Koetter: Culture Isn’t There Yet
August 18th, 2017
“”Losing had become too easy.”
Winning head coach Dirk Koetter was heard talking about the Buccaneers’ culture yesterday.
The “C” word took on a life of its own early last season, when Koetter said he had been on teams with a winning culture and the Bucs just didn’t have that tough-to-define element in place.
Of course, the Bucs snapped out of their first-half funk in 2016, winning six of their final eight games, including wins against stud teams like the Seahawks and Chiefs.
So how about the culture now, in mid-August of 2017, Coach? WMOR-TV pregame host J.P Peterson asked Koetter that, in an interview that aired last night.
“Improving, improving, not where we need to be,” Koetter said of the team culture. “And Jameis is a big part of that. You know, very rarely can a rookie come on to a team and not, he wasn’t right out of the gate, but by the end of his rookie year there was not doubt, at least on the offensive side of the ball, and that’s where I was coaching at the time, Jameis was in total control.
“We already had a couple of good leaders on defense. And we want to promote leadership from all the corners of our team. But our culture is definitely improving. I questioned, not questioned our guys, but I said at one point last year that our culture needs to improve. Losing had become too easy. And it had nothing to do with that talk, but slowly but surely as the season went on last year, we started to get it. And our defense was really the catalyst behind that. Our defense turned things around when we went on that five-game winning streak. And, you know, we started to play complementary football, and we need to keep that up.”
Great stuff from Koetter there.
No, the Bucs are not a finished product. No surprise. That’s what fans are waiting to see this year with a stocked cupboard of talent and excellent coaches returning.
Winning culture? There’s reality to it, but it’s also a lot of words.
Start the season 3-2, Bucs, with games against three playoff teams from 2016. That’ll let everyone know that a winning culture is in place.
August 18th, 2017 at 11:17 am
It’s weird how I am calmly not having much of a reaction to really anything that’s happening in preseason; despite being obsessed with every offseason news nugget.
I just have been burned too many times reading into preseason – primarily when I’ve tried to get a feel on teams for fantasy football and / or general gambling lol.
August 18th, 2017 at 11:19 am
While being realistic is always a factor, you never go into anything accepting any loss anywhere. Military commanders don’t even project losses of their own men (only risk and asumming the risk and how to mitigate it). Winning coaches and players don’t accept losses ahead of the game either. Every game is a single season. Go to 1-0. Then 2-0, etc. You will never find winners saying let’s start at .600 and we should be good. The only way this team goes to the playoffs is from out of the gate, they believe there is no team they won’t beat. Then let the chips fall where they may. All the projections from the call-in shows are fun, and seeing some bozos out there think Las Vegas oddsmakers know all, but even half of them win, and half of them lose.
August 18th, 2017 at 11:30 am
. I questioned, not questioned our guys, but I said at one point last year that our culture needs to improve. Losing had become too easy.
of course when the previous face of the franchise and leader of the losing culture is still in a primary role it will never be a winning culture. no one and i mean no one can celebrate and justify a loss like the ice cream man. only thing more funny is the ones in denial
August 18th, 2017 at 11:32 am
@Fred E. Bucs yes they do. They call it acceptable loss. I agree with you they think they can beat anyone and that’s definitely good. JW just needs to learn to seal the deal in the red zone. I’m worried he hasn’t improved in that area.
August 18th, 2017 at 11:47 am
Classic maxi pad twisting words around. Totally ignoring the fact that Koetter has on so many occasions called GMC a leader, and in this statement he said we already had a couple good leaders (clearly pointing to McCoy). A 3 year old could understand that he was talking about others, but the maxi pad bleeds BS.
August 18th, 2017 at 11:50 am
What’s great is the the maxi thinks he’s changing anything. Nobody listens or cares about you or your opinion. Nobody in One Buc who reads your opinion does anything but laugh at you. I picture them all huddled around making fun of your miserable life. You aren’t changing anyone’s mind on this board either. You are so stale, and your opinions are beyond worthless. I am just so happy I don’t have your life. You need a woman like Miko to fix you.
August 18th, 2017 at 12:40 pm
Don’t forget it was Bryan Anger who was our best weapon and probably our player of the year who put our defense in the best positions, the guy was killing it. Take away Anger and we loose those games in my opinion.
August 18th, 2017 at 1:36 pm
This team will be the same or worse. Defense is OK.. no dline pass rush…. Jameis continues to make bad decision with situational football. He needs to shut plays down when they are over… we also have made 0 improvements in the red zone… at the end of the day we have good talent but it has not matured into consistency. I am not saying it wont, but right now, its not there. We will struggle this season with the strong teams.. I think 7-9,8-8 is best case scenario.
Our two biggest issues(that will remain all season) are our defense(will regress this year – no pass rush, run D will be poor) and Jameis’ crunch time(redzone, hurry up) decision making.. I also think play calling in the red zone can improve. Time will tell, but I think this will be a very up and down season that will leave a lot of fans disappointed because expectations are too high.
August 18th, 2017 at 2:43 pm
I just hope marching up and down the field with ease and coming away with nothing or 3 pts is not going to become part of our culture. We left about 28 points on the field in the 1st half against an opponent thats rated way down in the barrel. I really want to see improvement in our finishing drives the next 2 games. We will not beat the better teams with 12 points. No way..Jose!! However, a win is a Win!
August 18th, 2017 at 2:59 pm
This culture talk is tiresome. I’ve said it before, a winning culture is cultivated with wins. Nothing more. The Patriots winning culture, clearly the most significant one on the NFL begins and ends with Belichick and Brady. When those two are gone we shall quickly see how this “winning culture” vapor helps out the next QB and coach. I can tell you one thing, it’s not players at other positions with very rare exceptions (Ray Lewis, etc). it’s almost always the QB and coach. We seem to be in pretty fair shape there.
August 18th, 2017 at 3:04 pm
Bucs are very capable of beating Both Minny and NYG. 4-1 is a good possibility to start the season. Pats will be tough coming off of 3 day break, but game is at home so maybe it will be tougher on NE to come and play after just playing the Panthers. Both teams have tough week 4 games, so should be interesting. And with the Stick Carriers taking back Ray Jay, home field should give our guys a jump!
August 18th, 2017 at 4:46 pm
Hawaiian Buc Says:
August 18th, 2017 at 11:50 am
What’s great is the the maxi thinks he’s changing anything. Nobody listens or cares about you or your opinion. Nobody in One Buc who reads your opinion does anything but laugh at you. I picture them all huddled around making fun of your miserable life. You aren’t changing anyone’s mind on this board either. You are so stale, and your opinions are beyond worthless. I am just so happy I don’t have your life. You need a woman like Miko to fix you.
Funny, coming from a guy that always likes to ask:
“So, do you have some inside knowledge that the rest of us don’t know about”?
So Hawaiian, I ask you, exactly how do you know for certain that people at OneBuc laugh ay him? Are you there?
Do you have some inside knowledge that the rest of us don’t?
Or are you letting tmax really get under your skin?
And sorry brudda…… GMC needs to go before we become great.
August 18th, 2017 at 7:08 pm
Tmax, your negative comments towards arguably our best defensive player continue to be moronic…the act of a moron…proven with every post you make.
August 18th, 2017 at 10:39 pm
Sorry man but 3-2 ain’t winning culture. 3-2 is being satisfied with marginal improvement. Simple as that.
We all remember the late nineties when this team really did have a winning culture. Do you remember what served as the flag in the ground saying we’re sick and tired of losing, it was that badass 5-0 start to begin the 1997 season!
So forget 3-2, this team needs to be 5-0!!! That’s a winning culture!
Go BUCS!