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With Greg Schiano's firing, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will now have to turn their attention to finding a new head coach and general manager. The rumors are already starting to fly, and two former Buccaneers employees are being linked to the Bucs.
From @mortreport: Bucs will give consideration to reaching back to past, bringing back a Rich McKay-Lovie Smith tag team.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 30, 2013
Lovie Smith would make a lot of sense. He spent five years helping Tony Dungy and Monte Kiffin build a dominant defense in the 1990s with Tampa Bay, and then had a lot of success as a coordinator in St. Louis and head coach in Chicago. Despite struggling to get an offense going every year, Smith managed to get to the Super Bowl only to be beaten by Peyton Manning and company in 2006.
Smith was fired after a 10-6 season in 2012 when the Bears failed to make the playoffs and spent last season out of football. He's generally seen as the top veteran NFL head coach available. One intriguing note: Smith had Rod Marinelli as his defensive coordinator over his final three seasons in Chicago. Marinelli is now in Dallas, but Monte Kiffin is expected to be fired, which could free up Marinelli as well.
Of course, the question with Smith is the same one we always ask of defensive head coaches: who will be his offensive coordinator?
As for Rich McKay, that seems significantly less likely. He left the Bucs after a conflict with Jon Gruden in 2003, join the Atlanta Falcons but struggled to build a talented roster and is now the president and CEO in Atlanta. He's taken on a large executive role and hasn't done much with regards to personnel in quite some time. It seems unlikely that he'd leave Atlanta, but it's certainly possible.
Regardless, we likely won't know much for at least a couple of weeks. When the Buccaneers hired Greg Schiano it took them a month to find him, and the search for Jon Gruden in 2002 seemed to take forever as well. While an expedited decision may be useful, that doesn't seem to be in the Glazers' repertoire.