Hugh Culverhouse: A Reign of Error

i'm going to ask you a question and there's no wrong answer here who do you think is the worst owner in nfl history i can hear the arguments for george preston marshall especially with his reluctance to integrate more recently dan snyder who most of us would like to refer to as a sniveling rat perhaps you're more resigned to hating the likes of mike brown and his iron grip on the bengals or jimmy haslam's corruption with the browns or you're more into the regional bias with the likes of art model can bearing bobber say but adams are stand crunky but i implore you to look past these examples dig deeper into the heart of the matter and you will find a perfect storm of terrible a man who exemplifies the worst traits of sports ownership insanely cheap treacherously backstabbing incompetent in on-field matters yet incredibly invested in making money at the expense of the product you will find hugh culverhouse the tampa bay buccaneers of the early days i call him another term the worst owner 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culverhouse a former tax attorney for the irs who built himself to wealth in jacksonville he nearly bought the ramps from dan reeves estate in 1971 but got undercut by carol rosenblum and bobber say in a switcheroo kovaros sued the nfl and got a chance to potentially own an expansion franchise after the fursuiter was caught up in a messy divorce at first glance culverhouse seems okay enough but he had a fatal flaw that ruined the box he was a skin flint his cheapness with everything surrounding him infected the team to his offices to his own clothing he cared not for the scoreline the stat line or the goal line he was only interested in the bottom line if you were forced to pay a fee to rescue himself from a dungeon he'd have allowed himself to rot anything to save a penny tampa bay's inaugural season in 1976 was hilariously awful 141 players went through but they had no offense the main defensive scheme was leroy sillman they couldn't block real good but made up for it by not tackling the only punch they offered was on johnny carson when john mckay was asked about his team's execution he was in favor of it now going 0114 and some of the ugliest football the league has seen in decades is one thing but what made it sting harder was the cheapskate known as gulfer house the team's practice facilities were right next to the airport without a proper weight room he had the walls painted white so he didn't have to pay for projector screens he requested their first office building pay for team letterhead a front office assistant for the bucks qualified for welfare he charged players for things like cans of coke phone calls made at a hotel and jerseys that were ripped to alleviate an injury the team plane was a rattle trap leased from a group that specialized in chainsaws mccullough company was doing so well the coverhouse had to pay for fuel out of his own pockets sometimes he didn't like that but he did like it when the bucks finally won a game against the new orleans saints at the superdome 27 games into their existence the whole damn team in city celebrated as if they had won the super bowl new orleans honored their defeat by firing hankstram into the gulf of mexico near simultaneously and even worse the bucks would end up winning another game before the end of the 1977 season pants were instantly shat the good times for the rest of us were over after being the butt of everyone's joke tampa bay developed from a rather forgettable 5 and 11 outfit in 1978 to one of the surprise upstarts in 1979 thanks to an elite defense led by leroy selman and a young quarterback from grembling state named doug williams when they made the nfc championship game that year endless pants were shat a team this good this early there had to be a catch and there was and it wasn't losing to the rams in the championship game it also wasn't hugh culverhouse being the head trustee to the ramsay stay keep going it's the culver house was cheap and his cheapness prevented him from hiring a true general manager therefore the head coach would get complete autonomy over the roster and personnel decisions if it's someone who's allegedly a lifetime coach like john mckay i guess it could be stomached but not when they throw out future first round picks like their candy consider 1979's first rounder traded to the bears for a wally chambers with a bum knee and would be gone in two years that pick became the fourth selection and was converted into five-time all-pro dan hampton normally this would be the end of such pain but not for tampa take the disaster that was the 1982 draft you cover also sent his equipment manager to new york as the team's representative the choices were between sean farrell lagarda the penn state and booker reese a defensive end of the bethune cookman after some deliberation the bucks war room chose the physical specimen of race only problem was that the phone reception was garbage thanks to that and a shitload of noise in the room the rep mishears and hands in the card for feral the war room prolapses you calver house had a conniption tampa bay tried to plead with roselle to undo the pick but no baxis this is when the bucks did what we call a pro gamer move boogers was still available in the second round yet tampa didn't have their second rounder so why not trade next year's first epic race it worked out perfectly if you consider east becoming a massive bust who was traded for a 12th round pick three years later is perfect i hate to inform you but the 1983 draft was very deep and while their selection only became woolly galt it could have been used to pick dan mourinho ken o'brien or