This season fans of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers might want to have a media guide handy when watching the game on Sunday afternoon. 

Many of the players of years past are gone, such as legendary linebacker Derrick Brooks, quarterback Jeff Garcia, and running back Warrick Dunn.  But the biggest change for the Bucs is with the guys wearing collared shirts and khakis.

The Bucs fired Jon Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen in January, and with that came a different coaching staff, from the new head coach and a new offensive and defensive coordinator.  

Raheem Morris, Jim Bates and Jeff Jagodzinski might not be familiar faces to some Bucs fans, but they’ll be well known before the season starts in September.

Morris was named the eighth Bucs coach in team history on January 17 of this year.  Before being named head coach, Morris spent the last two seasons as the Bucs’ defensive backs coach, helping shape of the best defensive backfields in the NFL.

He got his start as graduate assistant at Hofstra, where he was a player for four years.  He moved on as the defensive backs coach at Cornell in 1999, and he spent a season with the Red. He went back to his alma mater as the defensive backs coach for two seasons, before taking a position as a defensive intern with the New York Jets in 2001. 

The Bucs hired Morris for the first time as a defensive quality control coach in 2002.  For the following three seasons, he was an assistant on defense and with the defensive backs. 

He parlayed the team’s defensive success to a defensive coordinator job at Kansas State University in 2006.

In his one season in Manhattan, the Wildcats defense saw vast improvement in many statistical categories, including total defense, scoring defense and pass defense.  He had seven of his defensive players receive post-season recognition, including two named to the All-Big 12 first team selections.

Morris was lured back by the Bucs in 2007 as the defensive backs coach. The team finished ranked No. 1 in pass defense in his first season back with the team. 

In 2008, the team finished fourth against the pass, marking the fifth time with Morris on staff that a Bucs defense finished in the top-5 in pass defense. 

He takes over for Gruden, who won a Super Bowl and a couple of division titles during his tenure in Tampa. 

Morris has seven years of coaching experience in the NFL, all with the Buccaneers, and the team and its fans are hoping that experience makes for a seamless transition to an NFL head coach. 

To help Morris’ transition be easier, the team hired Jim Bates, longtime defensive specialist, to run the teams defense. Bates has 17 years of NFL coaching experience, and eight of those years have come as the head of the defense, most recently serving at the assistant head coach/defense of the Denver Broncos in 2007.  

He also served as the interim head coach for the Miami Dolphins for the last seven games of the 2004 season.

Bates has led defenses that have finished among the NFL’s Top 10 in yards allowed in six of his eight seasons. During his 16 years overall as a coach, 12 players have earned a total of 23 Pro Bowl trips, making him one of the more successful coaches in the NFL.

He made his biggest mark while serving as the Dolphins defensive coordinator from 2000-2004. 

In those five seasons, eight different players earned 19 Pro Bowl appearances, highlighted by defensive end Jason Taylor, who led the NFL in sacks during that span while making three Pro Bowls, and linebacker Zach Thomas, who made four consecutive Pro Bowls.

With the Dolphins, Bates’ defense finished that five-year span ranking fifth in the NFL in yards allowed per game (294.8) and sixth in takeaways (160). 

Prior to his stint with the Dolphins, Bates worked for the Dallas Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons and Cleveland Browns, and he spent years on the sidelines at Texas Tech, Florida, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kansas State, Villanova, and Southern Miss.

Despite all his success, Bates will have a tough act to follow in Tampa, with Monte Kiffin known around here as one of the greatest defensive minds in NFL history. 

The hiring of Jagodzinski as offensive coordinator was something of a surprise.  In fact, if he had his way, he would’ve been named the head coach of the Jets.  But as it turns out, Jagodzinski was fired as head coach at Boston College because he interviewed for the Jets job, so landing in Tampa was not a bad fallback.

While at BC, the Eagles went 20-8, and won the ACC’s Atlantic Division in both seasons, advancing them to the conference championship game.  In his first season at BC, Jagodzinski mentored quarterback Matt Ryan, who won the ACC Player of the Year award and ended up becoming the 2008 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year. 

Before arriving in Boston, Jagodzinski served as the offensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers in 2006.  That team featured Brett Favre, Ahman Green (over 1,000 rushing yards) and Donald Driver (over 1,000 receiving yards).  Prior to his season in Green Bay, Jagodzinski spent two years on staff with the Atlanta Falcons. 

His NFL coaching career began in 1999, and he spent five seasons as the tight ends coach in Green Bay, helping shape the career of three-time Pro Bowler Bubba Franks.

Jagodzinski was a running back at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and then spent his first season as a coach at his alma mater as the head of the running backs.  He bounced around from Northern Illinois, Louisiana State, East Carolina, and Boston College before starting his NFL coaching career in Green Bay.

The Bucs hired Jagodzinski with the hopes that he could take a young offense, with inexperience at the quarterback position, and turn them into a productive unit.  Only time will tell if Jagodzinski has that power in Tampa Bay.

Morris, Bates and Jagodzinski. The three men charged, along with new general manager Mark Dominick, with reshaping the new image of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Fans are curious as to how this image will look on Sundays. 

Check back in January, as the picture will be a lot clearer by then.