Random thoughts about rebuilding teams

I was thinking about teams that have intentionally blown up and are rebuilding, like the Rams, Lions, Chiefs, and Buccaneers.  Now with the first three teams, it is completely understandable why the reclamation projects had to begin, as the teams had been consistently awful in recent years.

But with the Buccaneers, I am a little more perplexed.  The team had been consistently above-average in the Jon Gruden era.  They won the 2002 Super Bowl going 12-4 in the regular season; the following years they went 7-9, 5-11, 11-5, 4-12, 9-7, and 9-7.  So, while there were three really bad years thrown in there, there were also some tremendous seasons record-wise.  And they had been trending upward. 

Now, last year's team looked like a Super Bowl contender in the first half of the season and then experienced a tremendous collapse.  But they still ended up with a winning record.  The organization then decided to get rid of Gruden and his minions, as well as Jeff Garcia, Derrick Brooks, Warrick Dunn, Joey Galloway, among others. 

My question is: What do they expect will ultimately come of this rebuilding project?  Do they expect a Patriots/Colts-like level of consistent excellence?  Because if they don't expect that, then the next level down is pretty much what the Bucs had going for them before this season.  They were mostly good, went to the playoffs more often than not, had a nice lil Super Bowl championship thrown in, and were occasionally lousy.  But how much better can you expect a team to be these days?  That seems to be the way things go -- sometimes up, sometimes down. 

So while I understand they needed to get rid of some of their older players, it just seems strange to me that an organization would blow up something and induce misery on its fans for something with a ceiling that ultimately will only get them back to where they once were (If that.).