Former (?) Bucs WR Coach Speaks
January 15th, 2019
WR coach Skyler Fulton.
It’s not all dark skies and doom and gloom for former (?) Bucs wide receivers coach Skyler Fulton.
His job status is in limbo but his paycheck is not. Fulton is currently coaching the quarterbacks of the East squad in Saturday’s East-West Shrine Game to be held Saturday at the Fruitdome.
This year, practices for the game are being held at the Fruitdome in St. Petersburg and the practices (East squad in the morning, West squad in mid-afternoon) are open and free to the public.
Joe spoke with Fulton yesterday. He told Joe while he is under contract with the Bucs through the 2019 season, he hasn’t found a new job yet. It is unlikely he will stay coaching Tampa Bay but he said he hasn’t been ruled out yet, though he added new head coach Bucco Bruce Arians currently plans to bring in another wide receiver coach.
Fulton said he’s already spoken with new Bucs offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, who told Fulton the current coaches like what he did with Bucs receivers but Arians is looking for a quick turnaround with the team and prefers assistants he is either familiar with or has worked with previously.
Joe asked Fulton if he was going to Cleveland with former Bucs offensive coordinator Todd Monken, but Fulton said Cleveland wanted to keep the receivers coach they had last year, Adam Henry.
But why is Fulton and the rest of the Bucs coaching staff now out in Tampa Bay? Simple, Fulton said. The Bucs didn’t win enough.
“I think we played in a lot of games that we were a couple of plays away,” Fulton explained. “You know how the NFL is. So it is like, when you are [5-11] everyone thinks you suck, like it was a terrible season the whole season and every game sucked which isn’t the case.
“Chicago blew us out. Outside of that, there were times we started out slow and we came back in the end. To me, if you have a couple of minutes left in the game and you are down one score, it’s a game. It happened time and time again.
“It was a lot of little things that built up. But we just didn’t win enough games. If you want to try to point out something we didn’t score enough touchdowns in the red zone. We just didn’t do some of the fundamental things in games we lost.”
Fulton then sounded a lot like his former colleague Monken when Monken famously said of the Bucs offense after a loss, “We chose to suck.”
“Ultimately, what I would say is, defenses don’t stop offenses. Offenses stop themselves. Most of the time if a play is not made, it’s not because the defense made a really good play. It’s because a dude dropped it or the quarterback made a bad throw,” he said.
“Whatever it might be, the majority of the time it’s not like when the defense lines up it is doing everything right to stop you, it’s that you are shooting yourself in the foot, dropping balls on third down, whatever. To me, that is just general football.”
Fulton believes Arians and Leftwich are being handed a strong offense on a silver platter ready-made to win games.
“The beautiful thing for the [new] guys there, they have an uber-talented offense,” Fulton said. “Guys on the perimeter — I find it hard to believe with wide receivers and tight ends there is a more talented group of guys in the NFL. If you line up all of those guys at the same time… “
Lost in people talking how talented Bucs receivers are is that the Bucs had two receivers on the bench Fulton is convinced would see significant playing time with most other NFL teams, Bobo Wilson and Justin Watson.
“Bobo did a phenomenal job when he got a chance last year,” Fulton said. “Not just at wide receiver but on special teams, running back kicks and tackles. A lot of people don’t know this but Justin Watson led the team on special teams in tackles and Bobo was second.
“Those guys find a way to be productive because when you are playing behind Mike [Evans], Chris [Godwin], DeSean [Jackson] and “Hump,” [Adam Humphries] we are not trying to get you in the game.”
Fulton isn’t sweating not having a job just yet for 2019, as he will still be paid by the Bucs. He admitted he’ll continue to follow the Bucs, in part, because he’s tight with his former receivers.
Fulton confirmed what Joe saw on DeSean Jackson’s Instagram Stories account; Jackson treated the wide receivers group, including Fulton, to a day of fishing.
