Buccaneers coach Lovie Smith has a good track record for improving the defenses he coaches, and he expects to do it again this year.
“We’re going to be a good football team and in order to be a good football team we have to play great, not good, but great defense and I think we will,” Smith said, via WTSP.
Asking the Bucs’ defense to be great this year is a tall order, especially after releasing cornerback Darrelle Revis. But Smith rapidly turned around the last two defenses he inherited, in St. Louis in 2001 and in Chicago in 2004. And Smith has inherited some talented defensive players, especially linebacker Lavonte David and defensive tackle Gerald McCoy. In McCoy’s view, opposing offenses are going to find what the Bucs do frightening.
“It’s a great defense to play in and once everybody figures it out and have the ins and outs of it, it’s going to be scary,” McCoy said.
The Bucs have had a “great” and “scary” defense before, when they won the Super Bowl in 2002 -- which is the last time Tampa Bay won a postseason game. Getting back to that kind of defense would go a long way toward winning in the playoffs again.