TAMPA -- It's official. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have cut their kicker following a three-game losing streak.
ESPN was first to report that the Bucs had cut Chandler Catanzaro, but head coach Dirk Koetter denied the claim during his weekly news conference.
Koetter said the team worked out kickers a few weeks ago, and he believed Jason Licht was in the process of getting in touch with those guys.
Hours later, the team officially announced it had parted ways with the 6'3" 27-year-old kicker. This comes just one day after he missed field goals of 30 and 48 yards in a 16-3 loss to the Washington Redskins.
The team currently does not have a replacement kicker.
Koetter also addressed the team's struggles during his news conference.
"Well, turnovers are killing us right now. We're minus-19, we're last in the league, 13 in the last four games, 13 turnovers and no takeaways. That's by far the number-one thing that's hurting our team," Koetter said. "[We] have talked about it many times – every turnover has its own story. If there was one thing to it, it would be easy to fix. As a team, we're turning it over too much and not getting any takeaways on the other side."
Koetter also seemed to suggest that quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick will be the starter on Sunday.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen past Wednesday’s practice, so if I had my crystal ball, I’d whip it out. You asked me who’s going to be the started this week and Fitz is going to be the starter. If at some point he isn’t, then Jameis [Winston] will be back in there," Koetter said.
He also gave his answer to the thought that the Bucs should be starting Winston to find out more about him before his fifth year.
"I understand that. I understand that, but we're right in there. It's just barely past the halfway point in the season and there's a lot of football to be played," Koetter said. "Just as a follow-up to the question you just asked, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that we can turn this thing and get on a little bit of a win streak. We've got to play better football more consistently across the board. Our defense took a nice step in that direction yesterday. I still think if we can put it together on both sides of the ball we'll be alright."