January 15th, 2019 at 10:14 am
that is why you don’t waste money on a low ceiling, low talent wide receiver like HUMP… every receiver in that room as more athletic gifts and a higher ceiling than the very mediocre hump… so bucs will probably cut evans and give hump 20mil per based on history
January 15th, 2019 at 10:31 am
Many players don’t get enough credit for their ST contributions…….Wilson & Watson would be good examples.
January 15th, 2019 at 10:38 am
T-beotch,
STFU man. Your sh!t is really getting old.
January 15th, 2019 at 10:39 am
so dirk had a lousy coaching staff?….what else is new….lol….
we added talent each year and this coaching staff produced back to back 5-11 season…..
obviously its coaching not talent…..
#REALISTKNOWSNOTHING!!!!!…#GO BUCS!!!!!
January 15th, 2019 at 10:44 am
Tmaxcon, what are you smoking, jump was the most reliable damn receiver on the team. Kid doesn’t drop balls, catches it as he’s being drilled across the middle. If he were on the patriots he’d have 1000 yards all day. I’ll take 816 yards and 5 tds for our #4 receiver! Imagine if he were #2-3 he’d easily have over a 100 yards
January 15th, 2019 at 10:47 am
They have to keep Humphries if the price is right but the big question is what is his worth. When I look at his skillset he seems like a perfect fit in New England but they usually don’t pay those WR’s much. I’m thinking Hump is worth about 7-8 mil a year but if another team offers more it’ll be tough to bring him back.
January 15th, 2019 at 10:48 am
Man, I almost forgot we had justin watson
January 15th, 2019 at 10:49 am
“This worthless punk is why our wrs regressed last year.
How many years of experience this guy have when he started wr coach last year?
same as me or my posting mentor Lakeland….0 …zip
unqualified waterboy”
Kobe Faker
January 15th, 2019 at 10:49 am
I hate the whole,we were a few plays away thing. Yeah, we were also a few plays away from being 1-15. We were a bad team, thats why we were 5-11
January 15th, 2019 at 10:57 am
“No one is going to give Hump more than 5 million as slot wr
Kobe would rather pay Golden Tate alittle more and Tate is twice as good as Hump
we need money to get Oline and defensive help”
Kobe Faker
January 15th, 2019 at 10:58 am
We play up to the level of good talented teams but then play down to the level of bad teams. So basically this team always finds a way to lose. Seems they always play to not lose the game rather than play to dominate a win. The one score difference in wins/losses are a perfect example of that.
January 15th, 2019 at 11:14 am
Jean in my opinion that is coaching.
January 15th, 2019 at 11:20 am
Let’s see – our offense freak’n shut down many of times in the second half and a bad “red zone” offense might be a reason why a lot of the old staff might not get a job in the future.
January 15th, 2019 at 11:22 am
@Tmaxcon
#Buffoon
January 15th, 2019 at 11:34 am
@Jean Lafitte
So very true.
January 15th, 2019 at 11:43 am
I must admit I was skeptical of Skyler at the beginning of the year, but ME and Hump had career years, Godwin showed up except for a couple of games, well DJax is just DJax. I would be cool with, not that my opinion matters, if BA gave this kid a chance since he didn’t choose to stink as a coach.
January 15th, 2019 at 11:48 am
“Chicago blew us out. Outside of that, there were times we started out slow and we came back in the end. To me, if you have a couple of minutes left in the game and you are down one score, it’s a game. It happened time and time again.”
Um comon dude. I hate this narrative. Any coach can pull that.
The Steelers game was a game for like the first 5 minutes of the 1st quarter and the last 3 minutes of the 4th quarter – when Fitz went 3 and out on his only drive where the game was close again. Other than that it was a pathetic standard blowout where we were down 31-13 going into the 4th quarter.
Did anyone actually think the loss to the Panthers was a good game lol? That was a blowout.
How about the Bengals game where Winston collapsed?