used to trade up to pick jim kelly so why did i mention quarterbacks because it was the final year of doug williams's contract he was only the best player on the team not named leroy selman a consistent leader clutch player and great offensive catalyst for the era the main problem was that he wasn't getting paid like it doug was making less than every other starter in the league and half of the nfl's backups cover house was considered to be a likable owner before this point due to making the playoffs three times in four years but here is where he begins to sabotage the team williams asked for a six hundred thousand dollar salary to make him one of the higher paycubees in the league you set his offer at four hundred thousand and wouldn't budge for anything john mckay begged you to side with this quarterback but you had other ideas say doug instead of giving you money why not invest it in tempo sphere it's only the greatest real estate opportunity in history for a 200 000 loan he get a 2 share of the action that's right alone for a concept that wasn't even being constructed yet if you try to look for it good luck the area was supposed to be and is now a walmart the holdout would be long in the tooth and you ordered another glorious move in trading a first-round pick to cincinnati for the throw in samoa known as jack thompson he was trying to put the squeeze on doug but he didn't take something into consideration the usfl william saw it as an opportunity to escape and he did so he may have gotten [ __ ] in tampa bay but he would get his revenge he'd eventually be reunited with joe gibbs in washington and lead the redskins to a super bowl win in 1988 becoming the game's mvp in the process so washington if you ever wanted to thank someone for extending your proud tradition thank you cover house the bucks without the qb that led them to glory completely fell apart in 1983. do you want to know how bad it gets fans were openly chewing their opponents when the bucks lost after williams left they would accrue at least 10 losses a season for the next decade plus even worse remember that they traded their first rounder this year for jack thompson he was nowhere near william's caliber outright ineffective and cut in two seasons for this failed power play maneuver the bucks traded the first overall pick it was a weak draft but they still could have gotten irving fryer crow banks with it the good news with all this losing is that they didn't have to give away many game balls good for the players as they wouldn't be built by the team for them saves them enough money to run to wendy's for lunch during practice quarterback problems would continue on and on copperhouse tried to offer the same damn tampa ponzi sphere stake to warren moon but he wisely said no after jack thompson failed it was a second round pick for steve to burn he was to assist a supplemental first-rounder and steve young was both a poor fit for this game tampa was running and had nothing around him in another case of completely mismanaging elite talent and nearly ruining him by exiling him to cardinal hell young was traded to san francisco for a second and a fourth round pick so just in case you wanted to thank somebody for the young montana controversy you can point right to you culver house remember the coaches had roster autonomy ray perkins wanted heisman winner vinnie testaverti as his qb which burned another first overall pick to properly describe his early years in tampa he was awful just awful a terrible team around him shattered his confidence and destroyed any semblance of development he may have had after years of frustratingly slow progress the bucks did another goddamn bro gamer move by trading a first round pick in 1992 to the cults for chris chandler if they thought testaverde was bad chandler was even worse than that spent more time bickering to the press before being waived a year and a half into his tenure for the price of chris chan tampa ended up surrendering the second overall pick in the draft it was used to pick quentin coriad who didn't become much but it could have been used for sean gilbert terrell buckley troy vinson or bob whitfield the guy who replaced him off the bench vinnie god damn test to verdi he'd be free from this hell by 1993 but none of that chaos holds a candle to what happened to bo jackson in 1986 the legendary auburn running back was in the middle of a stellar baseball season for the school but tampa had their eyes set on him they wanted to bring him in for a physical and tour of the facilities everything paid for by the team including flight hotel meals the worst there's nothing to worry about though the bucks cleared it with the ncaa and sec it's perfectly legal the problem was that it wasn't the trip violated his amateur standing in the sec and he was stripped of eligibility from the baseball team in the middle of the season it doesn't matter what the bucks did bull believed it was a conspiracy to keep him away from baseball he told cover house and the team do not draft me i will never come to tampa bay you'll be wasting your pick if you do from the day of the 1986 draft do you know what these [ __ ] do with the first pick they take boat jackson cover else believed that beau would forgive them for their power play with what he called the biggest offer in nfl history yet for some reason he kept trying to plug real estate deals to him he offered a mistake in undeveloped lane in sarasota it was both hubris in underestimating jackson's resolve he had an out and it was baseball he turned down the bucks to play for the kansas city royals for much less money a year later he not only got drafted by the raiders but was allowed to play baseball