Read Option: A Decade of Defensive Deficiencies

I don’t get it. I don’t.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen soft defenses come back to bite the Buccaneers (see the Minnesota and Cardinals games). But, what’s worrisome beyond that is that this isn’t even the first coaching tenure we’ve seen it. The Bucs have had four head coaches since their Super Bowl Era: Raheem Morris, Greg Schiano, Lovie Smith and now Dirk Koetter. All of them have played soft defenses, although Schiano started playing aggressive defense, but just didn’t have the personnel to pull it off.

Bucs DC Mike Smith – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Why? Three of those guys were defensive coaches and the other has a former defensive-minded head coach as his defensive coordinator. Is it because with each coach that comes in, they’ve had to deal with the remnants of an obsolete base defense, so they just try to get whatever they can out of players that fit a system that doesn’t work? And if you combine that with their tenures being too short to change things, is that the combo problem?

Firing coaches all the time could be part of it. The Bucs haven’t let many guys stick around to totally change things, and for that reason I can understand why people don’t want another change this year. But, this year is the only year during that timeline that I could even see that excuse as valid. Morris brought in players that didn’t work; Schiano brought in players that he misused and didn’t properly evaluate; Smith brought in players that worked for a defense that didn’t. I actually like the guys that the Bucs have brought in over the last two years with Smith and Koetter from a talent standpoint, but how much more has to fail before something just isn’t working form the top (again)?

I don’t believe in curses, but what the heck? How can a team go 10 years and still have the same results with soft defense year after year, coach after coach?

Look at what general manager Chris Ballard is going in Indianapolis. By the time next year starts (his second with the team), 80 or 90 percent of the roster he took over (a bad one) will be turned over – and no, that number is not exaggerating. He literally does not have a single player who started Week 1 in 2016 still on his defense. I’m not saying the Bucs need that much turnover now. I actually like the direction their going with talent. But drastic change like that should have happened at some point in the last 10 years and it didn’t. The philosophy that depended on Hall of Fame players doesn’t work without them.

Now we’re here.

Who do you still believe in that can change things – if you still believe in anyone at all? Do you believe in the players or the coaches and their scheme?