Nowhere to go but up for the Bucs and Bucs Defense

Nowhere to go now, but up, with a loss this week to the Falcons who will score 30+ points, the 2011 Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense will become the worst defense in Tampa Bay History. People may not realize it, but this is a team that has a proud history of defense that goes back way before Tony Dungy.

The Bucs were a brand new expansion team in 1976 and there was no free agency, no extra draft picks. The only place you could get players from was the allocation draft where each team could protect most of its roster. So in other words, Imagine a new NFL team and the only types of players they could get would be Rudy Carpenter, Mossis Madu, and E.J. Biggers of the world.

1976   24 (out of 28 teams)

1977  13

1978  4

1979  1

1980 20

1981  13

1982  3

We all know the Bucs were horrible from 1983 to 1996, but 3 times were the Bucs in the Bottom 5; in 1985 and ’86 (26^th and 28^th) and Sam Wyche’s final year when they were 27^th. In a risky move, Sam knew his job was on the line, so he changed Defensive Coordinators. Floyd Peters was gone, and in came Rusty Tilman.  Then came the dominant years; 97-2005 only two years did the Bucs finish out of the top 5, in 2000 and 2001, Tony Dungy’s last two years.

Even as recently as four years ago, the Bucs were the No.2 defense in 2007! No.9 in 2008, although that’s when it all fell apart. Under Raheem Morris, the defense was 27^th in 2009, then 17^th last year, but has fallen to 30^th currently, and about to give up the most points of any Bucs team.

More important, it doesn’t show signs of getting any better. There are injuries, and the biggest fault was the Glazers plan of getting super young. There was no depth on this team, when McCoy went down, no depth. Talib is gone, no depth. Grimm, Tanard Jackson hasn’t played football in a year, Sean Jones is horrible, we have a rookie LB who played outside as our inside QB of the defense. Need I go on? It’s a recipe for disaster, and its going to cost Raheem Morris his job, but a few others need to go with him. OC Greg Olsen is another one. The Bucs have scored a whopping 74 points in the first quarter of the last two years combined.

That’s a recipe for change if Ive ever seen one, in hopes our defense can return to form soon.