That’s 4 blowout losses where fans though their team was trash in the first 9 weeks of the season or almost 1/2 our games lol.
3 with Fitz starting and 1 with Winston.
But in the end the biggest issues weren’t offense / QB. It was having a historically bad defense the first half of the year and only getting semi-average the 2nd half but still not being good
January 15th, 2019 at 12:35 pm
are your little feelings hurt because truth sucks. hump is a 4 or 5 you can NOT win with players with such low ceilings… nobody fails for mediocrity like low standard bucfan. confusing popularity and mediocrity with greatness is why this laughable franchise has not won a single meaningful game in 16 years… hump is the pure definition of conservative low standard bucfan type player. djax took a dump this morning with more talent in it than hump has yet you want to run him off to keep your mediocre chori boy who loses quietly like cancer93. by far the most boring wr and kr in league…. low ceiling reliability keeps in you the basement talent takes you to the big game.
January 15th, 2019 at 12:39 pm
Did Fulton have anything to say about Humphries?
January 15th, 2019 at 12:47 pm
813bucboi … “obviously its coaching not talent.” Really? Is that just your (biased) opinion bucboi, or would you care to share some FACTS to back that up.
Only 8 players on offense & defense started 12 or more games for the Bucs last year (out of a possible 22?). Tells me bucboi that there was a LOT of turbulence in our roster last year on game days (probably isn’t a good thing, huh). Injuries certainly played a big part in that, but so did poor game performances. On the year our defense for instance started Javien Elliott (5 games), Devante Bond (4 games), Riley Bullough (3 games), De’Vante Harris (1 game), MJ Stewart (5 games), Ryan Smith (6 games), Isaiah Johnson (4 games), Adarius Taylor (10 games), Brent Grimes (13 games), Will Gholston (2 games). Pretty good odds I’d say that at least 7 of those 10 players won’t even make the roster THIS year, much less START any games … and that’s just on DEFENSE.
Coach Arians has already indicated that folks should anticipate quite a bit of roster turnover this year (Joe did also in an earlier article today). IF we’re so talented, then WHY the anticipated roster turnover?
January 15th, 2019 at 1:07 pm
I just can’t understand how any Bucs fan would not want Hump on this team. And what’s more puzzling is some Bucs fans actually think Bobo and Watson are better than him.
January 15th, 2019 at 1:38 pm
Defense Rules……Here’s my problem. Look at your list of players.
Ryan Smith
Riley Bullough
Javien Elliot
Adarius Glanton
Devonte Bond
Issiah Johnson
Will Gholston
Denonte Harris
Mj Stewart
I left Grimes off since he was a starter.
But look in the first 7 names. Each one has been on the team for at least 2 seasons. In fact it might be 3.
These guys have been misevaluated and have not been developed. Everybody on that list has missed assignments and made fundamental mistakes.
You can’t have a guy on your team for years and years and they still can’t do their jobs. There are depth players in this league that can do their jobs well. I saw it during the playoffs this week and I see it every Sunday. Minter & A.Adams are 2 examples of good and quality drpth players.
If this is the best and most talented players our coaching staff then our staff is not smart enough to run a team. If it’s a matter of preparation & developement then our coaching staff is just not good enough……..Either way it’s coaching. They either too dumb or too bad.
January 15th, 2019 at 1:40 pm
Bobo is the Truth!!!
A more athletic and faster version of Hump, for less money…
Hump did well here to earn big money elsewhere, good for him…
January 15th, 2019 at 2:04 pm
Kobe, I don’t understand your shtick, but our receivers did not regress last year. In fact, this was probably the best year for receivers in franchise history.
Our team lost Monken, Buckner (who totally turned around the line), Fulton, and Duffner. Realistically, all three of these guys could be head coaches in time.
But don’t worry, we have a bunch of Cardinal/Jets castoffs.
