When asked about calls for a change at defensive coordinator in Tampa after a 48-10 loss to the Bears, Buccaneers head coach Dirk Koetter said that everyone involved should be fired based on how the Bucs performed in that game.
No one was fired, however, and that means Mike Smith is still the defensive coordinator. On Wednesday, part of his job was discussing his unit’s play and making the case that things aren’t as bad as they seemed in Chicago.
“There’s a lot of football to be played,” Smith said, via Greg Auman of The Athletic. “The sky is not falling. I can assure you. It felt like it was friggin’ crumbling on top of us when we walked off the field in Chicago. That’s an anomaly. That’s 1-of-1. As a defense, we are committed together to right that ship and not play defensive football like we played there.”
The Buccaneers are allowing nearly 35 points a game this season, so the Bears game doesn’t quite fit the textbook definition of an anomaly. Questions of word choice aside, the fact is that the Tampa defense hasn’t been good enough to this point in the year and a failure to change that will lead to the sky falling for some people at some point in the not too distant future.
