Bucs Hoping For Mularkey Factor
March 22nd, 2016
Mike Mularkey talks about Bucs defensive coordinator Mike Smith
Why the heck would Joe talk this morning to Titans head coach Mike Mularkey about the Bucs cutting penalties under their new regime?
It’s simple. Mularkey is a penalty-prevention guru. And he spent four seasons learning and working under new Bucs defensive coordinator Mike Smith in Atlanta.
Mularkey was Falcons offensive coordinator (2008-2011) under Smith. In 2010, the Falcons had just 58 penalties. In 2012, Smith’s Falcons had the fewest penalties in NFL history, just 55, and they set the league record for least penalty yards (415).
Lovie Smith’s Bucs? They approached the NFL record for most penalties in a season last year. The train-wreck total was 143.
The 3-13 Titans were awful like the Bucs last year, but they drew the second-fewest flags in the league (95). And their penalties-per-game rate improved considerably when Mularkey took over the head coaching job after Ken Whisenhunt was fired Nov. 3.
Mularkey told Joe today that the Mike Smith way, also the Mike Mularkey way, is about “constantly harping on being smart” and developing “a-don’t-beat-yourself kind of mentality.”
“Mike Smith [as head coach] talked about penalties all the time, showed who was creating the penalties, who’s committing them. the result of it, how the game ends,” Mularkey said. “All those things, Mike talked about it a lot.”
Mularkey went on to say he’s kicked up harping on penalties to a daily ritual, more than Smith used to. And Mularkey said it’s important to support the study of penalties and education to players “with statistics.”
Joe can’t wait to see how Mike Smith coaches up the Bucs to cut penalties, and how much Dirk Koetter can adapt to the ways he was used to while coaching under Smith in Atlanta, from 2012-2014.
Anyone want to bet against the Bucs having less than 100 penalties this season? That’s one bad bet.
March 22nd, 2016 at 12:30 pm
Even a 20% improvement would help greatly. Hopefully our younger players have matured somewhat.
I will not that Koetter’s offense had far too many penalties so Mike Smith’s influence didn’t travel with him. Perhaps Smith’s presence will help the offense also.
March 22nd, 2016 at 12:32 pm
We can only hope. I just hope they cut out the stupid penalties.
March 22nd, 2016 at 12:46 pm
Let’s hope he’s not full of Mularkey.
March 22nd, 2016 at 12:51 pm
If Mike Smith instilled this in Mularkey, why is it the Mularkey factor and not the Smith factor? I don’t get Joe’s backwards-a55 logic here.
March 22nd, 2016 at 1:00 pm
We have reasons to hope for improvment in this particular area:
– first, it will difficult to do worst 🙂
– second, Mike Evans will not do the same stupids mistakes, because if He starts doing them, he will be benched !
– third, Dirk Koetter and Mike Smith will both be looking at the penalties and putting attention to reduce them.
It reminds me the discussion about Dirk Koetter and the statistics wehad some months ago. This is typically the kind of situation that an OC and HC would approach differently.
March 22nd, 2016 at 1:01 pm
Penalties lost this team quite a few games last year. Cleaning them up significantly will lead to a much more competitive football team.
Rule #1 – don’t beat yourself.
March 22nd, 2016 at 1:07 pm
I’m hopeful, but let’s remember Koetter is the HC, not Smith. We had quite a few offensive penalties last year, it wasn’t all defense by any means.
March 22nd, 2016 at 1:41 pm
87… you beat me to it, I was going to say the same thing.
March 22nd, 2016 at 4:14 pm
Can Koetter and Smith count to eleven?