Will less responsibility improve Dirk Koetter’s coaching?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers held press conferences earlier this week and head coach Dirk Koetter was the first up to the podium.

Aside from discussing the usual topics concerning the players, Koetter was asked about offensive coordinator Todd Monken’s new role on the team and how it will help the offense. Monken was given the full-time role of offensive coordinator earlier this year after serving as wide receivers coach the past two seasons.

Koetter went on to talk specifically about Monken’s ability to now coach all the players on offense instead of just the receivers, but it was his last few lines that caught my eye:

“Also, he does all of the scripting now. That’s something that I used to do or we used to break it up. Scripting is a big job, it’s a time consuming job. It’s important because you have to keep track of what we’re doing against what looks as the install goes. So, that’s a huge load off of my plate to either let me go sit in on other meetings or be working on something else.” - Dirk Koetter

Now obviously we don’t know what exactly “working on something else” means, but if you’re an optimist such as myself, you’d think it means he is trying to find ways to not only save his hide by improving the roster - but perhaps he is looking at ways to tailor his coaching as well?

Koetter’s coaching — namely his play-calling — was beyond subpar last season and it showed. Everyone in and outside of Tampa knew how talented this team was and bad play-calling certainly hampered their potential in 2017.

When head coaches relieve themselves of certain duties, a lot of times it serves as a major benefit to the team. The most recent example is Andy Reid and the Chiefs last year. Reid gave up his play-calling responsibilities to Matt Nagy and the Cheifs finished 4-1 in their last five games, while averaging 28.6 points and 412 yards per game.

The general feeling is that this move will in fact help the team. This isn’t near the same scenario as Reid and Nagy, but right now this line of thinking is trending up and the Bucs need to try anything to get their own arrow pointing in the right direction.

Reid and Nagy could be Koetter and Monken for Tampa Bay. Hopefully, Koetter taking fewer tasks will equal more wins in 2018.