Stylez G Will Miss Jon Gruden

No firing in the NFL is shocking -- ask Art Shell, Mike White, Bill Callahan, Norv Turner, Art Shell. Even Bill Belichick could find himself on the wrong side of a pink slip after a bad year or two. But Jon Gruden’s sacking in Tampa Bay seemed to catch everyone off guard. Maybe it’s because the Bucs ownership took three weeks to make a decision no one knew it was considering.
↵
↵The Glazers (owners of the Bucs) explained the weird delay as wanting to avoid making a rash, emotional decision. Apparently, losing four straight (with some bad opponents in there) looks just as bad three weeks out as it does the day after the season ends. If anything, the Glazers look proactive instead of reactive; that’s little consolation for Gruden or Bruce Allen (also canned), but it comes off more rational than Denver’s firing of Mike Shanahan.
↵
↵But the real revelation here (for me, at least) is how the Tampa Tribune deals with the Teen Wolf inspired name change from Greg White in a serious story. Greg changed his first name to “Stylez” as a nod to Michael J. Fox’s sidekick “Stiles”; here’s how the Trib handles it:↵↵⇥Wilkerson and Stylez G (Greg) White are two examples of players who made the most of the chances offered by Tampa Bay.↵↵C’mon, Trib. Greg didn’t change his name so you could dampen its impact in print. Lose the parentheses!↵