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It was announced yesterday that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have a coach dedicated to in-game situations next year. His name is Andrew Weidinger. He will be in charge of helping Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter know when to go for it on 4th down, when to use timeouts, etc. I think this is a brilliant decision. The head coach is responsible for so much during the course of an NFL game. It is impossible for him to know the percentages on every single thing that comes up. Having a math guy on the sideline that is familiar with all of this stuff is really smart.
It would be a really good idea for Mike Mularkey to do the same thing. While he is not Ken Whisenhunt bad at managing in game situations, no one in football on any level is that bad, Mularkey is an old school guy who doesn't seem to care about metrics.
Now, I am not saying there is no place for using your gut to go against the percentages from time to time, but your gut shouldn't be the only thing that guides you when making in-game decisions...especially if your gut is wrong more times than not....
I applaud Koetter and the Bucs for making this hire. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.