A Healthier And Stronger Team?

When Jon Gruden came to the Bucs in 2002, he hired on Johnny Parker to be the Strength and Conditioning Coach. During that season, one that was capped with a berth and victory in Super Bowl XXXVII, the Bucs suffered few key injuries (McFarland doesn't count, in my book). In fact, it was one of the healthiest teams the Bucs had fielded and the obvious result was a championship. Of course, a combination of talent and coaching had a lot to do with the Bucs' memorable season, but a team can't win if it's best players are frequently injured.

After the season, Gruden dismissed Parker and hired his guy from Oakland, Garrett Giemont. During the next three seasons, the Bucs repeatedly suffered numerous injuries, including a rather large number of ailments such as hamstring pulls. Last season was better, but still not great. I had personally mentioned on my old site, and to friends, that I felt Giemont was a big key in the injuries. Yes, some injuries do just happen, but many of the injuries the Bucs had came from a lack of proper strength and conditioning for the NFL. Last season Mike Morris was given the opportunity to mix in some work on certain areas and the Bucs were able to reduce the preventable injuries to some degree, but not as much as I feel they could. So when the season ended, the Bucs chose to dismiss Giemont and promote Mike Morris to the Strength and Conditioning Coach position. Once this move was made, word finally started leaking out about issues players had working with Giemont. Issues that clearly shows that he wasn't getting these players into top condition.

So what does this season hold, in terms of conditioning? So far Mike Morris has been implementing a lot of different techniques to really work both the strength and quickness attributes, as well as throwing in exercises that emphasis heavy conditioning. Many of the things being done have been reported on by Pewter Report.com, so I encourage people to go read their insider content to get a better picture of what Morris is doing. It's suffice to say that the conditioning program appears to be working. Most of the information I've seen shows that Morris' program is having a real solid impact on the players, and the players seem to get along with him better. One thing I expect, with Giemont gone (thankfully!), is that the Bucs will suffer far fewer injuries of the type they had been suffering during the last 3 years. Injuries will still happen, but when you are properly conditioned, and have strength in the right areas, injuries drop dramatically. If the Bucs can have a season, health wise, similar to 2002, they may have a similar result.