When a team is 1-3 there is obviously room for improvement. Despite having a chance to win all three games that resulted in loses, the thin margin of error may be attributed to fundamentals – or at times – a lack thereof.

The Buccaneers are preparing for their four-day bye week break, but before head coach Greg Schiano releases his players for the mini-vacation beginning Thursday, Tampa Bay is spending this week getting back to the basics.

Defensive tackle Gerald McCoy spoke with the media during the open locker room period and talked about what Tampa Bay is trying to accomplish before beginning their preparation for Kansas City next week.

“Really, what we’re trying to do, without getting specific, is get back to the basics,” McCoy said. “Our first quarter report, we saw a few things we need to fix and basically we just need to get back to the basics, things we started doing in the spring, how we cap off, how we started camp off with our fundamental drills, you know, just taking time. When you don’t have an opponent waiting on you in four days, you can get back to working on things without feeling rushed, so that’s kind of what we’re doing.”

The loss to the Redskins was particularly stinging for McCoy, who told PewterReport.com following the game on Sunday, that being on the field as a defense, with a chance to close out a game, is what his unit thrives on.

On Tuesday McCoy said as difficult as it was, the team has moved on.

“We treat everything like a one-game season and that season made me extremely angry,” McCoy said. “But it’s a 24-hour window. After that season comes you get 24 hours to deal with it and that 24 hours is over, and we’re moving on and trying to get better. The Washington season is behind us, so all we can worry about is the present and what we’re doing right now.
 
McCoy told the media he likes Schiano’s each game is a season approach.

“We go by seasons, each game is a season, but we also go by quarters and after evaluating our first quarter report we seen some things we were good at and some things we were not so good at,” McCoy said.

“Basically we’re taking this time to get back to fundamentals because during the week, a game week, all you can do is focus on your opponent and prepare. Well, now we can focus on what we need to do and get back to fixing our little things, instead of focusing on the big things when you face an opponent, it’s this scheme, that scheme. What we’re doing now is focusing on the little things we have to get right.”

Despite the three tough losses – which easily could have gone the other way – McCoy says he is seeing lots of positive signs.

“You know what’s great about this team is everyone is so encouraged,” McCoy said. No one is like, down. You can see by looking around you, it’s not like people don’t care, because if you can see our faces after the game, we care. 

“But we have that 24-hour window to care where we’re like, ‘oh we could have done this, we did that, we didn’t do this.’ It’s over now and now it’s back to being positive and building energy each week.

“I said at the beginning of the year, our energy has to go up each week. Well, we’re going into a bye week but these three days we have to prepare for Kansas City and we’re going at it full steam ahead. Whatever is behind us, it’s behind us. That’s the key point.”