It was only a matter of time, to be honest, before Mike Smith was fired for an abysmal start to the season. With the defense looking unprepared and totally unable to cope with the opponent, the Buccaneers’ front office simply had no other choice than to let Smith go if they wanted to save the 2018 season.
Tampa Bay’s defense only has one interception so far this season, making them the worst in the league for interceptions. They are also on pace to allow the most points ever in NFL history over a full season. To make matters worse, the Bucs had the worst defense in 2017 in multiple major defensive categories. This is simply not a good recipe for success.
But it’s not too late yet, and the Bucs can definitely right this ship from here on out. The coaching change might have come at exactly the right time before it was too late.
Mark Duffner, Tampa Bay’s linebackers coach since 2016, gets the job as the defensive coordinator now. Hopefully this will ignite the defense and get the unit back to being average, at least. This would put the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in pretty good shape overall.
