Buccaneers fire Super Bowl-winning head coach Gruden

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired head coach Jon Gruden on Friday, as NFL Network's Adam Schefter first reported.

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General manager Bruce Allen also was dismissed. After the team collapsed following a 9-3 start and failed to make the playoffs, its owners decided to go in another direction.

"We will be forever grateful to Jon for bringing us the Super Bowl title, and we thank Bruce for his contributions to our franchise," Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer said. "However, after careful consideration, we feel that this decision is in the best interest of our organization moving forward."

Buccaneers defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, recently promoted from defensive backs coach, is expected to be named Tampa Bay's next head coach, and Mark Dominik, the team's director of pro personnel, is the favorite to become the new GM, Schefter reports. The Buccaneers have scheduled a 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday press conference to introduce the team's new coach and general manager.

Gruden was Tampa Bay's coach for seven years before being dismissed, and Allen was GM for the last five seasons.

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"These decisions are never easy," Glazer said. "This is the toughest decision you can make for an NFL franchise. ... Jon and Bruce are consummate professionals. They've poured their heart and soul into this franchise. It's really been an honor to work with them. They gave their all."

The Buccaneers were tied for first place in the NFC South heading into December, but they finished with losses to Carolina and Atlanta on the road and San Diego and Oakland at home, where they had been 6-0. One more win would have landed Tampa Bay an NFC wild-card berth.

The 9-7 record this season left the Buccaneers out of the playoffs for the fourth time in the last six years, though Gruden led the team to back-to-back winning records for the first time since arriving in Tampa Bay.

"Any time a season ends, especially the way our season ended, it's a very, very emotional time," Glazer said. "And one thing we always like to do is not act on emotion, let things simmer down, think through things carefully and not make any quick, rash decisions.

"After taking a lot of time to look at our franchise, look where it's been, look where it is, look where we want to go, we just felt this was the time for a change."

Gruden went 60-57 in seven seasons as head coach of the Buccaneers, including the playoffs, and leaves as the winningest coach in franchise history. He was the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl when he led Tampa Bay to a 48-21 win over the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, his first season with the team.

The Glazer family fired Tony Dungy and used four high draft picks -- two No. 1s and two No. 2s -- and $8 million cash to pry Gruden away from the Raiders following the 2001 season. He led Tampa Bay to its only NFL title the following season, but the Bucs haven't won a playoff game since the Super Bowl appearance.

Gruden had three years remaining on a contract extension that he received after winning the NFC South in 2007.

But since going 15-4, including the Super Bowl, in his first season with the Bucs, Gruden went 45-53 and made quick exits from the playoffs after winning division titles in 2005 and 2007.

This season's collapse continued a trend of playing poorly late in the season. Since winning the Super Bowl, Tampa Bay is 9-17 in the month of December.

"This isn't a decision that's made on one play or one game or one week or one thing," Glazer said. "You look at the totality of the situation, evaluate it, look at where your franchise is. For us, the goal is to build a championship team that can compete year in and year out."

Gruden had three years remaining on his contract, and both he and Allen received contract extensions last winter after the Bucs went 9-7 and won the NFC South for the second time in the last three seasons. But Glazer said that wasn't a consideration in Friday's decision.

"At the end of every season, we sit back and look at everything," Glazer said. "We did that last year and went forward with the extensions.

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"But at the end of the day, every year we feel we owe it to this football team and this community to do a good honest assessment of our franchise. If at any point we feel that change is in our best interest, we feel we have to make that change. That's where we got to in this situation. You can't let decisions you made a year ago affect a decision today."

The team co-chairman said there's no timetable for naming a successor. When Dungy was fired, the Glazers conducted a meandering search that lasted more than one month after a deal they had to lure Bill Parcells out of retirement fell apart.

They settled on Gruden, who had one year left on his contract in Oakland, after also considering Marvin Lewis and Steve Mariucci for the opening.

Glazer declined to answer questions about possible successors.

"In our mind, there's a plan of where we want to go," he said. "We've thought it through very carefully. It will become apparent as we move along."

Gruden's firing means that there will be 10 new head coaches next season, the most since the 2005-06 season.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.