Buccaneers fire Head Coach Dirk Koetter

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have fired head coach Dirk Koetter after the team’s second consecutive losing season and will now be looking for their 6th head coach in the last 12 years. The news was reported first by ESPN’s Adam Schefter;

Dirk Koetter was with the team for a total of four years, but was only the head coach for three. In 2015, he was the team’s offensive coordinator under former head coach Lovie Smith, but was eventually promoted to head coach after the firing of Lovie.

During his three year tenure as head coach in Tampa Bay, Koetter went 19-29, but the last two seasons have been huge disappointments, especially with the expectations that the team had coming into the last two years. Coming off of back to back 5-11 years, the Glazer family finally ran out of patience and decided to cut ties.

Outside of a five game winning streak back in 2016, which was largely a result of Keith Tandy playing out of his mind, Koetter could never really gain any momentum as the man in charge in Tampa Bay.

A motto for the Buccaneers under Koetter could be “too little too late”. We often saw late game comebacks fall short way too many times, we saw the firing of Mike Smith happen too late and we saw constant coaching adjustments happen way too late.

The only positive that Koetter brought to this Tampa Bay team was record setting offensive numbers for the franchise.

During his time in Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers offense ranked fifth, 18th, ninth and third in the league, but relied heavily on a down the field passing attack that led to many costly turnovers by whichever quarterback was playing the position.

The Glazer family will once again look to hire the right guy for the job in hopes of turning this franchise around and leading the Buccaneers back to the playoffs for the first time in over a decade.

Here is the statement from Joel Glazer, regarding the firing;

“We sincerely appreciate the hard work and commitment shown by Dirk over the past several years. Working with Dirk has been a pleasure and we wish him and his family all the best in the future. Our search for a new head coach will begin immediately and will be conducted by General Manager Jason Licht.”

Per Schefter, the Bucs and Licht will have a search firm assisting them with the head coach hire.