Lovie Smith Fired in Tampa Bay

Late last night, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers opened up the coaching carousel again by firing Lovie Smith.

Smith was only given two years in Tampa Bay, amassing just eight wins in those two years. A 2-14 finish in his first season landed the Bucs the first pick this year - which became Jameis Winston. Starting the rookie this year, the Bucs showed promise, winning six games.

It seems like that was a good enough turnaround, so this seems like a curious decision.

There are now seven open jobs in the NFL: Tampa, New York (Giants), Cleveland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami and Tennessee.

As for who's next? This comes directly from Cbssports.com:

This is going to be a coveted job despite the high turnovers. Three names spring to mind immediately.

Josh McDaniels, who worked with Licht while the Bucs GM was with the Patriots. The market for McDaniels will be big this offseason, and if there's a former co-worker who can talk him into joining an operation that's out of the AFC (and thus Bill Belichick's realm), it could make sense, particularly given his work with quarterbacks.

Chip Kelly, who was close to signing with Tampa before they landed Schiano but ultimately backed off the job. Kelly is the opposite of Lovie (in terms of offensive and defensive scheming) and would bring a little pizazz to Tampa. It remains to be seen how that relationship would work, but Kelly is a hot name out there.

Dirk Koetter, who is the current offensive coordinator for Tampa Bay and a reasonably popular name this offseason, considering: a) how good Jameis looked last year, and b) how bad Matt Ryan looked last year. Koetter was previously in Atlanta and jumped to Tampa with the new regime.