TAMPA, Fla. – A day after a 56-14 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, Buccaneers coach Lovie Smith stood by quarterback Josh McCown.
“Josh is our starter,’’ Smith said. “We’re looking at one game right now. It would be simple if Josh was the only guy that played bad. It seems like that’s the only guy I’m asked that about is Josh. You could ask that about quite a few people, starting with me as the head coach based on that effort. But a little more goes into it than that.’’
That, of course, is assuming that McCown is healthy when the Bucs (0-3) return to action next week against Pittsburgh. McCown suffered a right thumb injury in the Atlanta loss. Smith said McCown was having an MRI on Friday and the results weren’t yet available. Second-year pro Mike Glennon stepped in and finished the game in McCown’s spot.
After the game, Smith hinted there would be some changes. That’s still the case, but Smith said Friday that there wouldn’t be sweeping changes.
“Everything’s on the table,’’ Smith said. “It’s not just one thing. We have a few more days to evaluate what we’re doing. When that happens, changes have to be made on what we’re doing. At the same time, though, as I told the team, you have to draw on history a little bit, too. Our history in Tampa, our team that lost in the NFC championship Game lost 45-0 to Oakland and beat Green Bay the following week and ended up playing in that championship game. As coaches, we’ve had games like this. You can’t put too much into it having a lingering effect on your season. We just played bad this one night.’’
Although there could be some lineup changes, Smith said the Bucs aren’t going to suddenly change their schemes.
“I don’t think you tear it apart and start all over,’’ Smith said. “No. We had a bad performance. What we need to do individually is each one of those players needs to look at themselves in the mirror and see what he did play by play. That’s what we’re doing right now. We’re critiquing every play and what happened. Sometimes when you do that you see that it’s not 20 million things that they did right. It’s just a few things that we did wrong. So we’re not tearing everything down or anything like that. I believe in what we’re trying to do. But, sometimes when you are new, it takes a little bit longer.’’