformed that program, from a perennial loser to an annual contender in the Big East. While he never won that conference, he completely changed the culture for the Rutgers football team. Before he arrived, the stands were empty and the team struggled to win 2 games per year. When he left, Rutgers had expanded its stadium, was selling out games every year, had added luxury boxes, was recruiting talent and, most importantly, was consistently winning games.

Schiano is a builder, and that's what the Bucs need.

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Greg Schiano always tried to do the right thing at Rutgers. His pupils consistently did well academically. There were never any rumors of NCAA violations. And when Eric Legrand of Rutgers injured his spine and was paralyzed, Greg Schiano did the right thing and handled the situation perfectly. But will this translate to the NFL, and what does this mean for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' players?

'Character' was important to the team in previous years, too. Or at least, that's what they said. But was that just lip service? Judging by the results, it sure seems like it. While they occasionally attached public consequences to players' missteps - such as cutting Jerramy Stevens after a drug arrest - the Bucs also protected the players in the building, and added players with question marks on their resume.

When Aqib Talib was arrested this offseason, the Bucs could have made a strong statement by releasing or trading him. Instead they opted to stick with Talib - protecting him as a member of the family, and sending the message that he was too good to be released.

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