Thursday, February 16, 2012

Are we hearing Double Talk out of One Buc Place

Are we hearing some double talk from Mark Dominik?

When announcing that Butch Davis would join the Tampa Bay Bucs as a senior special adviser instead of defensive coordinator general manager Dominik said it had nothing to do with a $2.7 million buyout the University of North Carolina owed Davis after it fired him last summer.

If Davis coaches he would reportedly lose that money. Of course, the Bucs could pay his buyout off or negotiate a deal with North Carolina, but he said he doesn’t want to coach.

So why is Davis assuming a role that would not allow him to talk with players and be on the field.

"The main reason Butch Davis wanted to come here was to work with his good friend, Greg Schiano and to help him because he understands the pressures and how hard it is as a first-year NFL head coach,” Dominik told the media this week.

That is fine and dandy as it stands, but it goes against what Dominik said when he hired Schiano who was the Rutgers head coach the past 11 years.

At the press conference to announce Schiano’s hiring last month Dominik said he wasn’t concerned that Schiano had coached college for the last 11 years.

“He (Schiano) was putting up NFL caliber players (at Rutgers). He was certainly playing against good competition, but the main thing for me was I felt very comfortable (we felt ownership included) felt very comfortable that that was something that was not going to be a concern,” Domink said.

Remember when Dominik said last year it wasn’t a good idea to get involved much in free agency because it can disrupt the harmony of a team.

At his introductory press conference with the Bucs on Thursday Davis said his advisory role had nothing to do with his situation at UNC. He reiterated that he wanted to help his friend Schiano and there were many ways he could do that without being the defensive coordinator.

The newsobserver.com reported that because he's joining the Buccaneers as a consultant, Davis still is eligible to receive what UNC agreed to pay him as part of his buyout, according to his lawyer and that UNC has paid Davis $1,203,917 as part of his buyout and that the school owes Davis an additional $1.77 million.

If he accepts a coaching position between now and Jan 15, 2013, his buyout would be affected and he would receive a prorated amount depending upon when he accepted a given coaching position, according to Jonathan Sasser, one of Davis' lawyers, the newsobserver.com said.

The Bucs say this is not about money and you want to believe those who run things at One Buc Place. But history has taught us to be cautious in those matters.


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