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The Buccaneers aren’t getting much love when it comes to 2018 projections.
Tampa Bay had many issues all over the football field during the 2017 football season. While the issues on the defensive side of the ball were more obvious, some of the collective problems stemmed from bad coaching.
Lots of those problems included the inability to position cornerbacks properly on the field, ineffective assignments for the defensive line resulting in a poor pass rush, and horrible red zone play management. Issues like those resulted in a 5-11 record which prompted Bleacher Report to rank the Bucs coaching staff 30th in the league.
Koetter took over as Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator in 2015, and that unit went on to rank 20th in scoring. He was then promoted to head coach, and they’ve ranked 18th in each of the last two seasons. Save for a five-game hot streak in the second half of the 2016 season, Koetter has gone 9-18 as head coach of a relatively talented team.
His seat should be on fire.
Monken doesn’t look any better considering that the last two seasons were his first as an NFL offensive coordinator. Smith has experience, but his defenses have ranked in the bottom 10 in each of his two campaigns with the team.
This staff isn’t the answer in Tampa.
The coaching staff has already hinted to some changes for the 2018 season. Promoting Monken to offensive coordinator can hopefully provide better outcomes in offensive gameplanning. The addition of defensive line coach Brentson Buckner will also help along with the acquisitions on that side of the ball.
However, if the coaches continue putting players in positions to fail, then there will be changes — especially for the defensive coaches.