Changing gears The Tampa Tribune, published 19 September 2014 After almost two decades working in scouting and personnel for five franchises, Jason Licht figured he was prepared to be an NFL general manager. Then the season began and he realized the game had changed. “When you’re advance scouting or you’re watching all the players on the street and ranking them, it’s a very specific assignment,” the new Bucs GM said. “You go to bed every night knowing what you’re going to do the next day. What’s different now is you come in and basically you’re open for business. What do you need? Who’s hurt? You’re not the person putting out the fires, necessarily, but you have to figure out who needs to put this fire out. It’s like you can prepare to be a father, but once your wife has that first baby, it’s different.” As the man in charge, setbacks cut a little deeper, too. “I always took a loss hard — no matter what position I was in,” Licht said. “But when you’re on the road, you can kind of bury yourself. You’re at the University of Tennessee on a Monday after a loss and you watched the game on TV in a hotel. You weren’t there. You’re upset, but then you’re off to the next page.” Licht admires the dedication of Bucs fans through the club’s slow start. “I know they’re frustrated, I can feel it,” he said. “I don’t have to read anything to understand their emotions. We know they deserve a winner. If I lived in a bubble, I would almost feel like they’re used to a winner every year in Tampa. After just one game, there were boos and people wanting people’s jobs. It’s very passionate. Just know that we have a plan. We’re sticking to our plan, and we’re riding this out. We have a coach that’s very steady, and if we try to veer off course, we think that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”