Feisty Dirk Koetter
June 16th, 2016
Irked by fight questions.
Tempers flared today in the final day of minicamp, the final day of underwear football season.
And it seemed Bucs coach Dirk Koetter was aggravated as well.
Perhaps it was the heat (not quite as bad as yesterday), but there were scuffles at practice. About the best one was Demar Dotson against what appeared to be Akeem Spence (Joe isn’t totally sure who the defensive combatant was in the mound of humanity).
It was more baseball benches-clearing, bear-hugging than a brawl or fistfight. There was a lot of hollerin’ and a lot of barking and a lot of grabbing and a lot of pushing. Not much else, but the hundreds of fans watching practice enjoyed it.
The first question posed to Koetter after practice was about the fight and Koetter wanted nothing of it.
“If that’s all you got out of a two-hour practice, you are in the wrong spot,” Koetter said, clearly peeved he was standing under the brutal Florida sun fielding questions about fights and not football.
“Guys are out here working their tails off and emotions get heated. Guess what? That’s football practice. That’s football practice. Get over it!”
Later, without prompting, it seemed Koetter enjoys an outburst of emotion from his players, misdirected though it may be.
“Playing underwear football, that’s what gets guys testy out there,” Koetter said. “Blocking is not live so if one guy is going faster than he should and beats his guy of course [the beaten player’s] pride is going to rear its ugly head. Guys compete. I want a team full of competitors.
“I want a bunch of guys that are going to play hard-nosed, emotional football. If you think it is not going to get a little heated out there, we are kidding ourselves, we are kidding ourselves.”
Koetter did offer that when the skirmish broke out, he got the heck out of the way to avoid getting caught in the middle and trampled by friendly fire.
June 16th, 2016 at 1:31 pm
You have 90 guys fighting for 53 positions, what do people expect? Guys don’t want to go to a 9-5 job making $12.00 a hour, they want the megabucks. They are wiling to fight for it, and I don’t blame them.
June 16th, 2016 at 1:35 pm
Koetter is the dude. Really refreshing not seeing BS coach-speak.
June 16th, 2016 at 1:37 pm
Don’t play yourself
June 16th, 2016 at 1:40 pm
I like it!!!
June 16th, 2016 at 1:58 pm
Koetter is refreshing as hell and a media person’s dream.
June 16th, 2016 at 2:50 pm
Passion and Accountability
“I wanted to be drafted by the Tampa Bay Bucs and play in front of poster Kobe Faker” Sterling Shepard
June 16th, 2016 at 4:15 pm
I like the fire
June 16th, 2016 at 4:20 pm
You’d be lucky to even get 12$ an hour with no exp.
June 16th, 2016 at 4:26 pm
Last year I heard a former player (don’t remember who) say that fights in practice are almost always a ruse to get practice to end early.
June 16th, 2016 at 5:32 pm
I hope “can we talk about the football on the field” doesn’t become Koetter’s knee-jerk response to obvious, begged-to-be-asked questions immediately following a fight on the field or a head coach tossing a 2nd round under-performing TE off of the practice field for “not knowing what he’s doing” or the inevitable “what was up with that call, coach?” question. It does sound like coach-speak at best and faintly inexperienced, or unpreparedness.
I like coach K and expect him to succeed but, if he’s going to be ingratiating when the questions are slow-pitched, then he needs to answer the tuff questions with as much patience OR answer all questions with one word, like Belacheat does.
June 16th, 2016 at 6:25 pm
It was Ayers who was the aggressor out there today
June 16th, 2016 at 7:43 pm
I don’t know about you but Demar Dotson is one of the last Bucs I’d want to tangle with…..Akeem ain’t no sissy either.