Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter addressed the media following Friday’s warm practice at One Buc. Below is the full transcript of what he said.

(On what makes Ryan Fitzpatrick well suited for this role at this stage of his career)
“I just think Ryan’s a good football player at any stage of his career. My first exposure to Ryan after high school was I was in Jacksonville, and we played him when he was in Cincinnati. I’ve just always watched him, I think he’s got the right moxie to play quarterback. He’s done it for a bunch of teams and we’re fortunate to have him. We saw what he did with us last year, so there’s no reason to be afraid of Ryan being quarterback for us, he’s going to play fine.”

(On Fitzpatrick’s arm strength being alright)
“Did you see him throw that 60-yarder to DeSean? I mean, number 1, arm strength is relative. Can you complete the passes that you’re supposed to complete? That’s arm strength. His arm strength is fine.”

(On what Ronald Jones can do for this offense with his playmaking ability:
“Every team is looking for a back who can hit a home run. You get the ball on the 25-yard and you can change it all in one play. Again, when I was in Jacksonville Fred Taylor had an unbelievable amount of runs over 50 yards, my first year in the league. You know that’s turning those 2-3 yard gains into explosive plays. You guys have well publicized where we ranked in explosive runs last year and it was low. But as a team we think we were 7^th in the league in explosive plays, but all those came through the passing game so, Ronald Jones based on his college tape is a very explosive player. And that’s why he was drafted where he is. When we get going in pads and the preseason, that’s what we want him to bring to our team.”

(On needing more balance on offense)
Of course, of course we need more balance. In a perfect world on run plays 1^st and 10 and than 2^nd and 1 to 6 you get 50-50 balance. Every D-coordinator in the league will tell you that the toughest thing in the league to defend is balance. But you can’t beat your head against the wall, if one thing’s not working, we do have extremely talented guys in the pass game and then you got to bring time to scoring.”

(On the use of RPO’s with Fitzpatrick now at quarterback)
“I think RPO’s will be a bigger part of the league this year. Whether it’s a part of our offense remains to be seen. By the tine we get down to the New Orleans game, everything we do in the New Orleans game, we’ll feel good about Ryan Fitzpatrick doing.”

(On teammate’s responding to Ryan Fitzpatrick’s leadership)
“Well Ryan’s a really good leader too. He’s just a different type of leader. If you’ve been around people you know that not all leaders are the same throughout history. Jameis is a vocal leader; Ryan is a little bit less of a vocal leader but still a good leader nonetheless. I think his style will show up, when a backup quarterback and veteran is brought to a new team he’s told that he’s going to be the backup and support the starter. That’s not the case right now, I think the players we’ll feel and see what I saw when I watched Ryan back in the day.”

(On if Fitzpatrick is ahead of the curve because in played in games for the Bucs last year)
“Yeah a lot. As I said yesterday we’re blessed to have three quarterbacks who know the system. We’re not trying to train a guy, and he’s played games in our system, Ryan played a lot of games in a ton of different systems. We’re not going to miss a beat with Ryan at quarterback. I don’t know if you all are worried about that but I’m certainly not.”

(On if he game plans on spreading the ball to multiple playmakers)

“You really can’t do that because the defense controls who gets the ball in the passing game. The only guy you can guarantee to get the ball is the running back. We’re thrilled with everyone that we have but we’re not going to script anything like that.”

(On the receivers and competition)
“Yes we have depth and were going to have competition especially at the backend at the roster. I mean there’s 2 or 3 guys sitting there at the back end of the roster that I would love to have on the football team, but I don’t know how they’re going to make it. Usually through the course of preseason that works itself out.”

(On how Winston has lead from behind the scenes)
“As I mentioned yesterday, you guys see Jameis out there being loud in front of the team. There’s 24 hours in a day and Jameis is an incredible teammate. You don’t see what he says to guys one on one. He’s a motivating guy, he was already doing that. As we sit right now we have other leaders on this team and we need those guys to be a little bit more vocal and be a little bit more out front, because we’re going to need those guys to be the out front guys for the first three games until things change.”

(On if he see’s how the defensive line is operating a little different with some of the new pieces)
“We got to wait for them to play together, but I’ve been watching a ton of Eagles film since we’re playing them in the second game. So to see Vinny and Beau on tape in their Eagles uniforms and JPP, we’ve played the Giants when he’s been out there, and Vita of course college tape. How they work together and how that group meshes, that’s going to take a little bit of time, plus we got good depth, and different combinations. That’s going to take some time, but depth wise, talent wise, skill wise, we got a good group right there.”

(On Demar Dotson and the offensive line)
“Dot’s been cleared to practice. Right now we’re holding him out of 11 on 11 just as he eases back in. He’s missed OTA’s so we’re easing him back in. When we go 11 on 11 and we try to stay on our feet, there’s bodies on the ground. Part of coming back from an injury is getting your confidence back. But we expect to see everything from Dot in the upcoming days.”

(On Jordan Whitehead and Justin Watson)
“Both are two guys that we wanted to see more of in OTA’s but we couldn’t. So it wouldn’t be fair for me to comment on them because I haven’t seen enough of them right now. We’re glad they’re here but they got some catching up to do.”

(On working outside)
“The space is the main thing so we can all spread out. If you’re watching those d-line drills with the heavy sleds and the o-line drills with the heavy sleds, we don’t have room for those and their hard to move inside. It’s just the thing with having 90 players and putting all of them on one field, it’s tight, and more risk of guys running into each other. It’s great to be on the grass, we have an awesome indoor facility, and we’re going to use both.”