Ready or not, season opener beckons for youthful Buccaneers
Head coach Lovie Smith says the Bucs are “right on schedule” as the season opener approaches. By Roy Cummings | Tribune Staff Published: September 7, 2015TAMPA — For the better part of the past six weeks, the Buccaneers have been chasing one collective goal: get Tennessee ready.The bad news is, they’re not there yet.The good news is, they don’t need to be.The Bucs have until Sunday at 4:25 p.m. to reach coach Lovie Smith’s stated level of preparedness for their season opener against the Titans at Raymond James Stadium, and Smith is confident they’ll meet the deadline.“We’re right on schedule,’’ Smith said Monday as the Bucs began preparing in earnest for their Week 1 opponent. “We need about one more week (of practice) and then we’ll be Tennessee ready.’’Most should be ready, but maybe not everybody. When the Bucs reconvened Monday at One Buc Place after a long weekend, two key offensive starters still looked like they were far from ready.Second-year wide receiver Mike Evans, who led the Bucs with 12 touchdowns last year, remained sidelined by a hamstring strain, and rookie left tackle Donovan Smith remained sidelined by an ankle sprain.Lovie Smith would not define either player’s status for Sunday, but with Evans running around a bit with his position group and Donovan Smith out of the protective boot he wore last week, both have a chance to play.But their status is just a small part of a much greater unknown, the elements of which Lovie Smith won’t begin to discover until well into or well after Sunday’s game.“We feel like (we know) what we can do and what we can ask our players to do,’’ Smith said. “But this (first game of the regular season) is when you truly (learn) what you have.“So the thing you’re concerned about as a coach is just how it will all play out. But again, all 32 teams are in the same situation. Everything starts from scratch.’’Few are starting from scratch more than the Bucs. Of the 53 players on their roster as of Monday, only 15 were on the team that Smith inherited when he took over before last season.And few are relying as heavily on youth as the Bucs. Their projected opening-day roster includes six rookies, 16 players with less than 10 games of NFL experience and 18 players with less than 16 games of experience.And the Bucs aren’t planning to bring those young players along slowly. Of their 22 projected starters, four are rookies and four others have started fewer than nine NFL games.All that inexperience could make for yet another rocky season for a team that has strung together four straight losing seasons and missed the playoffs each of the past seven years.But in the wake of a preseason in which their pass rush and pass protection were often as ineffective as they were last year, Smith said there’s plenty of reason for optimism.“I’ve talked about establishing a running game,’’ Smith said. “We have to be able to do that, and I think we will be able to do that.“Our lead running back (Doug Martin) has had excellent offseason workouts and the O-line knows it has to block for him and give him an opportunity, and we can do some things there (to help them do that).“And when we want to pass the football, we feel like we can do that, too. We know we have good skill guys who can catch the ball, and we know we have a good guy who can throw the football (in rookie quarterback Jameis Winston).“And defensively, we’ve seen our blueprint in play: taking the ball away, scoring, and being good on third down. And then when we need our specialists to step up, we feel like we have that in place, too. Exactly what you’ve seen on display when we’ve been at our best (in the preseason) is what we would like to be consistently and throughout the season.”Ready or not, that season is just about at hand.[email protected] Twitter: @RCummingsTBO
