This offseason the Buccaneers became the first NFL team to bring two full-time female coaches onto their staff. Lori Locust, Tampa Bay’s new assistant defensive line coach, spoke to the Tampa media for the first time on Wednesday.

“Obviously I’m thrilled to be here,” Locust said. “It’s a blessing, it’s an amazing opportunity and everything’s been going well.”

She talked about how the process of joining the rest of the staff as a female assistant, how she’s fit into the staff and what’s facilitated the move being such a relatively easy transition for her.

Locust’s position with the Bucs is her first opportunity as a full-time assistant in the NFL but she joins the team on the heels of multiple stops with professional staffs, first as a defensive coaching intern with the Baltimore Ravens before joining the Alliance of American Football’s Birmingham Iron as the team’s defensive line coach.

She spoke about how those experiences have impacted her as a coach and prepared her for working in the NFL.

Locust is also joining a staff that enters the 2019 season with high expectations based on the resume’s of coaches like Bruce Arians and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, but also with some added pressure due to a losing culture – for lack of a better word – that has developed over the last decade or so, as the Bucs have failed to reach the playoffs since 2007.

Some of the preliminary changes within the organization include an overhauled group of coaches and a larger training staff.

Now as voluntary workouts progress and the team begins to move closer to OTA’s and training camp, Locust talks about the aspects of being a coach at the professional level, what she believes she does well and what kind of coach she sees herself as and what kind of coach she strives to be for the players.