After a nice day off on Sunday, it was back out in the summer sun for the Buccaneers on Monday, and the defense looked ready and focused after their day of rest.

For starters, the Bucs opened up practice in a 1-minute drill where all three offensive units had to get the ball in the end zone with no timeouts. The defense held firm on all three occasions, yielding zero points throughout the drill.

A big reason for that was due to the disruption on the pocket by the Bucs’ nickel rush.

When they go into their nickel defense in obvious passing situations, the Bucs use a lineup of Vinny Curry and Noah Spence as defensive ends with Gerald McCoy and Jason Pierre-Paul as the defensive tackles. Of that group, Spence was the standout.

Spence beat left tackle Donovan Smith for what would have been a sack during the scrimmage portion of practice and did so again when the team broke into one-on-one drills.

Spence has looked good over the last week. If the Bucs can get him to be a key rotational pass rusher — even just have him be healthy in general — that will be one big step in the right direction from righting last year’s wrongs on defense.

Though we’d say the defense had a pretty good day overall, the play of the day came from one of their stars, linebacker Lavonte David.

David has a knack for making plays on the balls, and that doesn’t just come out of nowhere. It comes from always looking for the opportunity to get a turnover; that’s in games and in practices.

It seems subtle, but plays like that are why David is one of the best in the business.

To wrap things up for us, we’d like to point out that Vita Vea has things unwrapped. Vea was seen no longer wearing the walking boot he had last week. That’s a great sign towards him returning to the field after his calf injury.