Buccaneers: Grading Dirk Koetter Halfway Through Year One

A Mediocre Product: C

The only fair way to grade a coach is by what he’s put on the field, and Dirk Koetter’s grade of “C” reflects the mediocre football team he’s coaching. After a Thursday night blowout loss to Atlanta, the Bucs sit at 3-5, and calling them mediocre seems generous. They’re as bad or worse in many of the same departments that they struggled in last season, and the promise of improvement has fallen flat.

Penalties are still a problem but the personal fouls that haunted the Bucs last season have mostly been cleaned up. Koetter has struggled with when to challenge, as well as when to decline penalties.

For the most part Koetter is working with a lot of the same players from last year’s team, and he’s failed so far to significantly improve the team. In fairness to Koetter, the Bucs have been hit pretty hard by the injury bug. The offense has declined since last season, but much of that has to do with injury to Doug Martin and the unexpected decline of Vincent Jackson.

Overall there’s no reason to worry about Koetter yet. He’s learning on the fly and most first time head coaches struggle in the early goings with clock management.