On the Wednesday before the Super Bowl, Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com and the Kansas City Star didn’t realize that the source of a compliment on a recent column he had written was brand-new Bucs coach Raheem Morris.

On the last Wednesday in February, Morris didn’t come off as an NFL head coach in his handling of the stunning news that Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Brooks and four other veteran players were being abruptly and collectively dumped by the team.

Though the words when reduced to writing won’t be all that troubling, the manner in which they were delivered suggested a man who might eventually be a great NFL head coach, but who currently might not be ready for the job he holds.

Listening to the press conference via the live stream at WDAE, we thought that Morris sounded nervous at times.  He sounded flustered at other times.  He sounded like anything but a man who is ready and able to command a room full of professional football players.

We’re not saying he can’t get there.  And most of his experiences won’t be nearly as challenging as the events of Wednesday, February 25.  But, today, Morris came off as a guy who’s in way over his head.

G.M. Mark Dominik seemed a little less unprepared to deal with the questions from the assembled media.  But the entire exercise seemed oddly confusing, unnecessarily secretive, and ultimately a failure.

For example, Morris seemed to be braced for a brawl, bristling a bit at an innocuous question regarding Brooks’ future playing prospects.  And Dominik simply couldn’t sell to the press the basic reality that the decision to cut the players had nothing to do with clearing cap space (especially since the team already had much more cap space than it needs) and everything to do with giving the players the best chance at getting paid in the early stages of free agency, when the money is flowing more freely.

The whole thing made us think that, even though Morris asserted that he and Dominik were the decision makers, the vague sense of going in a new direction without actually engaging in a youth movement and searching for players who possess many of the same qualities as the five players who abruptly have been deemed not part of the future of the franchise seems to have been the best thing that Morris and Dominik came up with in response to a directive from someone else in the organization to dump the players in question.

As if the bizarre inside-job termination of Jon Gruden and Bruce Allen wasn’t enough evidence of it, today’s press conference convinces us that something is very wrong with the Tampa Bay franchise, and that barring a miraculous offseason the Bucs could be destined for the basement of the NFC South in 2009, and beyond.