Was Win Really Good For Koetter?
September 13th, 2016
Quite a club of head coaches won their first Bucs game
With this star-crossed history of the Bucs franchise, a coach winning his first game leading the team is often a harbinger of disaster.
Of course, a win is a good thing. No question.
But when the Bucs beat the Dixie Chicks Sunday, it was Koetter’s first win as head coach. Consider the group of Bucs coaches past he joined, those who also won their first game coaching Tampa Bay:
Greg Schiano
Sam Wyche
Richard Williamson
Ray Perkins
Well, those four guys aren’t exactly Chuck Noll, Tom Landry, Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs, although Wyche did have success prior to the Bucs.
Here is why Koetter should (will?) be different: Schaino was stuck with leaky, sleepy Josh Freeman. Wyche was eventually stuck with Trent Dilfer. Perkins and Williamson had Vinny Testaverde.
None of those four will ever be as good as America’s Quarterback, Pro Bowler Jameis Winston.
September 13th, 2016 at 8:08 am
Coach Schiano was also under one of the worst Buc’s GMs of all Time!!! Mark Dominik!!!! I cannot say if Coach Schiano was good of bad because of how bad dominik was!!! With all the wasted money, All the draft picks that were extremely high, and his changing philosophy from year to year, there was never a chance!!!! No GM had more resources and wasted the majority of it!!!!!
And I will tell you this Buc Fans!!!!! I am not going to compare this regime!!! And I am not looking back to the golden days!!!! and After 1 win I am not predicting Superbowls!!! Let it happen and watch it grow and come together!!! Don’t plant a 2 foot tree and expect fruit and get angry when it is not there this year!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!
September 13th, 2016 at 8:15 am
And Belicheat has Tom Brady. Landry had Staubach. Great coaches need great players. Not putting Koetter in their category, just sayin.
I feel good about Koetter. As a rookie head coach, and in the normal order of being a human being, I think he will still make a few less than perfect decisions. But he has a great player at QB and I think he knows what he is doing
Look for great things this season!!
September 13th, 2016 at 8:16 am
There’s a different vibe to this team then those in the past, maybe it’s all the young talent infused into this team along with the confidence and star players playing like stars, but most of all its #3. He is the big difference. We’ve never had a guy like this before, he is the ultimate leader and is just what this franchise desprately needed. As this team grows and continues to hit on talent thru the draft they will be a force to reckon with and go back to the days where Ray Jay is sold out every home game and bringing back playoff football to Tampa. This team is gonna be special, I can feel it.
September 13th, 2016 at 8:27 am
You won’t find answers in the tea leaves. Some teams have good teams year after year…good drafts, good coaching, and a great QB. Would you have preferred to lose the first game for the sake of tea leave predictions? Ridiculous!
September 13th, 2016 at 8:29 am
To answer your question, YES! Wins are good.
September 13th, 2016 at 8:35 am
🙌🙌🙌round of applause for your 2016 coach of year Dirk Koetter. Realist!!! You tell us everyday he’s more competent then the last guy. If you truly believe that it shouldn’t be out of the realm of possible that he’ll notice the same thing Bill Belichek noticed when facing the cards over the weekend. And that was that rookie corner on the opposite side of Patrick Peterson that They kept attacking.
September 13th, 2016 at 8:41 am
worst headline in a while, joe
Great to see you have a sense of humor. –Joe
September 13th, 2016 at 8:46 am
Nole on Sat , I noticed that too! We can honestly win that game, as long as the offense doesn’t stall & the defense continues to gel. Did you guys see AARON DONALD get thrown out of the game last night? It felt good to watch him lose it in that blowout but real revenge will come in a few weeks when we annihilate the them at home.
September 13th, 2016 at 8:49 am
It’s funny how the Schiana apologists who harp on how important coaching is to winning and is the BIGGEST reason the Bucs sucked under Lovie but yet now blame Dominik for why they sucked then. These same apologists backed Koetter and his staff before he had ever coached an NFL team in a “real” game. From the looks of it the proof is in the pudding that Koetter and this staff have made the difference on the team. The same goes for Schiana and his teams, they sucked almost as bad as Lovies did so he did suck as a coach. Teams go as their coaches go. Good coaches coach around the weaknesses of their teams. Schiana like Lovie never did.
I’ve never been a Koetter basher because I saw the light at the end of the tunnel because of what he did with the offense in just one season but I wanted to see more to believe. I’ve seen enough to believe in him. He and Licht are going to go down as the best duo in team history in wins playoff and Superbowl appearances.
September 13th, 2016 at 8:51 am
The short answer: YES!
September 13th, 2016 at 9:10 am
@Realist
I’m not going to defend Dominik…that seems to be Joe’s job.
But I wouldn’t defend Schiano either. He was a college coach at a second tier program with moderate success. THAT’S IT!
Schiano blew at least two games I can remember with his dare I say it…”Lovie like” defensive play not to lose….Seattle and N.O. come to mind.
But in defense of all of them again we can’t overstate what the purchase of ManU did to our team during those years. It wasn’t just hiring Dom instead of a more experienced GM…or a kid to coach in Rah…or a slightly better than average college coach from a second tier program…or a training staff that signed off on Nicks…MRSA in the locker room.
IMHO ALL of those guys were in over their heads and then you add the financial constraints and temporary lack of interest from the owners and it was the perfect storm.
But thankfully the storm has passed…we’ve finally cleaned up the mess and it’s all good going forward. We have the key ingredients…great GM…excellent coach..and of course…a GREAT QB. We covered the 3 most important areas.
September 13th, 2016 at 9:40 am
Well, since Leeman Bennett and Lovie Smith aren’t on that list I’ll take it!
September 13th, 2016 at 10:09 am
So if he lost would you have posted an article about comparing him to Gruden and Dungy?
Winning is never a bad thing especially when you lose as much as the Bucs
September 13th, 2016 at 10:15 am
SB Bucs squad lost to the Aints in OT in the first regular season. They finished 12-4 before demolishing everyone in post season. Ray Perkins was turning the team around, but he had to fight Culvercrapo. You know the loser there. We actually had Steve Young, yes, HOFamer QB Young on our roster. This was during the Bucs Dark Ages where they set the NFL record for losing which still stands, BTW! What impressed me is that the Offense won this game Sunday. They put up the 31 points, not the Defense. Put that one in your pipe and smoke it! 🙂 Go Mighty Bucs!!
September 13th, 2016 at 11:13 am
Its important not to..pee in your pants like Buc Realist here. Its only one win guys. This is 1st of 1 installments. Nice start to the season. But don’t kid yourselves, Arizona is gonna be super tough. They are mad about losing their 1st game and have ben called out by the coaches and media there. Expect a real tough game there in Glendale, Az. That stadium is twice as loud as ATL’s. And they sellout virtually every game. The Cardinals are not like the falcons Buc fans, They actually get stronger in the 4th qtr. a 2 TD lead is nothing against them. Bucs are gonna have to play..lightsout football to win there. And yes, it can be done. Just don’t know if it will be.
September 13th, 2016 at 11:14 am
meant 1st of 16 installments.
September 13th, 2016 at 2:55 pm
Superstition isn’t worthy of an article.
September 13th, 2016 at 4:58 pm
Can’t compare. The difference for any “great” coach since snout 1970 is whether or not he has a franchise QB. If not, he’s an average to good coach.
September 13th, 2016 at 7:46 pm
Anything can and does happen. The Cardinals are good bad and peed off. The Bucs are road warriors. Man, the built up anticipation for this game is intense.