The Buccaneers are in the final stages of their offseason programs and first-year head coach Dirk Koetter, believes the team is pointed in the right direction. Jameis Winston is entering into his second year, and is continuing to grow as a leader and is making significant improvements in his talents. Coach cannot be happier. “Jameis can handle a lot and does handle a lot every day. He can handle more than we’re giving him. But compared to last year at this time, he knows way, way more, and also if you remember a year ago at this time, he was probably throwing three or four interceptions every single day. You saw even when things broke down, Jameis pulled the ball down and ran. That’s one thing we’ve been working hard on.”
Jameis Winston is excited about this year’s coaching staff and talks about how the drills had differed from last year to this year and believes it’s going to make the Bucs better, especially, on the defensive side of the ball. “Our goal is to get better every single day. You’re going to have some mistakes here and there but as teammates, we’re going to bounce back. We saw more standard looks last year, but now they are mixing everything up. It makes us better. It’s good that we see all of these different looks, and hopefully, we’ll see them confuse a lot of other quarterbacks this year.”
Dirk Koetter was the offensive coordinator last season, and he was calling all the plays for Jameis Winston. Coach plans on doing the same this year as last year’s play calling helped Jameis amass 4,042 yards through the air and 22 touchdowns. Koetter and Winston both, hope for more of the same, if not better, in 2016.
Austin Seferian-Jenkins returns to the field, following coach’s ordering of him to leave the field during OTA’s, last week. ASJ admits he was not prepared for practice that day, and that coach was right in making him leave the lineup. “There’s a certain standard here at One Buc that needs to be upheld and I didn’t uphold my end of the bargain. I was asked to leave and I left, and it completely falls on my shoulders for not being prepared to do what I need to be doing. It’s a learning process and I’m ready. I’m excited to get back to work and put this behind me. What happened was not OK, and it won’t happen again.”
Dirk Koetter stated the day of the incident for people not to make more out of it than it really was, in the hope of deterring what eventually became the Twitter Fiasco. Coach also believes that ASJ does not have to explain anything and that people should just let it go. “He doesn’t have to explain it. What happened happened, and he said what he said, and we’re practicing again. That’s that.”
Now that the situation is over, everyone can continue focusing on football, and prepare for the upcoming season, and what is to hopefully become a winning season and a trip to the playoffs. What a welcomed sight that would be for all of us Bucs fans.