Building a Blueprint for Greg Schiano to Turn Horrid Bucs Team Around

On Thursday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced they have hired Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano to fill their head coaching vacancy.

Schiano is now charged with turning the 4-12 team into a contender in the NFC South, which is going to be quite the daunting task.

Under former head coach Raheem Morris, the Buccaneers were 3-13 in 2009 and then put up a surprising 10-6 2010 season that made it seem like their worst days were behind them.

However, they regressed in a big way in 2011. Their defense ranked dead last in points allowed and 30th in yards allowed, they put up just 5,108 yards of total offense and the team as a whole lacked discipline.

Some of that has to do with the team being made up of relatively young players, but a lot of it was caused by a lack of leadership in the coaching staff. That should all change with the addition of Schiano, who has built a reputation of being a disciplinarian.

Structure is just what the aimless Buccaneers locker room desperately needs, and it will be necessary for every player on the team to buy into Schiano's style as quickly as possible if things are going to turn around in 2012.

Schiano will need to address that woeful defense, keeping the players who fit and cutting those who don't. He will have to draft smartly based on greatest need rather than best player available and build depth at practically every defensive position.

Free agency should help with this effort as well, but it's not likely he will get every piece he wants in place in a single offseason. Working to improve the players currently on the defensive roster should be a high priority until he can make more moves in the future.

The offense's improvements will largely depend on who Schiano hires as offensive coordinator. Schiano has a defensive background and will likely need help from a veteran coordinator when it comes to sorting out the mess that is the Buccaneers offense.

He will need to determine if quarterback Josh Freeman truly is the right fit at starter. If the team chooses to keep backup Josh Johnson around, Freeman could find himself in competition to retain his starting job.

There's also the possibility, however remote, that the Buccaneers choose to target a quarterback in the draft. With the fifth-overall pick in the 2012, they could ostensibly be in play to nab Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III.

Should they choose to do that, then they'll likely find themselves in a better position, from an offensive standpoint, than the one they were in last season. But that's not all they need to do.

The Buccaneers have one of the most talented running backs in the league on their roster, LeGarrette Blount, but for some inexplicable reason, he had only 184 carries in 2011. Some of that has to do with the fact that Tampa found themselves playing from behind quite often, forcing them to abandon the run.

However, Blount's skills should not be squandered in such a manner. Schiano and his offensive coordinator need to commit to making Blount heavily involved in the offense, and depending who the starting quarterback is, perhaps the centerpiece of the entire operation.

In other words, the Buccaneers need a reworking of every aspect of their game. Schiano must be capable of doing so, or he wouldn't have ultimately ended up with the job, but it's going to take a concerted effort by everyone in the organization in order to make such major changes.

It's going to take more than this offseason for the Buccaneers to transform into a seriously good team, but if they can build a good foundation and have a more successful 2012 season, then they will be well on their way to putting the ugliness of 2011 far behind them.