St. Pete Times: The Bruce Allen Era as GM of the Bucs

[Lanky Livingston]

The Bruce Allen era

Five great moves

• In 2004, Allen dealt disgruntled WR Keyshawn Johnson to Dallas for veteran Joey Galloway. Johnson had 12 touchdowns in two seasons in Dallas and retired a year later; Galloway has had 28 touchdowns in five seasons in Tampa Bay, with three 1,000-yard seasons.

• Allen saw something in WR Antonio Bryant, who was out of football in 2007. Bryant, left, had a breakout 2008 season, with 83 catches for 1,248 yards and seven touchdowns. Same for DE Greg White, who went from the Arena Football League to 13 sacks in the past two seasons.

• Allen leaves the Bucs in a far better salary cap situation than he did Oakland, in part because he has been able to cut ties with veteran players whose best days were behind them, something he didn't do with the Raiders.

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[Lanky Livingston]

Good news is he fixed the Bucs salary cap - I think this past year they were an astounding 40+ Mill under the cap, which is ridiculous.

Bad news is he signed a lot of "past their prime" free agents - Charlie Garner, Todd Steussie, Derrick Deese, etc. More of the same. Hopefully he realizes the need to go young here.

 

[Shiv]

Hopefully he's learned from his mistakes there and can improve. I think the thing that irks me the most about Cerrato was his inability to learn and improve.

 

[Boone]

I suspect one could convincingly critique almost any GM or NFL talent evaluators by looking solely at what are considered their 'busts'. They all have them. It's a matter of degree. Besides - I think a lot of folks are missing the primary point with the Cerrato departure and Allen's arrival. It's not about talent evaluation capabilities. It's about having a grown-up and professional in primary charge of the organization.

That's huge.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I suspect one could convincingly critique almost any GM or NFL talent evaluators by looking solely at what are considered their 'busts'. They all have them. It's a matter of degree. Besides - I think a lot of folks are missing the primary point with the Cerrato departure and Allen's arrival. It's not about talent evaluation capabilities. It's about having a grown-up and professional in primary charge of the organization.

That's huge.

True...Bobby Beathard drafted Ryan Leaf...

 

[Hog Fever]

Boone hit it right on the head. Allen may not be the guy to lead the team back to a new Super Bowl era, but that doesn't even matter at this point. We are doing things the right way for the first time under Snyder. I can't help but think this will pay dividends.

 

[Neophyte]

• Overall inefficiency. Of his 51 draft picks since 2004, only 23 were still with the Bucs at the end of the 2008 season. Of 33 unrestricted and restricted free agents signed under Allen, 17 weren't on the opening day roster in 2008.

They have this listed as a "not-so great move" but I can't help but wish the Skins were doing this well. At the end of 2008 19 of the 30 draft picks we had made since 2004 were still with the team (this counts the late Sean Taylor). While that looks pretty good, you have to factor in that 9 of those picks were from the 2008 draft class and only Chris Horton had shown us anything at that point.

So what I see here and take away is that perhaps the combination of our scouting department and Allen will yield much better results.

 

[China]

Overall inefficiency. Of his 51 draft picks since 2004, only 23 were still with the Bucs at the end of the 2008 season. Of 33 unrestricted and restricted free agents signed under Allen, 17 weren't on the opening day roster in 2008.

I don't find this particularly encouraging, although admittedly it would be nice to have some stats from other teams to compare it to.

 

[Neophyte]

Ok, so I don't have a lot of time but for grins I looked at the Pats over this same time (2004-2007). They seem to be the gold standard everyone holds up as far as building through the draft.

From 2004 to 2008 they had 41 draft picks. Of those 41 only 13 remain on the team today. I have to say I am stunned. Not only does that make Allen's record look a lot better, it makes the Skins record over the same time look better too.

 

[Bulldog]

Allen made several of those moves because Jon Gruden wanted to continue to work with veterans and didn't want to take a step back and re-load as head coach. At that point Gruden because he had won the Super Bowl had the Owner's ear and there was an imbalance in the power share between GM and Coach.

A similar situation started to happen here after Bobby Beathard left and Casserly became the GM. Joe Gibbs cast such a large shadow that Casserly had no choice in some cases but to trade picks or sign veterans because that's what Joe wanted to do.

Beathard in those first few years he was in Washington and ran the personnel department drafted and signed as UDFAs most of the 'core' players that stayed with Gibbs through his Super Bowl runs:

Joe Jacoby
Russ Grimm
Jeff Bostic
Art Monk
Darrell Green
Charles Mann
Dexter Manley

Later on the Redskins started signing and trading for more veteran players and the age of the team went up. The Redskins continued to win, but by the Super Bowl title in early 1992 the core players were all in their 30's and the cupboard was becoming bare.

The same thing happened in Denver with Shanahan. He bit off more than he could chew over the years as he became more involved on the personnel side. And the team suffered for it.

 

[sonofDC]

Eh...not particularly impressive; though those early 2000s Bucs and Pats teams were pretty decent. Still, I'll give him a chance. I won't expect a Lombardi next year. I'll give him a 3-4 year honeymoon period since the firing of Vinny Cerrato was such happy news.