[BigHairedAristocrat]

Rick Stroud (from the St. Petersburg Times) was just interviewed on ESPN980 and reiterated what Smoot said earlier - Allen is a great administrator and contract guy, and thats all he's good at. The coach won't work FOR him, but rather WITH him. Some other of Ricks feelings on him:

1. He's a yes-man. He always did whatever Gruden and the owner wanted. So don't expect Snyder's level of involvement to be reduced.

2. The reason Tampa Bay's drafts from 2004 to 2007 were so bad because Allen and Gruden made all draft decisions "in a vacuum" - If Gruden wanted a player, Allen would agree with him, and they would select the player, regardless of what the scouting department recommended.

3. He and Gruden both like veteran players and value them over draft picks.

I didn't like the Allen hiring and i like it even less now. Sorry to rain on everyone's parade, but he's Vinny 2.0. Nothing's really changed. Either one of two things will happen now:

1) We'll hire Gruden or a no-name coach and Snyder will still pull all the strings OR
2) We'll hire Shanahan and He'll have total authority over our offense. Snyder will step down and Allen will just be a puppet for Shannahan.

In either case, the one thing that this organization needs isn't going to happen - We won't have a "real" GM with full authority to make football decisions.