Ronde Barber: Offenses Had Figured Monte Kiffin's Tampa 2 Defense Out

TAMPA, Fla. -- Only two weeks after Jon Gruden's surprise firing as head coach of the Buccaneers, the general sentiment in Tampa seems to have gone from "good riddance" to "Jon who?" Gruden is such a forgotten man in Tampa that I've barely heard his name this week.

But I have heard the name of his longtime defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, who also left the Bucs to coach alongside his son Lane at the University of Tennessee. And although people here in Tampa have much warmer feelings for Kiffin than for Gruden, there's a sense here that Kiffin's departure may not be a bad thing.

At the top of the sports section of today's Tampa Tribune is a story in which Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber suggests that the team may be better off without Kiffin, the architect of the Tampa 2 defense. Kiffin had been the team's defensive coordinator for 12 years, and Barber thinks opposing offenses were starting to catch up to Kiffin's schemes.

"I have a great fondness for Monte," Barber told the Tribune. "He did a lot of great things for our defense for 12 years. But 12 years of the same thing -- people start figuring you out."

Barber added that Kiffin and new Buccaneers defensive coordinator Jim Bates have similar approaches, but he added that "We'll do a lot of different things now. We'll probably be a little more aggressive. We take a few more chances. I think we all look forward to that."

Neither Bates nor new head coach Raheem Morris is likely to make any huge changes in the defensive philosophy because this is still a Buccaneers team that was built around Kiffin's Tampa 2 scheme. And the Bucs' defense played very well in 2008, even though it did fade down the stretch.

But it's clear that change is coming in Tampa Bay, and that goes beyond just the departure of Gruden, a man who's so long gone that the Tampa Tribune article doesn't even mention his name.