According to Rotoworld, Dirk Koetter is currently ranked as a 3rd tier coach. If you take a close look at the rankings, he is actually next to last among coaches that were retained from the 2017 season, only beating Hue Jackson from the Browns (and 7 other newly hired head coaches who are unranked). Names like Todd Bowels, Vance Joseph, and Jay Gruden are supposedly better coaches than Koetter. While Koetter’s second year out of the gate left much to be desired, designating him to effectively only out rank the lowly Browns coach should make Koetter feel insulted.
Last year, RotoWorld had Koetter ranked 17th among NFL head coaches, which seemed to be a fairly accurate depiction of where he lifted the franchise after two previous underwhelming seasons from Lovie Smith. Ranking him next to last this time around (excluding new hires), is an unfair assessment. The team this past year was ravished by injuries on both sides of the ball, and struggled under a poorly executed defensive game plan. One could argue that the only reason the Bucs record wasn’t worse was because of an offense that was producing well, all things considered, late in the season.
There are multiple things Koetter can improve upon. Such as game time management, proactively managing your coaching staff, and overall knowing what key calls to make that change the entire game and when to make them; just to name a few. That said, Koetter is not a bottom tier coach and he has the 2018 season to prove it.
Written By Tony Rossi – Edited By Morgan Adele
