Lovie Smith's timetable for better Bucs is short

Lovie Smith's timetable for better Bucs is short Tom Jones,    Times Sports Columnist Saturday, August 1, 2015 10:17pm“We have the same goals” as last year, Bucs coach Lovie Smith says: winning the opener, winning the NFC South and winning the Super Bowl. TAMPASixteen games. That's all it took.Sixteen games to use up all the mulligans Lovie Smith might have had when he took over as coach of the Bucs.Sixteen games to go from honeymoon to hot seat. That's the way it works in the NFL. That's the way it works when you take a bad team and somehow make it worse.That's what happens when you are the coach of officially the worst team in the NFL.So as Lovie enters his second season running the show in Tampa Bay, the narrative isn't so much about whether he can show signs that the Bucs are getting better. It's what will happen if he doesn't.The Bucs were so bad last season that the long timetable Smith might have originally had to turn this thing around is now a whole lot shorter.And Smith knows it. He knows the patience is up and the pressure is on."What do you think?" Smith said. "Of course, every coach feels that way. Every day I come to work, I don't take that for granted. It's about production. I realize that, but that's how I have lived my life. There should be pressure. If you feel like there is not any pressure on you, you are misguided."Lovie had quite the resume when he arrived here before last season. He won 56 percent of his games in nine seasons as the boss in Chicago. He took the Bears to two NFC title games. He took them to a Super Bowl. Pretty much everyone agreed that the Bucs made a great hire when they snagged a proven winner.No one expected immediate miracles.Most of us knew it would take time to fix the mess left behind by Greg Schiano and Raheem Morris. Knowing that, you figured a respected coach with Smith's experience and success would have some leeway to take a lousy team like the Bucs and make it competitive.That certainly was the feeling in these parts a year ago. No one thought the Bucs would win 10 or 11 games. No one was setting aside money for playoff tickets. Heck, most people would have been surprised to see them break .500. Six or seven wins and some signs that the Bucs were on the upswing would have been encouraging.But 2-14?When a team wins only two games, it's not just one person's fault. But most of the scrutiny is going to be directed at the man in charge, especially when that man was brought in specifically to repair this broken franchise and make it competitive again.There were unusual circumstances, bad breaks and unforeseen issues. Maybe there were things Smith couldn't help or control, but much of what he wanted to do backfired.He picked the wrong offensive coordinator. I'm still not sure he picked the right defensive coordinator. He definitely picked the wrong quarterback.Smith also swung and missed on key free agents, including a left tackle and a pass rusher.After we watched this horror show, you couldn't help but wonder: "Is this the same Lovie Smith who used to win games with Kyle Orton at quarterback?"Now comes the start of Season 2, and it feels like Smith is starting from scratch. He has a new offensive coordinator. A revamped offensive line. New parts on defense.And of course, he has the newest prize of all, and the lone reward for being so bad last season: first overall draft pick and who the Bucs pray is a franchise quarterback, Jameis Winston.Smith and the Bucs have a few decent pieces, such as defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, linebacker Lavonte David and receivers Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans.But otherwise, it's like a total reboot. Normally, playing a rookie quarterback — who cannot be expected to light up the league — would buy a coach, any coach, some extra time. We all must realize that Winston will have growing pains and that Smith's record this season could be affected by that.Not that a rookie quarterback or last season's surprisingly bad campaign is altering the goals Smith is setting for his team as training camp gets under way."As far as changing up the goals, no, we have the same goals," Smith said. "No. 1 goal that I'm going to talk about is winning the first game, getting momentum early on, beating Tennessee. From there, winning the NFC South division and winning the Super Bowl. Those will be our goals. "We had that in mind last year. We wanted to get off to a good start. Talking this year, that's what we want to get accomplished."A coach has to say such things, but there is no way this team is winning a Super Bowl. Winning the division seems ridiculous. The more realistic goal is to show improvement, to show that this team is heading in the right direction. That might mean four wins. It might mean six. Maybe eight. How many games the Bucs win and lose might not be as important as how they win and lose them. They just need to show that they are getting better.But you know, that was to be the goal a year ago, too, and Smith failed miserably at reaching it. He took over a team that had won four games in 2013 and led it to two last year. And it looked bad doing so.Now starts a new season, and Smith has a chance to forget about his first 16 games as the Bucs' coach.He might have only 16 more games to do that.