Koetter: Need To Practice In Rain
August 5th, 2016
Quite a number of Bucs fans out there somehow think the NFL is baseball and players will melt in the rain and once the moisture appears, players must run for cover as if there’s an air raid.
Joe has stated for a long time not only is this nonsense, but practicing in the rain is good. Bucs coach Dirk Koetter agrees.
Yesterday, the Bucs practiced in the rain (gasp!). Believe it or not, no player melted (players enjoy the rain as well as it is cooler). The lack of practicing in the rain hurt the Bucs last year, Koetter said.
“It was also great to work with some bad weather,” Koetter said. “[If] you remember that Carolina game last year we’d only really worked in bad weather one time in practice, in wet ball conditions before we played that Carolina game – and it definitely came back to haunt us in that game. So that was some good work.”
Koetter then apologized to the fans attending practice at One Buc Palace because the Bucs had to practice on a field away from the temporary bleachers. The main practice field was soaked and the move was made for player safety, Koetter said.
Shoot, even Lavonte David said yesterday practicing in the rain “helps a lot” and that the soggy practice was “good” for the Bucs.
Joe heard Bill Cowher talk on SiriusXM NFL Radio about this subject a couple of years ago. Cowher loved practicing in the rain for the very same reason Koetter wanted to practice in the rain: wet ball drills.
Cowher detailed that there is just no way wet ball drills can be duplicated by simply dunking footballs in a bucket of water. It has to be done in actual rain where everything is wet, from coaches and players to the field.
For fans who still believe the Bucs need to run for cover when it rains, this just in: short of lightning, the NFL does not call games for rainstorms. If it rains on a Sunday afternoon at the Den of Depression — highly likely in September — better hope the Bucs have practiced wet ball drills. In the rain.
August 5th, 2016 at 6:57 am
Weather practices/games have always been the best.
Brings out the kid in all of us.
August 5th, 2016 at 7:08 am
LVD said he felt like a kid and just wanted to slide after every ball lol
August 5th, 2016 at 7:08 am
Practicing in the rain is the best drill but I would also think that practicing early in the morning would help with the wet ball drills somewhat as everything is usually pretty wet from the morning dew until around 9:30. They could also make sure the sprinklers are running right before practice. Its not the same as playing in the rain, but this is Florida, in the summer. Go out to your back yard with a kid,wife, or friend and throw a football around early in the morning and tell me its not wet and slippery.
August 5th, 2016 at 9:25 am
I get the benefits for sure. It can sometimes be tough to find rain in Tampa without the thunder and lightning which close a practice.
I remember dropping in at a golf course in Brandon and playing with three tourists from the north. Thunder…then I saw lightning on the horizon and I said…that’s it boys…there’s a reason we call our hockey team “The Lightning”.
There were like…well that’s way off on the horizon..and continued to play. I said good luck the lightning over there can materialize here in seconds.
I have a great deal of respect for lightning.
August 5th, 2016 at 9:37 am
Glorious rain, let it rain, let it rain, let it rain. Anything to block that sun out.
August 5th, 2016 at 9:56 am
Dreambig, it’s not much pass 9:30 and it’s already 90 plus degrees outside over here on south dale mabry. You gotta get up a little earlier than that to get the dew dew this time of year.