Raheem Morris' Tampa Bay Buccaneers narrowly missed the playoffs, but the NFL's youngest coach could benefit from the 10-6 season with a contract extension, *The St. Petersburg Times* reported Monday.
Bucs general manager Mark Dominik told The Times that he will meet with the coach and the Glazer family, which owns the team, over the next few weeks to discuss Morris' contract situation. The team has the option on a third season for Morris in 2011, but the Bucs would like to sign the coach to a multiyear extension.
"Coach and I will sit down and go through the whole season, what it felt like, and we'll take care of the business," Dominik said. "But we'll handle it like a family would. We'll handle it internally to take care of it.
"It's like everything else, I'm not a big rush-into-everything guy. I like to let it breathe a little bit. Today is going to sting, I can guarantee you it's stinging for coach Morris right now, and it's stinging. It's going to take a few days to walk away from 10-6 -- and see the best part of 10-6, instead of the frustrating part of 10-6. That's the same way I want to do that with our staff as we go through free agency. I want a couple days of that buffer, or an entire week. It might take a little bit of time to do everything in the best interest of the entire organization."
The Glazers -- who have a contract option for Dominik in 2011 -- also are targeting the GM for an extension, according to the newspaper.
"I'll keep that between me and ownership," Dominik said. "I wouldn't want to comment on it."
Morris' 10-6 mark with the Bucs was a vast improvement from his 3-13 outing in 2009, his first season as coach.
For many years, the face of the Bucs belonged to Jon Gruden, who guided them to a Super Bowl triumph in his first year after arriving from the Oakland Raiders. Bruce Allen, who also came from the Raiders, was the GM.
When both were fired following the 2008 season, Morris, a bright but relatively unknown assistant, was promoted to head coach, and Dominik, a bright but relatively unknown member of the front office, became GM. The suspicion was that Bucs ownership simply was going on the cheap, dumping Gruden's and Allen's hefty salaries for far-less-expensive replacements.
"It was a massive transition that we did," Dominik said in October. "It's going to take a little bit of time for people to say, 'What's really going on in Tampa?' But I would think that, with the way guys are playing and performing, especially at such an early age, it should give everybody a thought to believe."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
