Was Tampa Bay's 31-13 loss Thursday night to the Carolina Panthers the beginning of the end for Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano? Perhaps, he should try coaching in Cuba.
The defeat left Tampa Bay winless at 0-7 this season. The Bucs need just eight more losses to match the 2008 Detroit Lions as the only winless teams in NFL history since the league expanded to a 16-game season in 1978.
Earlier in the day, NFL.com wrote a scathing piece about the embattled Buccaneers coach, saying his brash style has lost the Tampa Bay locker room.
The report said that several players who have worked under Schiano the past two seasons have intimated that he treats his players like children, which has created the rift between him and his team.
"How bad is it there? It's worse than you can imagine," one NFL player who spent 2012 with the Bucs told NFL.com. "It's like being in Cuba."
Also on Thursday, bucsnation.com reported that Schiano would be fired if he loses the locker room.
NFL.com went on to say that several people in the NFL scouting circles are not surprised by Schiano's actions and character, having had to deal with Schiano when he was a college head coach at Rutgers from 2001-11.
The visits, one NFC personnel executive told NFL.com, were "pure misery."
Schiano is 7-16 in 1 ½ seasons with Tampa Bay after turning around a moribund Rutgers program and going 68-67 in 11 years.
Schiano first earned public scorn in the NFL last season, when his players charged the line of scrimmage and dove to pry the ball away from New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning when the Giants had the game well in hand and Manning was attempting to kneel down to run out the clock. Giants coach Tom Coughlin launched a tirade at Schiano, rather than engage in a postgame handshake.
NFL.com reported that after the game, Schiano stood by his decision, telling reporters, "I don't know if that's not something that's done in the National Football League. What I do with our football team is that we fight until they tell us, 'game over.' ... We're not going to quit; that's just the way I coach and teach our players. If some people are upset about it, that's just the way it goes."
This season, Schiano has been accused of rigging a vote for captaincy to ensure that quarterback Josh Freeman did not get elected. Tampa Bay eventually jettisoned Freeman from the team.
Can Schiano be next?
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