George Díaz: Bucs count on Jameis-Koetter for future.
Late TD pass rallies Bucs past playoff-bound Saints in season finale, C8
And so we close out 2017 with another holiday tradition: The Tampa Bay Bucs are out of the playoffs.
The last time they were invited was in the 2007 season, and it was a cameo deal, a one-and-done wildcard loss to the New York Giants.
Bucs fans have suffered through a great deal of incompetence and bungled personnel moves from the Greg Schiano hire to the waste of a first-round pick in Josh Freeman in 2009 to a simple thing like botching a layup in finding a competent kicker (see Roberto Aguayo, Nick Folk, 2017 season). But hey, there is hope! The Buccaneers have stability going for them. Dirk Koetter will return for a third season in 2018 and Jameis Winston will be back for his fourth season as he continues to develop into a franchise quarterback. Or there’s this: The Bucs have more misery in store for them. Koetter gets an unmerited reprieve after his abysmal
failure in 2017, and Winston will return for his fourth season despite regressing in his development and maturity as a team leader (see “eating a W” video clip, and recent allegations of inappropriate behavior with an Uber driver).
I honestly have no way of handicapping the likelihood of either scenario, and I don’t know if the Bucs do either.
The sunny-side perspective/dark-side perspective came into play on the last Sunday of the regular season when Winston led the Bucs to a dramatic 31-24 victory against the NFC South champion New Orleans Saints on the last drive, throwing a TD to Chris Godwin with nine seconds left.
But he also threw three interceptions against the Saints, including one bad underthrow and a put-it-upfor-grabs deal in the end zone. Both were atrocious throws and reflects Winston’s delayed development into anything that resembles an elite quarterback.
Despite the continued hiccups, it makes sense to build continuity with a franchise that is employing its fourth coach since Jon Gruden was fired in 2008. A potential return of “Chucky” has been all the rage on the Interwebs of late until published reports came out this week indicating that the Glazer family is sticking with Koetter. Jameis, too.
In essence they each get a mulligan. With Winston missing three games with a sprained AC joint in his throwing shoulder, Koetter has not only missed his franchise QB but other bits and pieces like a bad running game and a defense that has regressed into one of the worst in the league.
Now that Gruden isn’t in line to lead a Bucs resurgence — hold on though, the Raiders are on Line One — this presumes everything is fixable internally.
It will have to be because there is no Plan B.
Koetter and Jameis are tethered at the hip. Koetter was his offensive coordinator in Winston’s rookie season, and Bucs’ management obviously thinks that he remains the best choice to steward Winston’s potential rise as an elite quarterback.
But first, Winston has some growing up to do. From his silly antics of putting his hands across his mouth and “eating a W” in New Orleans to more troublesome issues that includes allegations of groping a female Uber driver in Arizona in 2016.
“There is a lot to put on a guy’s plate that can paralyze you if you are not careful [with] a young quarterback,” offensive coordinator Todd Monken said. “It can. You’ve got the weight of a franchise that is dying to win, and it is put on him a lot and having to fight through all of that.”
One thing is certain: Koetter will be out of mulligans, and Winston may only have one left in his playbook.
The Bucs were tagged as a potential Super Bowl contender in late summer and flaunted their cockiness on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” series. The best thing they can do is never look back.
It’s been a lost year. It’s time to regroup in 2018.
Patience and goodwill are no longer commodities working in favor of Koetter and Winston moving forward.