Dirk Koetter has free reign with the Buccaneers

Lovie Smith has a history of producing awful offense after awful offense, but that isn't really his fault. Or rather, it's not directly his fault: Smith hires offensive coordinators and then gives them (nearly) free reign to implement their system and gather their players. He's just done a terrible job of choosing his coordinators over the years: Terry Shea, Ron Turner, outdated Mike Martz, Mike Tice, and struck-by-illness Jeff Tedford.

This year, though, things are supposed to be different. Smith finally found a coordinator with a long history of success with a variety of quarterbacks in Dirk Koetter. He's found someone who should be able to successfully implement a system and actually get some things done. Perhaps the personnel won't be completely suited to Koetter's scheme yet, but that's something he should be able to work around.

And according to Evan Smith, Koetter has all the freedom he needs. The center went on Sirius XM with Pat Kirwan and Jim Miller, and JoeBucsFan helpfully transcribed some of the audio. "That's really your head coach when it comes to that group," Smith said. "It's his show. He wants it run the way he wants it. On top of that, he's just a great coach."

Of course, "that's really your head coach" also says something about last year's offense: it was coach-less. A quarterbacks coach with no pro experience was thrown into the role of offensive coordinator in the middle of the preseason. That's not a problem the Bucs will have this year. Or at least, we hope not.