Lovie Smith is on the clock.

Beneath the intrigue about which quarterback the Tampa Bay Buccaneers might draft next month – and if that passer will start right away – is a more fundamental question about the franchise: Is Smith still "the ideal man" to lead Tampa Bay back to relevance?

If so, his future is tied to the next starting quarterback for his team. That looks to be either Jameis Winston or Marcus Mariota … unless Smith and general manager Jason Licht make a move that might make a lot of sense: trade the top overall pick.

View photos Mike Glennon's status with the Bucs could be decided on draft night. (USA TODAY Sports) More

First, some background: That "ideal man" quote came from Bucs co-chairman Bryan Glazer when Smith was introduced more than a year ago. In order to be "ideal," Smith needs to be more ideal on offense. The Bucs have been historically poor on that side of the ball and so has Smith. Fusing those two histories has brought what you'd expect: more poor offense. The Bucs were all but unwatchable in Smith's first season.

Nothing worked. Smith brought in Josh McCown and benched Mike Glennon; now McCown is gone. Smith brought in offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford and now he is gone too after some health issues. The team won two games.

A call to Tedford (now head coach of the BC Lions in the CFL) was not immediately returned, but in a recent interview with the blog JoeBucsFan, Tedford said he wanted to return to the Bucs' sideline when he felt better.

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"I was ready to [return to coach] with about five games left," Tedford told the blog. "I wouldn't say that there was friction; it was a situation where I think when I let [Lovie] know I was ready to come back, [but] Lovie felt like it would kind of disrupt continuity at the time."

It's an understandable reason but there wasn't much to disrupt: the Bucs were inert. The plays were being called by Marcus Arroyo, a Tedford assistant at Cal who was offensive coordinator at Southern Miss in 2013. It's hard to imagine the Bucs being lost if Tedford took the reins back from his protégé. Arroyo was the same age (35) as McCown.

Smith was not made available for an interview, but the interpretation here is fairly straightforward: he has a vision for the offense that didn't involve Tedford. And since Tedford is more of a wide-open thinker, perhaps that vision matches what Smith did in Chicago. In the words of then-coordinator Ron Turner, who is now head coach at Florida International University, that vision was, "Run the ball, play-action, control the clock."

View photos Lovie Smith did it with defense in Chicago. (Getty) More

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