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When Dennis Hickey was hired as the Miami Dolphins' general manager, a lot of the commentary centered around the apparent fact that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers never even interviewed him, despite the fact that he was their director of player personnel. Here's what Hickey said, via Omar Kelly:
"When I interviewed for the [GM] job in Tampa for coach Lovie Smith...I'm a true believer in supporting those around me,"Dennis Hickey said
— Omar Kelly (@OmarKelly) January 28, 2014
I'm not sure how that tweet forms one coherent thought, but okay, that's what Omar Kelly put out there. That said, interesting that he interviewed for the Bucs' general manager job and that never leaked. More interesting: he lost that job to Jason Licht. This also suggests that the Bucs could have interviewed more in-house candidates than just Hickey, with Shelton Quarles and Eric Stokes immediately coming to mind as strong possibilities.
That said, hiring Hickey would have made very little sense for Tampa Bay. Hickey was Mark Dominik's right-hand man and nearly a co-general manager during Dominik's tenure. He led the drafts under both Bruce Allen and Mark Dominik (with decidedly negative overall results), and was nearly as responsible for Tampa Bay's personnel decisions as Dominik was. So firing Dominik only to hire Dominik 2.0 in Hickey would have been a ridiculous decision.
