Is Dirk Koetter’s job secure?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are looking toward the future, and seeing mostly good things. But, as a brief look at the team’s history could tell you, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Bucs will actually do well.

Catastrophes happen. Or just a combination of sustained bad play and bad luck, with an added dash of Hard Knocks to make things worse. The Bucs went 9-7 last year, but it wouldn’t necessarily take all that much for them to end this year going 4-12. After all, when Raheem Morris’ Bucs went 10-6 in 2010, they went 3-13 the next season.

That 2011 season ended with the firing of a head coach. So here’s my question: how safe is Dirk Koetter, really? The Bucs are obviously happy with his first year, but how happy will they be if everything collapses? If Mike Smith’s defensive innovations turn out to be a mess, and the lack of a running game stops the offense dead in its tracks?

Will the Bucs blame Koetter, and move on from him? Will they instead pin the blame on general manager Jason Licht who, after all, put this whole team together over the past three seasons.

The counterargument is that it’s really hard to build a quality team if you keep changing your philosophy every couple of years. The Glazers haven’t been particularly interested in that argument the past decade, though, firing a head coach roughly every two-and-a-half years. And giving people who keep failing an infinite amount of chances is not a great way to build a team, either. Firing a coach one year after a winning season, though, that seems a bit much.

Of course, we probably won’t have to worry about any of this. The Bucs have a good quarterback, they have talent at every position and everything looks to be heading in the right direction. So let’s hope we won’t have to confront this question come January.