Buccaneers Offensive Line Coach Pete Mangurian won a Super Bowl with New England in 2004
Pete Mangurian, the newest members of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 2009 coaching staff, walks into a very intriguing position at One Buccaneer Place.
On Thursday, the Buccaneers announced Mangurian as their new offensive line coach on the rapidly emerging staff under Head Coach Raheem Morris. The Bucs have now added three men to their staff since promoting Morris to head coach on January 17. Jim Bates is the new defensive coordinator and Joe Barry returns to coach the linebackers, a position he filled from 2001-06.
Mangurian inherits an offensive line that includes three players drafted in the second round or higher since 2006 (Davin Joseph, Jeremy Trueblood and Arron Sears) and a fourth starter who was the team's top free agent signing of a year ago (Jeff Faine). Buccaneer management considers its young and talented offensive front to be one of the team's strengths and Mangurian will be tasked with bringing out that line's full potential.
The Buccaneers are confident they have found a coach with the teaching talent to match his new charges. Mangurian is a veteran of 17 NFL seasons who has served as an offensive coordinator on the professional level and a head coach on the collegiate level.
All 17 of those seasons have come on the staffs of two highly-respected head coaches, Dan Reeves and Bill Belichick. Mangurian worked for Reeves for 13 years, and his success with the Atlanta Falcons' offensive line in 2001-02 prompted Reeves to promote him to offensive coordinator in 2003.
Most recently, Mangurian has been a member of the New England Patriots' Super Bowl-winning staff under Belichick for the last four years.
Mangurian's first NFL post came with Denver in 1988. After three seasons in charge of the Broncos' tight ends and H-backs, he moved over to the offensive line for the 1991-92 seasons. A four-year stint (1993-96) as the New York Giants' offensive line coach followed, after which he spent one season as an offensive assistant in Atlanta in 1997.
In 1998, Mangurian accepted the head coaching position at Cornell, a job he would hold for three very successful seasons. Cornell's 10-4 record in intraconference games in 1999-2000 was the best in the Ivy League in that span and the most that the school had ever won in a two-year period.
In 2001, Mangurian returned to the NFL and the Falcons. After one year out of the league in 2004, he signed on as the Patriots' tight ends coach. In four seasons at that post, Mangurian helped turn New England's tight end corps – including linebacker and part-time pass-catcher Mike Vrabel – into a high-scoring group. In 2005, for instance, Mangurian's pupils scored 12 touchdowns, the highest total by a Patriots tight end unit in 21 years. They had 10 more in 2007. New England won Super Bowl XXXIX in Mangurian's first season on the staff.
Prior to joining the Broncos, Mangurian spent nine seasons coaching on the collegiate level, with stops at SMU (1979-80), New Mexico State (1981), Stanford (1982-83) and LSU (1984-87). He most commonly coached the offensive line during that span. The LSU job brought him back to his alma mater, where he had played defensive tackle.