Now, I’d be fine with Cardinal castoffs, but have you looked at the Jets? Yikes
January 15th, 2019 at 2:13 pm
Great article, Joe. You’re really killing it in 2019.
January 15th, 2019 at 2:46 pm
If Bobo was so great he would have been taken by another team as a player on the roster but the truth is he is just an average dude that the bucs stuck with. Like defense rules stated arians is going to flip this roster and get winning successful nfl talent in here because 10-22 the past 2 years is not that
January 15th, 2019 at 3:29 pm
DR
biased?….hardly…..
i call them like i see them…..i said dirk was in over his head and shouldve been canned last year….obviously i was right since he had a repeat performance and is now working in ATL….
dirk and his staff failed to develop players….simple as that…..look at winston and d.smith….VHG and spence…players taken in the first 2 rounds that havent progressed the way they should…..they are barely better than they were as rookies….those are facts…..thats unacceptable….that falls on coaching…..
and im not sure what articles your referring to because bruce has said multiple times that the pieces are here to win now and he’s not here to rebuild…..that tells me that he will win with dirks players….something dirk couldnt do himself…..
no one will agree with you that its all talent….but its obvious to everyone that knows football that competent coaching and development was lacking during dirks tenure…..
as ive said for the pass 2 years, its coaching not talent!!!!….
#REALISTKNOWSNOTHING!!!!!…#GO BUCS!!!!!
January 15th, 2019 at 3:33 pm
Tackleblockwin
Talent wins championship not loyalty to mediocrity or popular players. Popularity has never won on Sunday talent does. Bobo and Watson have far more upside… thats fact…. its about winning nothing more.
January 15th, 2019 at 4:44 pm
Loved his repport with the WRs. They looked liked they got along well with him.
Got to be an easy job with those guys though. I’d be sitting back on the bench pounding gin and throwing daps the whole time if I were coaching those guys.
January 15th, 2019 at 4:45 pm
@lord… i don’t know, Offense averaged 19 points a game in weeks 10 thru 16 ( i really don’t trust 17) a D looked pretty good. Hard to believe we couldn’t score more than 20with these weapons but that was the case in 2017 too. I just wish both sides could show up together.
January 15th, 2019 at 5:21 pm
Bobo was actually one of the best kick returners in the league last year once he got some playing time – it wasn’t a huge sample size, but he was really really solid there. To me, if someone wants to pay Hump $7-9m a year, which I’m still thinking isn’t going to happen (but I could certainly be wrong) I think Bobo can step right into that position – #4 on the depth chart – and have similar production. Not saying to chase Hump out of town, but Hump’s value comes from being so low on the depth chart that his limited physical abilities are hidden since he’s playing against safeties, linebackers and third and fourth corners, which isn’t a knock, if you’re a good coach you scheme a guy like Hump to take advantage of match-ups.
As for Watson we really didn’t get a chance to see him at all, but won’t it be something he’s another Godwin – and he’s the guy who can be the #3 WR which would mean Hump, or Bobo, can stay at #4 where their size isn’t an issue. I mean Watson looked great in the preseason, but the depth chart is so deep at WR we didn’t get him see him.
January 15th, 2019 at 10:34 pm
Watson played well on special teams this year. I love hump and would be very sad to see him leave, I’d love to see Watson come in and be Jurevicious 2.0. He played good special teams but didn’t see much of him at all other than that in the regular season. Still remember that sick TD catch in preseason from Jameis against TENN. The bigger WR the better for Jameis. BoBo #4.
January 15th, 2019 at 10:56 pm
For the folks talkin defense, Arians does need to wipe out this entire group of back ups in bring in some average vets for depth that have played some football on good teams. Super Bowl teams have that every year. We’ve had these same jokers since we drafted them. People need to stop hating on MJ though. He was a rookie that wasn’t being used properly and coached by a HC and DC that were about to lead us to the worst defense of all time. I have a strong feeling he will improve with what looks to be a very good defensive coaching staff.