Lovie Smith hasn’t said much about his himself, but Buccaneers defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier said he was fine with his head coach taking over defensive play-calling duties.
Smith made the change this offseason, cutting the coordinator out of the loop on calling plays in favor of doing it himself. He might have done it sooner, but being left without an offensive coordinator last year forced Smith to spend more time on that side of the ball.
"[Lovie] is going to be heavily involved as he’s always been with our defense, and he’s going to do the majority of the defensive play-calling,” Frazier said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “It really doesn’t change my role from a year ago, it really doesn’t. My role is to come in and help our defense and help them prepare for every ball game and help our team win. It really doesn’t change anything I have to get done.”
Frazier’s defense was 25th in the league last year, so some degree of change was justified. But as much as he says he’s fine with it, any time a head coach has to bigfoot one of his coordinators, it’s seldom a good sign.
“I’m excited for it,” Frazier said. “I think with his background and the defense we installed is the one he ran in Chicago, so it should be good for our defense, good for our team. I think we’re all looking forward to build on the momentum from this offseason and also what happened in that ball game Monday night.”
The Bucs did show better the last time out, forcing three turnovers. So Frazier has little choice but accept it, and do what he can to contribute.