You’d figure that Thursdays around One Buc Place would be the down day. Middle of the practice schedule; already got the big questions out of the way the day before; final injury report doesn’t come out until Friday. However, this Thursday certainly had its events and quotes that were remembered – good and bad.

These were the four things we learned from One Buc on Thursday.

Monken Talks Offense

Bucs offensive coordinator Todd Monken is always a good chat. He’s genuine when he’s asked questions and how he answers them, and though he won’t tell you “everything,” as coaches shouldn’t, he gives you everything he can.

Today he was asked about O.J. Howard in particular. The question posed to him was Howard got six targets in the Buffalo game alone and yet has only four targets total since then in the last three games. Is Howard just a mismatch player? A forgotten man?

Monken’s answer was no, Howard is not a forgotten man. He said they do use Howard as a mismatch depending on the opponent, but then reminded us that there is only one ball to go around. If some of their other feature guys have good matchups, that’s where they look first. He said they’re not afraid to use him or anything like that.

Fitzpatrick “One Of The Guys” Again

Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick got the starting nod for the first time when he replaced the injured Jameis Winston last week against the Jets.

Fitzpatrick was asked what it was like waking up the next day after playing a full game. He smiled and said he was sore, but it was a good sore – we’re sure the win helped that, too. He also said he felt like one of the guys again, and that was a really cool quote to hear from a guy who told us last week how much he realized he would have missed the game had he retired this past offseason.

Robert Ayers Is On To The Next One

Play time is over. That was the tone from defensive end Robert Ayers in the locker room on Thursday.

When asked about how it felt finally getting a win last week against the Jets, Ayers basically said that it didn’t matter, or that it only matters if they get the next one and the next one after that. He basically said that the time to celebrate individual wins is over. Either they go on a run or they won’t make it.

Quickdraw Koetter

This probably shouldn’t be in a “what we learned” recap article because we already knew this, but head coach Dirk Koetter doesn’t like the media. It’s not that he doesn’t like any of us personally, but you can just tell he’s sometimes short with what he says, he gets tired of answering questions every day, and frankly gets tired of doing media availabilities altogether. He doesn’t like dealing with us as a head coach.

If there was any doubt about that, Koetter’s actions on Thursday put those to rest.

Koetter was scheduled to have his daily press conference at 3:00 p.m. following practice. At 2:40 p.m., the Buccaneers’ PR team came into the media room and told us that practice had ended early and that we should head over to the press conference room because Koetter’s availability would be right after he walked off the field.

Normally, even when that announcement is given, you have about 3-5 minutes to get into the room before who ever is coming to speak gets up there. But, today Koetter came into the room about 90 second after we were told practice was ending early. Not everyone in the media had made their way over yet due to the fact that practice ended early and due to the fact that he was so quick to the room. As people were filing it and the crow was still slim, Koetter took to the podium and said “guess someone else has to start it off,” as reporters like Roy Cummings, Rick Stroud and Jenna Laine, the ones who usually ask the opening questions, hadn’t made their way in yet. Koetter gave a window of about seven to 10 second after saying that when no one spoke up (as people were still filing in) and said, “OK” and then walked of the stage.

Should someone else have just asked a question whether or not everyone was there yet? Yes.

Should Koetter have showed more than 15 second of patience for the rest of the media to file in? Yes.

We should have all been there and Koetter should have stuck around, but wherever the blame goes, regardless, it’s not a good look for a head coach of a 3-6 team to bail on any media availability at the first moment he can.