as well so if you ever wondered about the start of the two sport legend of beau jackson look no further than culverhouse after this you vowed to never draft another baseball player again which nearly cost them john lynch in 1993. it doesn't end there either you had a huge role in nfl labor negotiations due to as fast as an accountant every move he made was made for one reason to [ __ ] over players 1982 he pulled every dirty card in the book to get a better deal don't forget 1987. the replacement player's fiasco culverhouse was the main one banging the table for them you pay money to other owners to pay off debts while securing sweetheart rates on loans due to his income from the team the owners praised his negotiating savvy use of technology and financial skills but he was insanely secretive with his tactics financial statements never included a cash flow or how much they were paying key figures in the league hierarchy it all adds up because hugh cried poor he played that fiddle so long he threatened to play three games a year at the citrus bowl in orlando and entertained an offer to move the bucks to sacramento in the late 80s all the while accounting reports revealed that hughes not only lying he's one of the most profitable owners in the league not to mention he might have been taking a salary like a few other owners did at the time it's all because he wouldn't pay players and he gave away top draft picks like they were nothing strangely enough he paid top dollars for head coaches paid a rich some to let john mckay from usc giving him a lifetime contract even when every fan in existence wanted him fired thanks to health issues and frustrations with the organization's penny pinching he retired in 1984. after that came lehman bennett who was only good for cronyism and creating a culture so apathetic and undisciplined it was known as buccaneer beach after him came ray perkins from alabama his authoritarian hand did little more than eventually alienate the locker room he then wanted to pry bill walsh out of the broadcast booth but he rejected them because he didn't want to pay extra for a head coach he wanted so they pumped the ball to next year by keeping the placeholder known as richard williamson around he didn't work out too well that offseason a huge hoopla was made about bill parcells hewitt stated an agreement was made between them with him getting complete control of operations even though tuna said no such thing after considering the offer bill turned them down which led copperhouse to say he felt like he'd been jilted at the altar after another lengthy coaching search this led to sam white of bengal's fame he unsurprisingly did not work out either culverhouse's reign of error would eventually end in the mid 90s lung cancer was detected in 1992 and slowly weakened him in his grip on the teeth after treatment to stop the cancer failed he succumbed to death in august of 1994. with all of this in mind you could make a strong argument for hugh culverhouse being the worst owner in nfl history his teams weren't only mostly terrible but they were handicapped by frugality that hasn't been seen this side of scrooge mcduck worst of all he had significant influence in league affairs so while he helped to make the league more profitable and efficient it mostly came at the expense of players and fans and in some cases his non-playing employees by cutting health insurance benefits it's even stranger since cover house donated significant chunks of money to several universities the performing arts habitat for humanity in the united way i wouldn't feel that badly for him though after his death it was quickly revealed that he wasn't only worth more than he was letting on he had a string of mistresses and extramarital affairs spanning decades he was shagging waitresses when he was supposedly hard at work and his wife didn't know about it coveralls in his trust tried to [ __ ] his own family in the wool by means of deception it led to years of bitter lawsuits and when it was all over his widow joy stated quote i'd like to pull him out of the grave and shoot him with every bullet i could get he wasn't just a piece of [ __ ] to his teams he was one to his family as well after he died let's just say things got better for the buccaneers the glazers are far from the best owners in sports but compared to culverhouse the nfl's version of jeff vinnick once the trusts sold tampa bay would enjoy some semblance of success albeit with another long stretch of seemingly endless futility even then they do have two super bowl trophies in their arsenal and have become even more profitable than hugh culver else could have even dreamed of but before you think of what the bucks are now remember what they've come from remember the reign of error so we'll probably have us tom brady's coming back for another year of football [ __ ] and i think that's what all the buccaneer players and coaches and fans and everyone you have to remember this all your life that's tip and that's a fifth pick of the game by dwight smith and again dwight smith is going to take it down the sideline into the end zone wow

Channel: UrinatingTree

Views: 512,591

Keywords: Hugh Culverhouse: A Reign of Error, Hugh Culverhouse, Hugh Culverhouse Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Culverhouse Buccaneers, Hugh Culverhouse Bucs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bucs NFL, Buccaneers NFL, Tampa Bay Hugh Culverhouse, Buccaneers 1976 Season, Doug Williams Hugh Culverhouse, Bo Jackson Hugh Culverhouse, Buccaneers 80's, Buccaneers 0-26, Worst Owner in NFL History

Id: pD2PahBwgFw

Length: 17min 22sec (1042 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 17 2022