Lack of Talent, or lack of Time? Which is the reason the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense is struggling?

In 1996, Coach Tony Dungy had Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp, John Lynch, Hardy Nickerson on his team and was 0-5 and 1-8 at two points in the season, including getting beat up and blown out a few times. How did THAT turn into the Bucs defense we knew?

Time.

The Bucs got better because as time went by, Defenders learned the system better, bought into the system, and believed in the system. Before you knew it, the Bucs were going through streaks of not letting teams score more than 13 points on them.

I talked with a few local writers that cover the Bucs to see what their feel for the team was on this issue. TBO.com writer Roy Cummings has covered the Bucs for as long as I can remember! He’s actually working on a piece similar to this, so make sure you check that out Sunday! “The Scheme and lack of familiarity with it are a big part of the problem”.

Roy thinks given time, the Bucs could be able to shore up the defense a little. He warns us though…it may not happen until late this year if not next year. So what do we do in the meantime?

“The rest of this season should be a referendum on Glennon as a NO.1 QB you can win with.” says Ira Kaufman, the dean of Tampa Bay sports writers who gets a vote on the Hall of Fame panel that has put in Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp and is trying to get more!

“The answer to that question will shape the draft strategy for 2015” Kaufman continues. Because if Glennon is the guy….then the Bucs can go out and spend the entire 2015 draft on defense, much like they spent this past draft entirely on offense.

Right now Gerald McCoy is being compared to Warren Sapp, and Lavonte David is tied to Derrick Brooks when we try to compare this team to the ’96 team.

“But where’s your John Lynch? Your Hardy Nickerosn” Asks Tampa Bay Times Gary Shelton, one of my personal favorite reads for many years as a Bucs fan. “…there’s a lack of talent, years of poor drafts will do that to a team: Too many invisible players”.

Gary doesn’t see the comparison between the two teams, he feels the 1996 team already HAD great talent but just needed  direction. That means no matter how long this current team can stay together and learn, the core group of players needed to be winners are simply on the roster, and won’t be until Lovie Smith and company draft them.

And while every team has injuries, the Bucs defense has been hit hard with them. Now, slowly, Tampa Bay is getting their injured players back; Mason Foster returns this week, and we saw the impact getting Gerald McCoy and Michael Johnson back, plus on offense Mike Evans practiced after missing only one game.

NOTE: I will be BACK on JoeBucsFan.com every wednesday as THE OPTIMIST reprising my roll from 2011. Check me out every Wednesday on JoeBucsFan.com