Koetter downplays Catanzaro’s early success

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have not been able to find a consistent kicker since the team had Matt Bryant from 2005-2008. At 42 years old, he continues to dominate and seems to be only getting better with age. Tampa Bay has gone through Connor Barth, Nick Folk, Pat Murray and Roberto Aguayo, the former second round pick.

It really seems that since the departure of Matt Bryant, there’s been a kicking curse over the sky of One Buc Place. This offseason, the team signed free agent Chandler Catanzaro to a three-year $9.75 million dollar deal and hope that he will be a step in solving the mystery.

So far so good for the Bucs new kicker as he has hit 9 of 10 field goals during OTA’s, but as we all know, the kickers have to consistently make these kicks during the game.

“We’ve seen 10 kicks and he’s made nine of them, I think. Again, it’s just like anything else. Three days in shorts and Chandler has kicked twice,” Head Coach Dirk Koetter said. “We like Chandler, we think he’s a good fit here, but time will tell.”

I like that Koetter isn’t jumping the gun on Catanzaro. Kickers have cost the Buccaneers far too many games in recent years, so I think Koetter will be at ease once Catanzaro proves he can make the kicks that actually matter in the game.